Techland is working on two interesting projects since German Yager took over the continuation of Dead Island – zombie horror game Dying Light and fantasy slayer Hellraid. We watched a presentation of Hellraid (2015 on PC, Xbox One, PS4) and spoke to the developers. This interview is available in both video and text, enjoy.
Dieses Interview gibts auch in Deutsch, einfach klicken.
As a video:
XTgamer: Hello guys, we’re here with Marcin Kruczkiewicz, the producer of Hellraid. Can you tell us what the game is basically about?
Techland: Hellraid is what we call a first-person hack’n’slash game and we set it in a dark fantasy setting. It’s basically a hack’n’slash game in the first-person perspective. You’re in the biggest mess, inside the action.
Your inspiration was drawn from old games like Hexen as you remarked in the presentation.
We were growing up in the 90s with all the games that were at the beginning [of 3D action]. It’s hard to pick out one of the particular influences. We were playing Hexen, Diablo, Quake –
Doom?
Yeah. We also played Dark Messiah. So I think at some point these types of games influenced us.
Yes, it reminded me very much fo Dark Messiah of Might & Magic when I saw it.
It was a great game.
So how did you come up with the idea to switch from an apocalyptic zombie setting to this dark fantasy world?
Well, we just tried to experiment with level of intention of combat, back down two years ago. It happened to be some kind of mod for Dead Island. At some point in the development [we thought] well that is a good foundation to rethink the game, build a new vision. So we sat down and tried to find our own theme and we came up with a dark fantasy first-person hack’n’slash and I think it just came to us because we liked the genre. We like dark fantasy and also FPS. Yup, why not do that in a proper game with a strong focus on fights and elemental.
So is it based on the same engine as Dead Island or Dying Light?
We made the conversion to Chrome Engine 6 and it was a dumb decision because it was in the middle of development. As Chrome Engine 6 is our own engine we’ve support of our internal team.
And I think now from the perspective of time when I see the effects on the exteriors and when I saw how the catacombs look on the new engine, it was worth the effort and now we’re ready to go for the current generation of consoles which is also a big thing for us.
Did you plan to bring this game to this console generation (PS4/Xbox One) from the beginning or did you change plans along the way?
No, at the beginning we wanted to bring it for the previous generation of consoles, that’s why we were on Chrome Engine 5. We had to make a decision: We are going for Chrome Engine 6 or support the old generation of consoles and this is because of the amount of work. We’re a small team, smaller than the Dead Island guys. They have more power and they’re able to deliver on 5 platforms. We had to decide if we go for one generation or the other because we’re small.
So Hellraid‘s development team doesn’t consist of the same team that made the original Dead Island?
Yeah, as time goes by people change and moved here and there. I’m scanning my team and most of our team wasn’t working with Dead Island.
New talent.
Yeah, Lead Programmer, Lead Animator and all the guys that influence the game the most, they came more from Call of Juarez or are new guys. In the environmental team we had several of our own artists and level designers who did Dead Island.
Can you tell us a little bit about the story of Hellraid?
Sure, but I can’t reveal too much because it would spoil the game.
Basically you play as Aiden who is the main character. He’s trying to reconnect with his sister who is in danger from the Infernal invasion. He comes across an old mage who he has history with. They need to reunite and try to deal with the Infernal forces because he’s somehow special. I don’t want to say how, for the rest of the story you’ll have to see the game.
Are there any abilities of Aiden you can talk about?
We refreshened our approach. In the beginning we wanted to allow the players to select some predefined classes but at some point we decided we don’t want them to make this decision at the beginning of the game.
So we connected all those skills into one big rosette and now the player decides how to play the game, where he’s going to develop, whether it’s melee, magic offensive, defensive or ranged weapons. So you can build a character that we wouldn’t have come up with.
Speaking about the game world, is it an open consistent world or do you progress from level to level?
It’s a set of levels and you can choose quests. Hellraid is not an open world game. We have the Story mode, the Mission mode and the Arena mode. It’s a different type of game than an open [world] game.
So can you compete with friends for better scores in the Arena mode?
It’s more about the cooperation [between the players] than the rivalry. You struggle side-by-side and try to repel as many waves as you can. You also have additional mechanics like combos and a team score.
Can you import your character from the Story mode or do you build a new one?
You don’t have to import. You have a character who goes wherever he wants whether he plays a single game [in the Story mode] or he joins others. You can have several different characters at different points of development and while waiting for a Mission or Arena session you can switch between your characters to better feed the team need. If you have a compadres to play as a tank, you can go and select your mage or you can go for supportive guys who will help [the team].
Is there anything you would like to add and wanna tell our community?
I hope our effort to create highly immersive combat will give a good result and that every player in the world will be able to just jump into a game in an immersive struggle and have fun.
Thanks for the chat and have a good show.
Thank you.
