QJ Interview: The Precursors – Deep Shadows
Sergey Zabaryansky of the Deep Shadows development team stops by to shed some light on their ambitious RPG/FPS hybrid. We speak to the guys behind The Precursors!
QJ: Can you tell us a bit about some of the game’s weapons?
SZ: There are various kinds of weapons, equipment, ammunition and technologies in the game. They are divided according to the race, quality and availability. It is worth mentioning types of bio-weapons in the game, which are actually living organisms with some attacking functions built-in by the very nature. For instance, acid spit function or dwarfing function. They are recharged by proper feeding and used by pressing some special sensitive points on their bodies. Of course, feeding provides protection for the bearer, as it’s unnatural to bite the feeding hand. There are also casual types of weapons, like laser and stunner, and rockets. All in all, over 30 types of personal weapons together with all upgrades. Moreover, there will be from 10 to 15 types of armor and in total over 40 types of additional equipment, stimulants and grenades.
Read the entire interview after the jump!
Sergey Zabaryansky of the Deep Shadows development team stops by to shed some light on their ambitious RPG/FPS hybrid. We speak to the guys behind The Precursors!
QJ: Can you please tell us a little bit about the development team?
Sergey Zabaryansky: The development team is a company of professionals, united by an idea of creating good-looking innovative games. The core of the development is build up by me and Roman Lut, the father-founders of Deep Shadows. Together with us work designers, artists, programmers and many other people, whose efforts make the game come true. Actually, itÂ’s the same old team, who worked on Boiling Point.
QJ: How far along is development on Precursors?
SZ: As is known, the game will be published in the Q4 2007 and by now the game development process is in alpha stage. Although, the version shown at GC this year matured much since the previous build.
QJ: Can you give us an overview of the game’s storyline and setting? Who’s the main character?
SZ: The game plot is based upon the idea of “what if the ancient legends are true and the Gods (the arrivals from the space) destroyed the planet of Phaeton in the Solar system and then brought the civilization to Earth. What if the technological level of humans was much higher in ancient times, people could freely travel in the space and then refused these technologies because of understanding of their danger?”
The main character is a novice pilot of the Amarn space fleet who is coincidentally involved into a chain of serious incidents in the Universe right after he stepped out of the Space Academy. The storyline is non-linear but has a single start and finish point. Beside storyline missions, the game has some very exciting side quests, which do not affect the plot directly.
The world of the Precursors has three major confronting powers: ISA (Democratic Alliance), the Empire and mercenaries, where the main character belongs to. They are a small group of people who are thrown in the midst of the everlasting confrontation between ISA and the Empire. The game is raising the actual problem of freedom of a small nation enclosed by the mighty powers.
QJ: You’ve called the game a sort of FPS/RPG hybrid, can you please break down the gameplay elements and let us know how they factor into gameplay?
SZ: The emphasis in the game is put on the action elements: better AI, physics, ragdoll, a large variety of weapons, fully destructible objects. Nevertheless, to RPG we contribute a nice dialogue system, weapons upgrade and a developed trading system, just to name a few elements. In game, you can buy everything from information to space ships and you can earn money by transporting goods or weapons from one planet to another. Also, you need to think in advance about the ammunition for weapons and resources for the vehicles. Just imagine you find yourself in a dead vehicle away from any base with no ammo left and having some nasty creatures in front of you! Surely, all of these elements affect the gameplay, being a good motivation not to forget about necessary things.
QJ: Can you tell us a bit about some of the game’s weapons?
SZ: There are various kinds of weapons, equipment, ammunition and technologies in the game. They are divided according to the race, quality and availability. It is worth mentioning types of bio-weapons in the game, which are actually living organisms with some attacking functions built-in by the very nature. For instance, acid spit function or dwarfing function. They are recharged by proper feeding and used by pressing some special sensitive points on their bodies. Of course, feeding provides protection for the bearer, as itÂ’s unnatural to bite the feeding hand. There are also casual types of weapons, like laser and stunner, and rockets. All in all, over 30 types of personal weapons together with all upgrades. Moreover, there will be from 10 to 15 types of armor and in total over 40 types of additional equipment, stimulants and grenades.
