Hit the north

We don’t see too many games set in northwest England. For White Paper Games, the setting was as much a conscious reaction to its previous game as a desire to evoke its Manchester home:

Ether One was based in a relatively flat, coastal Cornish town, and Bottomley was keen to introduce a more industrial setting this time, with a stronger sense of verticality. “There’s something about the architecture and the pop culture around us – when you walk through Manchester, if you keep your head down, everything seems very similar, but then you look up and you’re like, ‘Where did all these buildings come from?’ With the political undertones of the game, the setting made sense. There was no stronger intention behind it, beyond us thinking it was interesting to focus on.”