Larian Studios Interview

PCGMedia is offering an interesting interview with Larian’s honcho Swen Vincke that focuses in large parts on his problems with the modern publishing world and the RPG landscape, but also offers some info on the games he’s currently working on (Divinity: Dragon Commander and Divinity: Original Sin). Here’s a snip:

Me: I was asking about DLC, and your Q&A guy said that you guys didn’t want to knock out DLC after DLC?

Swen: No, we don’t. No. With this one [Divinity: Original Sin], we’re giving away the tools we actually used to make the game. How crazy is that? You could essentially re-create something like Planescape with the tools we are giving you with the game although that would have all sorts of copyright problems, but you could do it.

Me: But what about a full sequel to Divinity II? A full RPG, AAA environment?

Swen: We. this is the same engine, right? Those graphics [Dragon Commander, Original Sin] are the graphics of an AAA RPG, I think we can agree on that part. So this means that we basically have the tools to do it. So why aren’t we doing it? The only reason we aren’t doing it is because the cost of creating those things is really, really high. So since we want to be self-publishing we need to put ourselves in a situation where we can support that type of game. It’s pretty much what CD Projekt is doing pick themselves up, growing like this, taking our own destiny in our own hands, and if we’re successful then hopefully one day we’ll be able to do that.

Me: There are a few European games that have tried to match America in polish notably Gothic 4 who got the visuals right, but sacrificed gameplay. which sucked. What can you do to bring a balance between the two?

Swen: I don’t know. We’ll see. You’ve seen my approach [fund smaller games to eventually earn enough to invest in bigger ones]. I mean, I’m tackling it from different angles and we’ll see what happens. I know what we’re capable of.

Me: There’s a MOBA that came out recently, called StarVoid, and within two days of release barely any servers had any players. Paradox Interactive published it and I tweeted the developer directly, asking what was up? They replied with: (We don’t know, we’re looking into ways we can increase the player base) and that was that. What can you do to get people playing your games?

Swen: That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re doing this. I don’t think there’s been a good RPG in the last 6 years.

Me: There have been ones better than others at least.

Swen: Yes, but really good ones? I mean, including myself and including all our colleagues, there’s not a single one of them of them [who can name a truly great RPG]. I talk to developers, we all know what we want to create.

Me: To take one of your games for example Divinity II, a game I genuinely loved I get to the end, and I can’t help but think (ah, there should be 6 times more of this.)

Swen: Yes. That’s what we want to do here. The Witcher is the same story. I mean, sometimes it’s like an action adventure game, not an RPG. The ideas are there, but there’s a problem with the execution but developers like CD Project Red, amongst others, are really committed to making these things better and better. I really think the closing gap between gamers and developers is going to make that happen.