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RPG Website: How do you steadiness designing Lords of the Fallen II to be its personal standalone expertise for newcomers whereas additionally delivering a contemporary expertise that’s pleasurable for individuals who have performed Lords of the Fallen already?

James Lowe:

Placing that steadiness is all the time one of many greatest challenges when constructing a soulslike. We’re successfully designing for 2 core audiences directly: gamers moving into our world for the primary time, and veterans who know the rhythms and expectations of the franchise.

For newcomers, our precedence is to make the entry level way more welcoming. We heard a number of suggestions on the onboarding within the final recreation, and this time, the early expertise is rather more streamlined. It’s quick, clear, and designed to get gamers into the center of the motion rapidly.

On the identical time, we would like longtime gamers to really feel genuinely shocked. There are mechanics, techniques, and narrative beats that returning lampbearers will recognise… however we’ve deliberately twisted a few of them.

One other vital issue is the setting. Lords of the Fallen II takes place in Thorngar, a very new location set in a distinct time interval, removed from Mournstead. Meaning gamers don’t want any information of the primary recreation to dive in; it stands firmly by itself. However for veterans, the world will really feel acquainted in tone and theme, while additionally new and thrilling, they usually’ll discover loads of rigorously positioned easter eggs that trace at what’s occurred throughout the bigger timeline.

Soulslike video games naturally escalate in demand, and the brand new mechanics in Lords of the Fallen II lean into that. They problem the outdated guard in contemporary methods whereas giving new gamers a good however thrilling climb.

RPG Website: What would you say constitutes probably the most important distinction between Lords of the Fallen and the brand new sequel?

Lowe:

We will’t reveal every part simply but, however as you’ll have seen in our newest announcement, aggression and pace are on the coronary heart of the Lords of the Fallen II fight system. The fight philosophy this time is about staying within the pocket, pushing the tempo, making use of strain, and attempting to dominate the encounter reasonably than purely reacting to it. When gamers embrace that type, the sport rewards them in some very cool methods.

It’s additionally price saying that this entry is much more brutal and bloodier than the final. The depth of fight, mixed with the advanced tone of the world itself, amplifies that sense of ferocity in each encounter.

Past that, I can tease that the Umbral toolkit has advanced considerably. Your means to work together with each Axiom and Umbral has expanded, providing you with extra artistic methods to create chaos throughout the realms.

RPG Website: Are you able to describe, broadly, the way you design and take a look at a boss encounter in Lords of the Fallen? How do you preserve an excellent degree of problem with out leaning too far into gimmicks?

Lowe:

Boss encounters are the climactic moments of Lords of the Fallen, in order that they’re additionally a few of the most time-intensive and most rewarding elements of improvement.

We all the time start with a easy query: what’s the core drawback we would like the participant to resolve, and what number of viable paths can we give them to beat it? As soon as that basis is about, we layer within the thematic identification and the spectacle we would like the boss to ship.

From there, we transfer into extraordinarily tough prototypes. The important thing at this stage is pace: construct quick, fail quick, study quick. We iterate aggressively to nail down the encounter’s circulation: how the participant reads it, the way it escalates, and the way it resolves. As soon as we hit that time the place the encounter feels “that is actually good and brutally honest,” we take it into broad inside testing throughout a number of participant profiles and codecs. Solely after that do we start the lengthy section of polish and refinement.

RPG Website: Lords of the Fallen has improved so much since launch, with a number of main free updates after launch. Will Lords of the Fallen II provide a elegant expertise at launch, like what gamers get proper now in Lords of the Fallen?

Lowe:

The journey from launch to Lords of the Fallen Model 2.5 was an amazing studying expertise for the complete workforce. Our shut relationship with the group formed that evolution (a staggering 70+ updates) in a extremely significant method, and people classes have straight knowledgeable the sequel.

With Lords of the Fallen II, the day-one expertise already incorporates every part we discovered alongside the best way, all of the techniques, processes, and refinements that got here out of these main updates. The workforce is extra skilled, Unreal Engine 5 is extra mature, and we began improvement with a significant benefit this time – the complete base recreation. Gamers will probably be moving into the model of the sport we all the time wished them to expertise from the very begin.

RPG Website: Do you might have post-launch content material and have replace plans already? Ought to we anticipate an identical cadence of patches to Lords of the Fallen?

Lowe:

We will’t go into specifics simply but, however what I can say is that our dedication to Lords of the Fallen II matches the dedication we confirmed with the 2023 title. Our philosophy this time is to give attention to increasing the expertise reasonably than fixing it. We’ll help the sport within the methods it wants, however the goal is to make sure that post-launch efforts are additive reasonably than corrective – new content material, new options.

RPG Website: Are you able to go into the optimization challenges you bumped into with the seamless world with out loading screens on lower-end techniques?

Lowe:

Optimization is all the time a journey, and constructing two interconnected, seamless worlds makes it much more advanced. One of many greatest learnings from the earlier launch was the significance of integrating optimization pipelines proper from the beginning of manufacturing, not late in improvement.

For Lords of the Fallen II, that’s precisely what we’ve performed. Our workflows, instruments, and profiling processes have been lively since day one, guaranteeing that gamers throughout a variety of {hardware} can expertise the world easily and persistently. The objective is for lower-end techniques to ship an expertise that feels corresponding to high-end setups, and we’ve designed with that in thoughts from the outset.

RPG Website: Many Unreal Engine 5 video games have points on PC, even at this time, with traversal and loading stutter. Has the workforce managed to type that out in Lords of the Fallen II?

Lowe:

Being one of many earliest UE5 titles to launch gave us a singular head begin. We discovered an enormous quantity throughout that course of, and we’ve considerably hardened our pipelines to mitigate the sorts of points different builders are encountering at this time.

Our shut collaboration with Epic has performed a significant position in that. As a substitute of reacting to issues as they seem, we’ve been capable of method them proactively, designing techniques with identified constraints in thoughts and constructing options into our workflows early. 

That preparation has made a considerable distinction in how Lords of the Fallen II performs throughout platforms.

RPG Website: Thanks on your time!