GB Feature: The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Interview

With The Lord of the Rings: War in the North launching tomorrow, we took advantage of the little time we had left to fire off a large batch of last-minute questions about the action RPG to lead designer Andre Maguire. Luckily, he obliged us:

GB: How varied are the skill trees presented to each of the game’s three characters? Can you give us an example of just how different one person’s dwarf champion could be (skill-wise) versus another’s?

Andre: The skill trees are quite different between the three characters. Eradan can drop into evasion that allows him to be invisible. Andriel has a magic shield that protects from ranged attacks. Farin has a warcry ability that puts him into a rage-mode like state. You can expand on those skills by ranking them up or adding complimentary skills on top of them. Then you can decide if you want to focus on being more of a support role, a tank or even spread points out to be a bit of both. For example, one player’s Dwarf character might be completely focused on melee damage where another player’s Dwarf might have equipped a skill that allows them to fire crossbow bolts really quickly. Another might have unlocked skills that benefit everybody at the same time. We put a lot of effort into making each skill tree both appropriate for the characters and also open for players to experiment with.

GB: How did you come up with the mechanics that were ultimately used for the game’s character development and progression systems? Did you base the systems around what worked in your previous games, or were certain mechanics/ideas taken from the LotR tabletop game or other sources?

Andre: A bit of everything really. We definitely wanted The Lord of the Rings: War in the North to feel like a Snowblind game. Being able to go through and find tons of loot, secrets and upgrades was important to us but, we also wanted the combat system to have quite a bit of depth, too. We found ourselves focusing on several areas at once to solidify the mechanics. And through prototypes, iteration, lots and lots of playtesting and feedback we got what I think is a great balance between long-term progression and the second-to-second combat experience.