00:11Grazie a tutti e benvenuti a un nuovo episodio di Housecaste.
00:16E oggi con noi, ancora di nuovo, è il Game Director di Returnal, Harry Krueger.
00:23Welcome.
00:25Hey, everyone.
00:26Hey, Miguel.
00:27Thanks for having me again here, man.
00:29So, on the top of my mind right now is one of the main questions about Returnal relating
00:37to the enemies and the bosses and everything.
00:41And I really just want to hear from you about what goes into them, right?
00:46So, clearly, you know, as we've seen the trailers, there's a menacing force there.
00:53But I kind of want to start just from the background.
00:56The lore, if you will, of what sets up the mystery.
01:01So, where do these monsters come from and what's the thinking behind them?
01:04Yeah, absolutely.
01:07So, as you know, our story is that we're following Selene, an astronaut who crash lands on this
01:15hostile alien planet called Atropos.
01:17And on this planet, of course, we need to have all kinds of hostile flora and fauna to make her
01:24survival quite difficult.
01:26So, yeah, for the enemies in particular, I think one of the biggest inspirations there was, of course, we wanted
01:34to make them feel quite hostile and menacing.
01:38And also alien.
01:40And for that, we actually looked at deep sea creatures because they were kind of the most alien-looking thing
01:45we could find on Earth, you know, as a reference.
01:50And as you know, they've adapted to those dark environments that they live in to develop bioluminescence, which is a
01:59really alien property where the body, of course, just glows in the dark, right?
02:03And we felt that that combination of just, you know, dark materials with, like, these bright highlights created this really
02:12kind of unsepting look that also, as a bonus, pops and reads really well from a gameplay perspective as well.
02:21So, that's one influence for us.
02:24And another one, of course, was the Lovecraftian influences are undeniable.
02:29So, of course, we want to have that eldritch kind of horror kind of aesthetic.
02:35And a lot of these creatures are fairly, they're monstrosities that do have a lot of these tentacles, as you
02:43mentioned as well.
02:46And from an implementation standpoint, basically, what we've done is we have the more traditional kind of animated meshes.
02:52But on top of that, we've added a lot of these VFX-driven tentacles and feelers that are fully dynamic
03:01elements.
03:02So, whether the enemy is doing an attack preparation or reacting to a hit or exploding gloriously, you know, after
03:09you deal enough damage,
03:11all of these elements are just adapting to geometry, you know, reacting, twitching in a fully dynamic way.
03:18And that's been one of our goals throughout the VFX treatment and, I guess, for the general feedback loop for
03:24this game in general,
03:25to have that really visceral and satisfying feedback loop with everything that you interact with.
03:31Yeah, absolutely.
03:32I think they're quite intimidating.
03:35And you can really see this motion, you know, not just the basic movement that's with the humanoid, usually a
03:45humanoid construct there,
03:48but then with all these sort of, it looks like a lion's mane that's just grown way out of proportion
03:55and then has a mind of its own that's interacting in a lot of these enemies.
03:59I think the tentacles, the way they move is visually impressive and also makes me want to run the other
04:08way.
04:08So, are you categorizing these enemies in certain classes, maybe species?
04:16And then do you have different things that come in different sections of each level?
04:21I'm guessing there may be, like, boss-type enemies in there as well.
04:26We do have a pretty diverse range of enemies.
04:29Actually, each biome or each environment in the game has its own unique enemy encounters that players can find.
04:36And, you know, we have a pretty standard kind of split across, you know, small enemies that appear in larger
04:42numbers but are easier to dispatch.
04:44The larger brute-style enemies that come more infrequently but they're a bit more bullet spongy, put up more of
04:50a challenge.
04:51Flying enemies, you know, turrets that just kind of populate the level with more projectiles and, you know, avoidance gameplay.
04:59So, we have a pretty diverse set of enemies that we combine in many different combinations in each level to
05:07create a pretty broad range of combat scenarios, right?
05:13So, in addition to that, of course, there's some extra layers.
05:17I mean, there might be some elite enemies that we might encounter, you know, in some darker corners of these
05:22levels as surprises.
05:24And we absolutely do have bosses as well that, yeah, are going to be more dramatic fights in intensity.
05:35I think that's what everybody's looking for, we're just, you know, house-marked experience.
05:42Not only pushing your way to the end but then also taking on a huge boss fight.
05:50You know, do you have multiple faces in bosses?
05:52Are there lots of, like, bullet-hell patterns and, you know, dodging type...
05:57Because, I mean, if we look at the top-down and side-scrolling games from our past, these are the
06:05common elements.
06:07How would you describe these events from that arcade perspective?
06:13Yes, we do have bosses.
06:14I think they are, they have been staples of our formula for our previous games and, as you said, for
06:20arcade games in general.
06:23And, you know, they act as pretty solid both as skill checks, just as, like, barriers for you to, that
06:29you need to overcome to reach the next area, of course.
06:33But also, as culminations of all of the bullet-hell, diverse types of challenges and spectacle, of course, that we
06:43do build up throughout each environment.
06:46So, I kind of want to refrain from going into too much detail, because a lot of these are really
06:52cool moments that we really want players to discover by themselves.
06:56But let's just say that we have put a lot of effort into, a lot of love into our bosses,
07:02to make sure that each one has its own distinct personality, its own role in the story, its own majestic
07:08aura, and absolutely a deep and satisfying challenge that will, you know, keep you coming back for more and will
07:15make you feel quite relieved when you overcome them.
07:19I'd like to thank you, Harry. It's been very insightful. Looking forward to all these cool new enemies and especially
07:25the boss fights. And look forward to hearing more. Returnal coming soon to PS5.
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