Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Inventive Director right here at Thunder Lotus Video games. It’s an honor to satisfy you all to current our new sport, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus just a few years in the past to go up a brand-new group constructing the studio’s very first on-line multiplayer title. Our objective: 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 objective, and I can truthfully say that we’re very pleased with what we’re revealing at present. However let’s take it from the highest!
At first… the one factor we knew was that we wished Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the inspiration for our sport world. To the uninitiated, “The Divine Comedy” is a 14th century Italian poem, a bonafide literary traditional, and a private favourite of our studio founder and lots of members of our group. We had settled on our inspirational supply, however nearly the whole lot else in regards to the sport was a clean slate.
The group and I started by deeply exploring the historic context, spiritual symbolism, and mythology of “The Divine Comedy”, to tease out what we might carry into the universe of our sport. 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 sport 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 unimaginable creatures and epic surroundings wherein it might make sense to have many gamers preventing 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 in opposition to 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 fundamental setting squared away, we bought right down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve at all times 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 sport that permit gamers soar into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the soar into every run as fast and seamless as attainable – 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 sport with the concept of many gamers coming into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to combat a huge boss. And as we had been beginning to think about constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I wished to pick out a singular 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 riot of souls, a soldier in a combat on your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – demise can and can occur usually (as can occur whenever 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 riot’s odds of success.
Every sport 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 biggest and strongest group attainable survives by means of to the boss fights.
There’s a lot extra to inform – however we’ve a highway forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Sequence X|S, Home windows PC, and with Xbox Sport Move and PC Sport Move in 2024. Till then, we’re inviting you to come back assist us make the sport as epic as attainable, by collaborating within the 33 Immortals Beta later this 12 months.
Head to www.33immortals.com to study extra. We hope to see you there!
