Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Developer Considers Skyrim Their Big Competitor

More than two months have passed since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but judging by these comments from Big Huge Games’ Ian Frazier on Eurogamer, the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s developers still consider it their biggest competitor, and are concerned by the possibility that their target audience will still be playing it by the time Reckoning releases. On the other hand, judging by Ian’s comments, the team also seems very confident in their title’s strenghts:

Frazer described Skyrim as “our big competitor”. “It’s hard not to go, it’s the devil! It’s evil!” he said.

But, he’s a fan – perhaps not as big a fan as others, but a fan. “It’s a good game. It’s got problems. It’s not God’s gift to gaming, as some are describing it. But it is good. It’s a lot of fun. They do a lot of stuff really well.

“But a lot of folks are still playing it, and that’s been one of my biggest concerns. It’s the same thing as if we had released first. It’s hundreds of hours of content and it’s a high fantasy world. Are people just going to be bored? Are they just done with high fantasy for a while? I hope not. But that’s the big concern at the studio.”

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“Not just Skyrim, but RPGs in general have been in an upswing over the last few years,” Frazier explained.

“Skyrim in particular, here’s a giant open world game where you can do whatever you want in this fantasy setting, and everybody goes, wow, this is fun, I like this. And a few months later, oh, this is the same sort of thing I like except I can do a lot more awesome stuff in combat. Let’s hope that is the thing that makes us succeed.”

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“The combat – I’ll be very blunt – it is leagues better than Skyrim’s. It’s better than pretty much everything in the RPG space. I’m proud of our combat,” he said.