What can you tell us about the combat system in the game?
Mathieu Boudreau: So much to tell... To resume it it's a lot like dancing, each enemy have their rhythm and dance patterns and surprises, and you must chain attacks, dodges, blocks and interruptions to succeed. Everybody's moves can be chained with an attack commitment and we're introducing a jumping button, allowing the fight to flow in three dimensions. It's a stamina-based combat system more inspired by Bloodborne than Dark Souls I would say, but it grows to become its own thing. It has small and huge melee weapons, some high-tech mechanicals and some weird and occult, and guns and catalysts for range combat. All of which can be modified at crafting stations and various abilities are unlocked the more you fight with them.
The game has drawn comparisons to the Dark Souls games. Will it be similarly difficult?
Mathieu Boudreau: We're hoping it's different. Of course, you must pay attention to your surrounding and respect the enemies and have a bit of persistence in front of challenges but the consequences of that design direction on the player is so cool. We're certainly glad the "casual game" era is in the past and the mass market accepts hardcore games once again. At the same time, we're getting old and time is precious, so we'd like Hellpoint to be welcoming to the players who've been crushed by the other souls-like games. There are a lot of ways to overcome a challenge.
You can make enemies harder or easier by performing ceremonies. Co-op player can die infinitely and run back to you. But also depending on the quantic system you might find enemies particularly aggressive or cowards under the influence of the black hole.
[...]
