Krater Preview

The editors at GameSpy have doled out a detailed, media-laden preview of Krater, which you’ll discover also includes quite a bit of commentary from Fatshark designer Victor Magnuson. Prepare yourself for a three-man, post-apocalyptic, item-heavy action RPG:

As its name may indicate, Krater takes place inside a gigantic crater that’s full of lush vegetation and contains the last remaining pockets of humanity. You’ll play as a small three-man party, known as Freediggers, a group of humanoid mutant scavengers who have been making their living as treasure hunters exploring the caves in surrounding areas, and selling their findings (toilet seats, tires, rubber ducks) to local villages. In the middle of the crater is the Center Hole, a gigantic abyss where you’ll do most of your dungeon-crawling adventuring. And as we’ve been told, it’s during one of these scavenging missions when something mysterious is uncovered inside the Center, and that’s when the real adventure will begin.

While the premise of living out a life in this post-apocalyptic crater with a small band of scavengers seems cool, it’s how we’ll be able to customize and modify the three-man team that makes this game seem really interesting.

“We don’t want players to focus on the individual characters too much,” says Krater Game Designer Victor Magnuson. “We want you to focus on building a good and diverse team.” Part of this team building is deciding what type of party you want to bring into the surrounding dungeons. The basic roles are available, Tank, Medic, and DPS, with each having their own special attack power. For example, the Tank will have a smash attack that deals significant AoE damage. But it’s possible to buff this attack, so for example, it would deal damage as well as heal nearby party members.

“If I don’t want to have a healer with me, I could spec my tank to be a self-sufficient tank,” explains Magnuson. “He would never become as efficient as a pure healer, but depending on how you set up your team, you’ll be able to make it without a pure healer.” Creating a tank character like this does have consequences, because choices will be permanent. “If I decide to give one of my characters more stamina, that’ll be a permanent choice — I can’t take that back,” continues Magnuson. “The weapons are switchable at any time, but upgrades and components will be a permanent choice.”