It takes so much for a brand new souls-like to differentiate itself today. Within the final yr alone, we have seen Lies of P: Overture, The First Berserker: Khazan, Black Fantasy: Wukong, Enotria: The Final Tune, One other Crab’s Treasure, and two Elden Ring follow-ups–The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and spin-off sport Nightreign–all launch to various levels of success. Suffice to say, the once-niche style is now considerably extra mainstream, and the quickly rising variety of souls-likes obtainable to play actually displays that. However whereas this would possibly translate to an thrilling quantity of choices for gamers, it is easy to see how this boon truly presents an intense problem for builders.
Luckily for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers developer Leenzee, discovering and celebrating its personal voice was one thing it was “tuned in to” because the starting. In a latest interview with GameSpot, Leenzee co-founder and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers sport and artwork director Xia Siyuan mentioned how the studio went about growing a sport in a extremely saturated style, and what he thought Wuchang was doing to assist push souls-likes ahead. The developer additionally opened up about how the crew’s Sichuan roots helped to ascertain the sport’s setting, and the way a few of its boss designs had been impressed by archeological digs and museum journeys.
The souls-like style has turn into extraordinarily saturated in latest years–was {that a} concern when growing Wuchang: Fallen Feathers? What about it units the sport other than others throughout the style, or helps push the style ahead?
Siyuan: From the beginning, we have been very tuned in to discovering our personal voice. We wished Wuchang to replicate a special cultural perspective–not simply within the setting, however in the way in which the world is structured, the themes we discover, and the way gamers work together with all the things.
What units it aside is how tightly all the things is linked. The fight, development, and narrative are all formed by the protagonist’s situation, and the world itself displays that decay and transformation. The Coronary heart Demon system offers gamers a brand new technique to handle issue, and the free respecs invite experimentation as an alternative of punishing it. We additionally put plenty of effort into creating non-linear paths and secret routes that may actually change how a participant experiences the sport.
If we’re including one thing new to the style, we hope it’s a way of flexibility–letting gamers really feel like they’re carving their very own means by a world that remembers their selections.
Souls-like video games could be notoriously tough for style newcomers to get into. Do you suppose Wuchang is an efficient first Souls-like sport for brand spanking new audiences?
Wuchang was designed to be approachable with out shedding the problem that followers count on. Programs like free respecs and the Coronary heart Demon mechanic give gamers management over how dangerous or forgiving their expertise is. There’s no conventional “straightforward mode,” however we’ve in-built flexibility so new gamers can discover their footing and develop into the sport at their very own tempo.
Why set Wuchang: Fallen Feathers through the Ming Dynasty? What about that specific interval of historical past did you wish to discover?
The Ming Dynasty felt like the best backdrop as a result of it was a time of transition and uncertainty. There was political collapse, widespread battle, and main shifts in how folks noticed the world. That type of instability gave us room to discover deeper themes like decay, destiny, and transformation in a grounded means.
It additionally allowed us to attract from actual locations and occasions, particularly in Sichuan, the place lots of the crew’s cultural roots are. Tales just like the Jiangkou sunken treasure and the legends surrounding Sanxingdui gave us a wealthy basis for world-building. We had been drawn to how delusion and historical past might coexist in that setting, and the way it might assist form a world that feels each genuine and unsettling.
What impressed the choice to make Bai Wuchang a former pirate?
At the moment, the Ming Dynasty was going through each inner and exterior turmoil, with pirates rampant throughout the seas. Many maritime retailers struggled to outlive, and He Youzai was considered one of them. After assembly Bai Ziyun, he vastly admired her swordsmanship and invited her to hitch him. Collectively, they hunted pirates and used the spoils to help these in want. From then on, Bai Ziyun by no means left an enemy alive, incomes her the nickname “White Wuchang.”
The creature and boss design on this sport is completely phenomenal and one of many first issues that made it stand out to me. Are you able to stroll me by some mythological and creative inspirations behind a few of them?
Creature and boss design was probably the most collaborative elements of growth. A variety of the inspiration got here from regional myths and archaeological finds, particularly from Sichuan. The Sanxingdui relics, for instance, gave us these fantastically unusual bronze masks and figures that really feel otherworldly even at the moment. We used that sense of thriller as a basis for a few of the sport’s extra surreal or historic boss designs.
It additionally appears as if the sport’s artwork, music, weaponry, and narrative are additionally all very targeted on celebrating Chinese language historical past and mythology. How did you guarantee accuracy and what had been a few of the most significant inclusions for you?
Getting it proper was essential to us, not simply visually however emotionally. We drew from a mixture of historic analysis, educational sources, and private memory–many of the crew grew up in Sichuan, surrounded by these legends and landscapes.
We additionally visited museums and studied artifacts from locations like Sanxingdui and the Jinsha ruins to know the craftsmanship, symbolism, and religious that means behind them. One of the vital significant components we included was the usage of oracle bone script on golden foil, tied into the sport’s lore. That element, like many others, helped us join the world of Wuchang to the deeper roots of Chinese language delusion and historical past in a means that feels grounded and purposeful.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is out there now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X|S, and is out there at no further value to Xbox Sport Cross subscribers. In our Wuchang: Fallen Feathers evaluation, we wrote, “Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a superb expertise stuffed with way more satisfying battles than irritating ones, great concepts, and really beautiful places.”
The above interview has been flippantly edited for brevity and readability.
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