Hunted: The Demon's Forge

It's interesting to hear someone with an Interplay background say, "Really, what we always wanted to do was make an action game."

[laughs]

I'm not saying you're lying or anything. It's a little bit of a surprise.

Look back at the history of fantasy action. There's not that many representations of it. You play games like Hexen and Heretic, which were essentially Doom shooter games that hinted at fantasy, but they didn't really fully deliver on that experience.

We just think you can have these rich worlds, tell deep, meaningful stories, and have all these elements of exploration, and wandering through dungeons, finding loot and going on quests for enchanted weapons — all of these paradigms that would be in those other types of fantasy games work equally well in an action game.

There's kind of this convergence across all games where the genres are really getting blurred. Like, I don't think people playing BioShock realize they're playing an RPG. Or even in Grand Theft Auto, you go into the weight room and pump up your character. There are all these elements of your character getting better. That's what those games are really about. It lends itself to the action genre just as well. You're starting off with really weak weapons. You're finding better ones, better pieces of armor. You're getting more hit points on your character. You're getting the ability to store more mana.

You know, that phrase "RPG elements", it's become beyond trite. It's almost like saying "game elements".

Exactly. It's the simple principle of your character starts off weak, and they become more powerful. And that's really what it's all about, whether it's, you know in the weapons you use, the magic you're using, and just the characters' strength itself. You start off, and you're weak, and you find things that make you stronger throughout the course of the game.

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The comments made by inXile's Matt Findley in his Hunted: The Demon's Forge interview on Gamasutra aren't going over too well with long-time PC gamers, as demonstrated by the blogged responses left by Rampant Games' Jay Barnson and Armchair Arcade's Matt Barton. Let him have it, Jay:

If you want to work less and make more money by making an action game, that’s FINE – just don’t imply that fans of more traditional RPGs are just too stupid to recognize the genius that is the action genre. Dude, I lived in arcades during my formative years. I was addicted to Asteroids and Pac-Man long before I discovered Ultima. I’ve spent half of my career making action games for consoles. I was FTPing Doom the day it was released. Oh, and I was playing action-RPGs before anybody decided to draw a border between the two – back when it was stuff like Gateway to Apshai.

I’m not ignorant of the virtues of action games, nor am I too old and slow to have a great time playing them today. And yet I still crave a good, stats-heavy, turn-based RPG. Regularly. I am so grateful to indie game makers and places like GOG.COM that provide me with more games like this – old and new – than I have time to play.

Because obviously the mainstream games business is too screwed up to make something like this ever again.


And then Matt lays it on even thicker:

Weather: unpleasant. News: funny, unless you were looking forward to Shunted: The Demon's Hemorrhoid.

…

Anyone have doubts that Hunted: The Demon's Forge is going to suck? Just read this awful interview with Matt Findley. Here's the line that really kills me: "Well, you know, we analyzed the long history of video games. I think these games always wanted to be action games at their heart. I think all those old turn-based games, it's just that's all the technology would allow." Ugh, ugh, ugh. Ugh. Ugh. It's okay, Matt. I'm sure Hunted will be a wonderful game…for us to take turns pooping on!


Moral of the story? Making ridiculous suggestions that are literally offensive to long-time fans of your previous company is not a good idea when you're trying to promote your next game.

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Alrik Fassbauer said:

I agree to Gorath.

To me, it lokks rather like an Hybrid. I played it a little bit at the RPC, and I found it much rather to be an action game - a kind of a co-op shooter - than an RPG.

There might be RPG parts in it, yes - but i didn't see them.

But that was partly because I just couldn't handle those BEEEEEP console controls !!!

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See this is why I despise the larger developers nowadays and always have a cynical attitude toward any new game. They no longer care about there old fans or customers anymore. It would help if the devs could take there heads out of there asses and listen to the older fan-base.

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Dhruin said:

As Gorath said. which is why we never covered it in detail.

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