Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Interview

Kotaku is offering up the results of a conversation they had with 38 Studios’ Ken Rolston, during which the RPG-designing veteran and Reckoning creative visionary talks about why the game’s combat system will change role-playing games in the future, the number of gameplay hours it will provide, why gamers don’t always want designers to reinvent the wheel, and more.

For Reckoning, the developers want to make sure that players would always feel like they were opening new experiences. They also worked on making sure the animations were much better, the frame rates much higher, than what you’d expect in a role-playing game. The game also lets you respec, rebuild your characters at any point, so you can keep tweaking the experience.

“It’s supposed to be an RPG but when you’re playing it you suddenly discover action bits,” he said. “What will happen later if I dodge an enemy and don’t get hit instead of having to take a potion?

“On the fly I flip between RPG and action.”

When I asked Rolston how long this game will be, will it be a 100-hour role-playing game, he’s hesitant to answer.

“The longest I’ve played it so far is about 60 hours,”he said. “There are outliers, the madmen who play Oblivion for 100 hours. I don’t think that’s a good idea for everyone. I think you will find we have plenty of experiences too.”

While Rolston is high on Reckoning’s combat and its shapeless class system, one which allows you to customize who you want to be in the game, much of the game will lean on the underpinnings that make all role-playing games feel alike. That’s on purpose.

“Ninety percent has to be familiar and 10 percent has to be new,” he said of evolving game design. “Fans say, ‘I want something new,’ but clearly they want the same thing with less suck.”