Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Artistic Director right here at Thunder Lotus Video games. It’s an honor to satisfy you all to current our new recreation, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus a number of years in the past to go up a brand-new crew constructing the studio’s very first on-line multiplayer title. Our aim: to create an modern multiplayer co-op expertise set in our signature immersive, hand-drawn artwork and animation type.
It’s been an extended journey to succeed in that aim, and I can actually say that we’re very pleased with what we’re revealing right this moment. However let’s take it from the highest!
To start with… the one factor we knew was that we needed Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the inspiration for our recreation world. To the uninitiated, “The Divine Comedy” is a 14th century Italian poem, a bonafide literary basic, and a private favourite of our studio founder and plenty of members of our crew. We had settled on our inspirational supply, however virtually every little thing else concerning the recreation was a clean slate.
The crew and I started by deeply exploring the historic context, spiritual symbolism, and mythology of “The Divine Comedy”, to tease out what we may deliver into the universe of our recreation. As epic as the story of Dante’s journey by means of the afterlife could also be, in an actual sense the important thing story in a multiplayer recreation is the one gamers are creating in-game, on the fly. We would have liked to take the literary setting as a basis, upon which we’d create a world stuffed with unbelievable creatures and epic surroundings by which it might make sense to have many gamers combating collectively.
Ultimately, we settled on our key concepts: what if gamers had been souls within the afterlife, condemned to everlasting punishment in Inferno? What in the event that they had been to insurgent towards their destiny, risking the Wrath of God within the course of? What if all the nice characters of “The Divine Comedy” had been serving to them on their journey?
With the essential setting squared away, we acquired all the way down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve all the time been fascinated by the large scale of raids and epic multiplayer missions present in MMOs. However the barrier to entry into raids – the mandatory time funding, the preparation and observe – as a participant, I discovered these items to be a flip off. This raised the query: what if we made a recreation that permit gamers leap into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the leap into every run as fast and seamless as potential – to make this a “choose up and raid” expertise for… what number of gamers?
Admittedly, we didn’t resolve on 33 right away. We started to prototype our recreation with the concept of many gamers coming into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to battle a big boss. And as we had been beginning to think about constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I needed to pick a novel quantity to hold our fantasy and world. “The Divine Comedy” has 100 chapters and is split into three main sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, every with 33 chapters! It was settled: 33 Immortals was born!
So, we tie all of it collectively: in 33 Immortals, you’re a renegade within the rebel of souls, a soldier in a battle in your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – demise can and can occur typically (as can occur while you defy the Almighty). However gamers can optimize their builds to match their playstyle, mixing and matching weapons, perks, and chronic upgrades to steadily enhance their rebel’s odds of success.
Every recreation session ends with a large raid-like Boss encounter, difficult the rebels to cooperate to counter lethal assaults and defeat their gigantic opponent. Above all, 33 Immortals actively encourages gamers to collaborate all through the runs, to make sure that the most important and strongest group potential survives by means of to the boss fights.
There’s a lot extra to inform – however we’ve got a street forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Sequence X|S, Home windows PC, and with Xbox Recreation Cross and PC Recreation Cross in 2024. Till then, we’re inviting you to return assist us make the sport as epic as potential, by taking part within the 33 Immortals Beta later this yr.
Head to www.33immortals.com to study extra. We hope to see you there!
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