00:07Grazie per la visione!
00:30Yeah, so, and I think, you know, obviously, being set in Middle-earth like that, there were a couple of
00:36things we wanted to do. One is make it so it's a great standalone story. And I think that's the
00:43same. You know, if you look at The Hobbit, you can enjoy it as part of the overall sort of
00:47tapestry of Middle-earth. You can enjoy it as a prequel to Lord of the Rings, but it's also great
00:52on its own. And it's the same with Lord of the Rings. Like, you don't, it doesn't require any of
00:56the other knowledge in order to enjoy it.
00:58But it's also got this amazing connections to this, you know, incredibly rich and detailed world as well.
01:04Now, the character we were playing as had some pretty cool powers called the Wraith. Do you want to tell
01:09us a little bit about these powers?
01:10Yeah, so really, we actually have two characters and they're bound together. And so the Wraith is this very powerful
01:18force that was awakened when Sauron returns to Mordor at the start of our game.
01:22And it's basically using Talion as a vessel so that together they can travel into Mordor and the powers of
01:30the Wraith, very much like, you know, in Tolkien, power has this kind of very specific meaning.
01:37So we have the Rings of Power, we have the One Ring, and power means the ability to dominate and
01:43command and to bend things to your will, whether that's nature or whether that's other people.
01:48So, and also the power over life and death, like the pursuit of immortality, that's, you know, the Nazgul themselves,
01:57they have immortality, but it's almost insufferable to them.
02:00So there's kind of a double-edged sword to that. But, so that's the powers that the Wraith has, the
02:07ability to move between these two worlds, between the Wraith world and the physical world, the ability to bend the
02:13will of your enemies to dominate them, the ability to move quickly, you know, through the shadow world, and generally
02:22to do so much more than just sort of hunt and kill your enemies behind enemy lines,
02:26but to actually bend them to your will and create your own army to challenge the Dark Lord.
02:31Yeah, I was able to sort of climb onto cliff tops and then get out sort of a bow and
02:35arrow within the Wraith world and then sort of use it to almost propel myself across the cliff and straight
02:40into enemies, and it was quite an amazing power.
02:42Yeah, so that one, it's, I mean, everything in the game is so much about choice. So you can use
02:47your powers in the Wraith world to defeat your enemies, to use them almost as grapple points to navigate around
02:52the world.
02:53So once you get there, to then dominate them so they'll actually fight for you.
02:57So, you know, really want to give players the freedom and the tools to, you know, control their own experience
03:03and just always have so many options about how to play.
03:07So talking about we're going after the orcs and we're dominating them, now that's a huge thing that we're seeing,
03:11the nemesis system.
03:12Do you want to give us a quick tour of the idea behind it?
03:16Yeah, so, I mean, you know, really a big part of it is in action games, in so many games,
03:23the main characters you're interacting with are your enemies and we just so didn't want your enemies to be cardboard
03:29cutout cannon fodder.
03:30Like, you know, what can we do to make them more interesting and more meaningful and give you more choices
03:35and so we really focused on making them into living, breathing characters.
03:42So they remember their encounters with you. If they survive an encounter or even defeat you, they can level up.
03:47This is Mordor, so, you know, as we see where Sam and Frodo go in, they're constantly battling against each
03:52other so you can manipulate that.
03:55And then, ultimately, it's a system where you get to create your own personal unique villains that remember and know
04:03you.
04:03So, you know, you're building towards these showdowns and these encounters that can, you know, really be memorable and unique
04:10for every player.
04:11So any time you play again, any time your friends play, you're going to have your own personal villains.
04:17Yeah, so on the nemesis system, I was able to take control of a captain to defeat him, dominate him,
04:23and then I was able to send him after one of the warlords and then sort of infiltrate the system
04:27and then become a warlord himself.
04:29Yeah, and there's just so many ways that can play. You can go straight after your enemies, like headlong,
04:33and then it's going to be incredibly difficult, but you can overcome that.
04:36You can go after their bodyguards and their henchmen and take them down one by one and be really methodical.
04:42You can take any orc in the world from, you know, just being no one, just sort of being a
04:48random grunt,
04:48all the way up through to being sort of a warlord and in command of other troops.
04:53So really, you know, just want to make it almost like a social network of orc society in Mordor.
05:01That's a great way of describing it, actually. I think that's very good.
05:05So when we were playing, there was quite a lot of being able to take over the nemesis system and
05:12enjoy that.
05:13Now, is that quite the core of the gameplay here, or is this one element?
05:16Because I was able, as well, to kind of just sort of free run around and climb and explore,
05:20and that just felt like there was so much to see and do there as well.
05:24Yes, I mean, we're obviously really excited about the nemesis system because I think in many ways it's our biggest
05:29innovation.
05:30It's the thing that when people play, they're like, oh, this isn't like anything I've ever seen before.
05:34But it is also just one part of the overall experience of everything that we want to have in a
05:41third-person action game.
05:43So we have the story missions to pursue.
05:45We have exploration. Mordor is obviously full of history and artifacts to uncover.
05:51There's hunting challenges around the different sort of wild beasts and creatures of Mordor and collecting.
05:56There's numerous sort of side quest lines.
06:01So there's a whole host of things to do, of which the nemesis system is one part,
06:06but it's certainly the part we're very excited about.
06:09Okay, so my final question for anyone watching this going,
06:11I'm a massive Lord of the Rings fan, I'm a massive Hobbit fan.
06:14Whereabouts does that sit?
06:15Oh, so the game takes place in between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
06:21So Sauron's been defeated by the White Council in Dol Galdor at the end of the Hobbit,
06:26and he's returned to Mordor after 2,000 years.
06:28So, but then it's around 60 years before the War of the Rings.
06:32So Mordor's, it's very iconic, obviously, places like Mount Doom and the Black Gates,
06:37but it's also very different to what people may have seen of it before.
06:40It's just beginning that transformation.
06:42Amazing. Thank you so much for your time.
06:44It looks incredible. I got to play it on PlayStation 4.
06:46Really exciting. In fact, I'm probably going to go back and do a bit more exploring now.
06:50So thank you very much for your time.
06:51Have fun. Thank you.
06:58Thank you.
Commenti