Expeditions: Viking Interview with Jonas Waever

GamingBolt has a new interview up with Jonas Waever, the creative director at Logic Artists, the team behind the recently released Expeditions: Viking. The interview covers a broad range of topics, including bringing something new to the table in the saturated market of Norse-inspired games, Expeditions: Viking’s story and characters, and Logic Artists’ future plans.

An excerpt:

How much work went into fleshing out the overall lore and ensuring the game is historically accurate?

We did a lot of research to make sure the game looks and feel authentic. The weapons, clothes, ships, buildings, and so on in the game are all based on archaeological evidence and reconstructions. Additionally, the events that occur around the player take place at the right time – the political situation matches the time period we chose and the few historical people you run into are people who lived at this time as well. However, we’ve taken a lot of liberties in what the player can do to affect things – if you decide to roll in with the Great Heathen Army 300 years ahead of time, who are we to stop you?

Who were some of your favourite characters throughout the game? Which ones did your players often get attached to?

A lot of players seem to like Aife a lot – she’s our adventurous young Pictish huntress who decides to join the player’s group out of sheer fearless curiosity. I suspect a large part of the attraction is that her voice actress did such a great job portraying her, but the coolest thing about Aife is that you have a lot of impact on her fate throughout the game, and she can respond quite drastically to certain decisions you make. Personally, my favourite character is Eydis, whom we affectionately refer to as the Raid Mom. She’s a heavy-built widowed farm lady who joins you hoping to win a rich and safe future for her two sons, and she takes no shit from anyone.

What improvements were made over Expeditions: Conquistador?

Pretty much everything has improved – there’s no doubt Viking looks and sounds leagues better than its predecessor, it has a lot more skills and abilities, the weapons at your disposal are more varied, and many of Conquistador’s features have been expanded upon, such as camping, crafting, and trade.

The greatest improvement is a change to the perspective of the game: in Conquistador, you would spend a lot of time riding around on a very abstract world map, and only see your individual people during battle. In Viking you spend much of your time exploring much more detailed areas on foot, talking to people and picking up quests.

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Technical issues have been cited with regards to clipping, load times and certain quest aspects not appearing. Are these being addressed?

They are absolutely being addressed. We’re working very hard to address the issues people have brought up on our Steam forums. We’ve prioritized stability and major quest bugs for now, and many of the issues mentioned have already been addressed. At the moment we are patching two times per week. Feel free to check in on the steam forums for updates on our progress.

Can we expect post-launch DLC and other updates for Expeditions: Viking (aside from the recent Blood-Ice)?

You never know what one can expect. It all depends on the success of the game and sales numbers. If the size of the audience warrants more content, there is always the possibility. For now of course, we have to focus on ironing out the last bugs and technical problems.

Are there any plans to bring the game on the PS4 and Xbox One?

Another possibility that is dependant on the success of the Expeditions: Viking PC (Windows) release. We’re not against a console port, but currently hold no plans for it.