Rune: Ragnarok Interview

Rune: Ragnarok, the open world RPG sequel to 2000’s action-adventure Rune from Human Head Studios is shaping up to be a curious project indeed. According to what the game’s project director Chris Rhinehart told Glixel, Ragnarok will feel familiar to those who played the original Rune, but at the same time, instead of a linear action-adventure, it will be a much more open experience with lots of areas to discover, ships to build and resources to pillage. The game will also have seamless PvE and PvP multiplayer, player bases, and combat mechanics somewhat inspired by the Souls games.

Will Human Head Studios be able to make it all work together? We’ll have to wait and see. For now, here’s an excerpt from the interview:

There’s a lot going into this new Rune beyond making the world and its characters look much better. But, Rhinehart says, the team is striving to make sure that the game will still feel familiar to fans.

“The original was a completely linear experience,” he says. “It had one storyline with two endings. With Rune: Ragnarok, we wanted to open it up a lot more. So there’s a lot more choices you can make with where you go. There is a narrative to it, and end goal and signposts that lead you there, but it’s a lot more open.”

The game will bring back little things gamers may remember fondly from the original, like the ability to drink mead and eat lizards for health, but also some of the bigger tent poles from the original game’s design.

“The combat will feel familiar,” Rhinehart says. “You can still lop off an arm and beat people to death with it. It will be gory, but tactical.”

They will be modernizing that combat a bit though.

“We took a look at a lot of modern games like Demon’s Souls and took a look at what they’re doing that is good to make combat more modern,” he says. “A lot of people want us to make Rune: Ragnarok exactly as it was; just update the graphics and put it up. But there are a lot of mechanics we want to modernize.”

The goal is to maintain the tactical feel of the original game’s combat, which required you to be mindful of what weapon you used and which your enemies were using, but improve upon it.

Another major area the team wants to make better for Rune’s sequel is online play. The original game’s multiplayer was designed around LAN play, Rhinehart says. “We’re taking a look at how we can optimize the game for internet play.”

The original game had single-player and deathmatch and post-launch the team added some more modes. What it didn’t officially have, but the sequel will, is cooperative play.

Rhinehart says that the single-player portion of the game will let you go out in the world, explore and go on adventures. Ragnarok will also support both Player-Versus-Environment and Player-Versus-Player modes.

In PVE, you can team up with friends on the fly or even form a clan and go on raids or hunts with them. In PVP, you will be able to fight other players. The idea is that there will be areas open to player versus player gaming and encounters.

While the team is still working out the details of things like server settings, they do know they want players to be able to run their own servers alongside official servers. In theory, player-run servers could tinker with everything from the creatures spawning to rune power, how quickly you level up and even the gravity.

All of the game modes will take place in the game’s massive open world, Rhinehart added.

[…]

So he can tell me, for instance, that the world is packed with explorable areas, some of which you’ll need to sail to, to discover.

“You can craft and build ships and then jump on a ship along with friends, sail to an island, raid it and take the stuff back to your base,” he says. “The world has been flooded and parts of it are frozen. It’s really wrecked in a lot of places.”

The size of the world also allows the game to support a lot more players on one server. Rhinehart says at least 50 players will be able to sign in to a single server, but that the team is hoping to make it 64 if possible.

Another thing the team is currently working on are raids and hunts.

“You can raid an enemy Viking base that is held by players or AI controlled enemies,” he says. “You can sail to a fort, raid it, try to kill everyone in the base and take all of their loot. Or maybe there will be a larger objective, where you can destroy a Runestone to Loki to weaken him. We tried to come up with high-level ideas that are fun to do solo or with friends and also fits into the theme and location.

“Similar to a raid, a hunt has you taking on a giant creature. It would be a special elite that might drop unique resources.”

The plan is for all of that, the PVP, PVE, the sailing, the hunts and raids, will occasionally intertwine with the game’s campaign or serve as side quests, Rhinehart says.