GREED FALL
Will you be a prince charming or a dandy highwayman?
FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2019 PUB FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE / DEV SPIDERS
The sense of time and place is the first thing you notice about Spiders’ open world RPG. The game’s visual appeal embraces the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, with every scene steeped in shadow. The landscape echoes the Flemish painting tradition of the 17th century. It’s romantic and violent, and it’s easy to forget this is all based in fantasy. Just looking longingly at the visual detail does Greedfall a disservice, as behind the grand views and intricate, Adam-Ant-like costumes, is an RPG that promises an open world of equally broad choices. Will you complete a quest down the barrel of a gun or with diplomacy? You can choose to do neither; a stealth mechanic means you can solve a situation with the silent stab of a blade. If no-one sees you there’ll be no cause for comeback.
WILD FRONTIER
“Our first thought when we began to create Greedfall was that we wanted the key word of this new project to be ‘exploration’,” reveals Spiders’ CEO Jehanne Rousseau. “We also wanted to create a fantasy universe, but we wanted it to be different from what we’ve created in previous games. These two separate reflections led us to choose the 17th century as a reference. We didn’t want to do a historical game, but the costumes, architecture, and politics of this time period are so rich that the idea immediately appealed to the whole dev team.”
“THE KEY WORD BEHIND THIS NEW PROJECT IS ‘EXPLORATION’.”
The upshot is an RPG that has the potential to be your next favourite thing since BioWare dropped the ball with Mass Effect: Andromeda. Despite its modest budget there’s an ambition to Greedfall that’s appealing. Having seen the game in action, the world and its alt-history setting, layered with political and religious commentary, is engaging.
Rousseau explains why this world feels so welldefined: “Each time I create a universe for one of our games, I’m trying to think about a consistent world. I’m always thinking into the geography, history before the game, different factions, nations, magic, politics, and even the religion of this world.”
Such a rounded approach leans into the drama of the narrative: settlers, mercenaries, and fortune hunters from a European-like continent have raced to a new remote island to plunder its resources. Some – you – have embarked on the journey to find a cure for a plague, others for its riches and magical secrets, both metaphorical and actual.
DRAGON AGED
The breadth of this new world is explored through familiar trends; a mix of real-time combat governed by stats, exploration across large hub areas that remind us of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and choice-led conversations. Choice, in particular, is a factor at play in almost everything you do in Greedfall, explains Rousseau. Some of your decisions are small, some more important, some occur during dialogue paths, others by actions you take – who you kill or befriend will affect the story.
“Some will have an immediate impact some will change the experience of the player hours later, and some side-quests will even influence the main quest experience,” says Rousseau. “Of course, there are also multiple endings, but to be honest I think it’s more rewarding for the player to see the world and NPCs react to choices during the game and not only in the end.”
The promise is of a colourful world that’s constantly evolving based on your character interactions and decisions. The many factions on the island will align with you or turn against you.
“As players can make a lot of choices, they can really decide if their character will be heroic or not, diplomatic or violent, caring or selfish,” Rousseau tells us. “The game will react to these decisions, but there are not necessarily bad choices: the story and experience will be different, of course, but it won’t lead to a game over.”
Some of your choices naturally mean customising your protagonist. Rousseau reveals to us there’ll be the standard options – choose their sex, face type, hair style, and skin colour – but also the choice of combat skills and social abilities. These latter two can be developed by assigning XP over the course of the game, with combat offering a mix of pistols, swords, and magical attacks to bring its melee skirmishes to life.
Crafting is important too, and means you can create armour sets, clothes, and weapons to then customise. These can be used by you or equipped on your companions. You won’t be playing solo, but with a cabal of NPCs who will react to your choices like everyone in the game. Some will turn against you while others will fall for your charm. Romance… that BioWare influence won’t go away.
“I’M ALWAYS THINKING INTO THE GEOGRAPHY, NATIONS, POLITICS AND THE RELIGION OF THIS WORLD.”