Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Interview, Part Two

Just as they promised last week, GamePro provides us with the second portion of their Sacred 2: Fallen Angel interview.

Sacred II is expected to come to Xbox 360; how did you handle the control issues? Is it a totally different interface from the PC’s mouse-and-keyboard setup? Also, how will Sacred II tie into Xbox Live? Will players be able to invite each other into their games?

AE: On the Xbox 360, the hero is directly controlled with the left stick while the right stick is used for the camera. Weapons and actions, like combat arts, are directly assigned to the action buttons, so each button serves as a slot. Using the shoulder buttons, the action slots can be shifted twice. Additionally, the D-Pad can be used to assign potions. The action slots fade away if there are no enemies nearby. The user can bring them back either by pressing one of the buttons, or by approaching an enemy. Please note that the HUD is still work in progress.

As far as the interface is concerned, the Xbox 360 menus are list-driven, which is very common on the console. For example, the inventory has a list structure, and the items are sorted in several tabs (weapons, armor, etc.).

Sacred 2 will fully support Xbox Live with public and private games. Even after having started a single-player game, a user may invite other users at any time to join his campaign. Sacred 2 features hot swapping for joining/leaving a game, and allows up to four players on four consoles through Xbox Live. Additionally, up to two players may play on one console. Any mix of up to four players via Xbox Live is possible.