QJ: Breeding ammunition sounds pretty interesting, can you tell us a bit more about how this is done?
SZ: Different “weapons” animals or pets, however you call them, that you carry with you, require various types of food to replenish their energy. Some of them are quite voracious! Surely you can buy some forage for them, but it’s expensive and often hard to find. So you can breed some strange things in a special lab in your spaceship, to always have a supply of alien pods or spiders close at hand.
QJ: What kinds of quests will players be able to embark upon?
SZ: As you will spend most time on planets, you will need to fulfill missions like battles with enemies, delivering weapons or equipment, talking to NPCs, investigating ancient Alien ruins and so on. The player may choose to complete one or another quest in different ways by picking the behavior he likes the most.
QJ: What sorts of vehicles are there in the game?
SZ: The vehicles are different by outlook, by physical properties and model. As I mentioned, they will differ from race to race. For instance, Freemen have vehicles for traveling on and above the ground, through sands and also tame pack animals. The Empire possesses assault tanks, battle robots and flying machines. ISA has a different set of vehicles, such as scooters or guard drones. The player will have a chance to use almost all of them.
QJ: How is travel between different planets handled?
SZ: The game world includes several completely different planets: deserts, industrial ruins, jungle, Mars-like wastes and so on. There are also space bases, cities on each planet, some celestial bodies, like asteroids, and lesser locations, such as outposts. All these entities in the game are filled with a variety of unique inhabitants. As far as space traveling is concerned, everything is as simple as entering the bridge of a space ship and launching off the planet. Then you enter a mode resembling that of Freelancer, except the fact that you can leave the commanderÂ’s seat and start walking about the ship at any moment. You will need this feature to repel hostile boarding attempt or to board an enemy ship yourself. Each fraction will have its own types of space ships and uses a different space travel technology. We have three types of common space engines and a couple more of unique ones.
QJ: You’ve mentioned the game will include stunning space battles complete with boarding, could you give us an idea of how these battles will unfold?
SZ: Yes, itÂ’s true. In Precursors, boarding is a kind of combination between space simulator and FPS. For example, as you see the enemy ship, you engage in a space combat where you can choose weapons to fire at the target. You can destroy it or choose to board it by firing e.g. neutron torpedoes killing all the living beings inside the ship, or use some other attack, inflicting some amount of damage on the ship. As soon as you destroy her shield generator and engines, you put her to a halt, and through a teleport device travel to the enemy ship. This is where the action starts! And there you will need to pull the trigger fast.
QJ: Can you tell us a little bit about the technology behind Precursors? Is it running on a proprietary engine? What sorts of things are you doing in this area that you’re particularly proud of?
SZ: The Vital Engine 3 upon which the game runs was developed in the Deep Shadow studio. ItÂ’s a next-gen engine. It supports 3.0 shaders and effects like High Dynamic Range, motion blur, etc. In comparison with the previous version, we improved the objectÂ’s physics, as well as the actions of mobile vehicles, which now closely resemble those implemented in GTA and similar games. The game universe was increased and consists of a number of unique worlds, which look and feel more like Oblivion in space. Fully destructible objects add much fun to the game process.
QJ: Will there be any graphical, technical or gameplay differences between the Xbox 360 and PC versions?
SZ: Actually PC version will be saturated with nicer graphics and visual effects, otherwise, there wonÂ’t be any differences between Xbox 360 and PC version.
QJ: Do you have any plans for post release downloadable content over Xbox Live, and what are the chances we’ll see a demo before release?
SZ: Yes, we are looking forward to contribute to the real fans of the game through the Xbox Live to some extent, and believe to keep our intention. As for demo, I hope nothing will stand on our way and we will present a demo to QJ.net in the near future.
QJ: Any parting words for our readers?
SZ: I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your interest to our project and wish you to really enjoy the game when it is released. To stay updated on the latest information and media about the game, you can browse the sites www.playten.com or www.deep-shadows.com. Also the guys from the fan site http://www.xenus-hq.net/precursors/ do a terrific job!
Thanks to the Deep Shadows team and everyone at Play Ten for the time and effort. As always we’d like to know you guys are thinking, so go ahead and make yourselves heard in the comments below!
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