In all the different races and classes of fantasy characters, none are arguably more interesting than the elves. Graceful, lithe, proud, and stealthy; yet cold, calculating, and deadly all at once, elvish stories captivate audiences through stories of relatable humanism, such as author R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden, and with tales of their own struggle to define their place in a world they hesitate to call their own, such as with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Perhaps it is the endless well of possibilities from which elvish stories can be crafted that inspired 10tacle Studios to develop Elveon, due out later this year for the PC and Xbox 360. Elveon focuses on realistic combat and a gritty art direction, a different take for an elvish tale and one I thought warranted some further research. I had a chance to talk to Slavo Hazucha, managing and creative director at 10tacle Studios, to find out more about what Elveon will offer.
Shack: What type of game is Elveon, exactly?
Slavo Hazucha: It is not that easy to assign Elveon to a specific genre. At its core, the game is an action RPG, where the action is definitely the main part of Elveon's gameplay. Several RPG and exploration elements support the action.
Shack: Can you tell us a bit about Elveon's back story?
Slavo Hazucha: The central element of Elveon's story is the search for the rumored paradise--the city of Nimathar--and the divine tower--Starspear--which, in legends, represents the portal between the material and the divine realms. The gods, who once dwelled in the material world have left back into the divine realm and the elves who were once united are now scattered into many different cultures and fighting wars against each other. Many elvish rulers dream to find Nimathar and Starspear to claim the powers of the divine portal and re-introduce an era of greatness to their race, but none of them has yet succeeded.
This is the mythic background where the game is set. You start as an elite warrior who follows a legend that sets you on the trail of an ancient elvish king who attempted to find Nimathar and Starspear. Our hero follows the traces of this mythic king and, to be able to fulfil the quest the king has failed at, he must reach more power than any elvish elite fighter before him--he has to become a divine warrior.
Along his way, our hero is aided by supernatural powers from the earliest age of the universe--the mysterious four Dragons who were put to slumber within the depths of the world. The Dragons will help our hero and grant him powers that will make him into a semi-divine champion, but as it turns out, nothing comes without a price. The story contains many surprises and revelations. The powers granting the gifts will not go without taking their price and the discovery of the rumoured paradise Nimathar and Starspear will as well be accompanied by several revealing story twists.
Shack: How does the player learn about his character's rich heritage?
Slavo Hazucha: We use cut scenes as means of storytelling but a large part of the story and history--Elveon is about a legend dating back several millennia--is introduced to the player through active gameplay episodes called the "Legend mode". The Legend mode is always introduced by a cut scene or text blurb which introduces a particular piece of the story, but then, the player takes over the part of the main hero and plays the episode himself. In this way, instead of hearing or seeing a battle in the past in a cut scene, he plays the battle himself. The characters from the legends play a role in the story, so in this way, we involve the player in the storytelling and introduce characters that later play a role in the games finale.
Dialogues will be quite frequent. Some important NPCs will have a special story to tell the player--they start telling it as a dialogue, then the scene shifts and the player plays their story himself as it happened in the past.
Shack: What led to the decision to create a game based solely around elves?
Slavo Hazucha: We wanted to lead our action-based game through a powerful mythical setting that takes place in an early age of an evolving fantasy universe. We find elves intriguing in many ways--they are immortal, superhuman beings, capable of great heroic deeds, yet in most games and fantasy stories, they are depicted as the fading race, belonging to the past and leaving the world. We wanted to depict the high era of the elves, an age when they were a strong and thriving race, aspiring for the powers of the gods. This is a story, an age every fantasy fan is familiar with but which was never depicted in the media of a computer game so far.
Shack: Did you draw upon any particular elvish mythology when you set out to create Elveon?
Slavo Hazucha: It's obvious that the epic fantasy world created by Tolkien is one of our inspirations. Moreover the ancient mythology and the Greek heroic epics were very inspiring. Nevertheless, Elveon is based on a totally original story and its own independent universe. Our game focuses on the myths about the elvish race, so it was necessary to create a whole mythology around them. It took about four years to write the design and history of our fantasy universe before the game project was even started.
Shack: What was your inspiration for the look of the game?
Slavo Hazucha: We want the player to feel as if he were walking in an ancient elvish legend, so we developed filters and postproduction effects that give our environments a touch of a dream-like atmosphere and a feeling of antiquity and nostalgia. In terms of style and proportions, Lord of the Rings played a role, but rather than having one specific inspiration, we applied the same elaborate access as with the story and universe. We imagined the elves as immortal beings and tried to build their architecture and environments as if they that were intended to last for eternity, developing elegant and timeless shapes which reflect the inner harmony, strength and pride of the elvish race.
Shack: Since combat is such a specific focus, tell us about the fighting system players will be using.
Slavo Hazucha: One of the main focus areas of our combat system is set on fighting involving duels with elvish opponents that are both noble and fierce. A thounsand year-old elvish warrior will not give up his life easily. To defeat them, you will have to partake in what we call cinematic duel fights.
It is nice to hear about your interest in our fighting system, because this is really the most exciting area of the game. Our approach to the depiction of combat, the quality of character models, animations and mimics will allow us to show the fights in an unseen level of detail. We use a dynamic camera model and special camera perspectives to show these details and bring the player as close to the action as the gameplay controls allow.
Our system supports real-time collision detection and collision-based action and reaction during combat. So if two weapons collide, there is always a realistic collision and the proper reaction according to the type and weight of the colliding weapons.
The different fighting styles will be represented in the form of weapon classes, with each school having a divine avatar. The player will interact with these divine powers and they will lead his progress within their weapon classes. It will be up to the player to become an expert in one weapon class or a sort of a jack-or-all-trades who can use all types of weapons reasonably well but excels in none. In this process, the player will learn new moves with the weapon class so for example, a sword expert, he will have several combos and power attacks available for use with swords.
Each weapon class provides advantages of a certain type (i.e. the daggers are the fastest of all weapon types) together with certain disadvantages (in case of the daggers in the form of comparatively low damage and short attack range). The player chooses his path through the weapon class tree, chooses his divine patrons who grant him their help and powers, collects and customizes weapons and equipment. The game will offer many possible combinations and strategies--for example, emphasis on power or speed--and their blends and combinations so that the player will have enough choice to customize his character to excel at the fighting style he likes best.
We hired our own martial arts crew and these guys developed the very unique elvish fighting style that represents the honorable and powerful skills of the characters. They created a mixture of medieval and modern European and Asian fight techniques. The elves are a noble race of perfectionists and such is the way they have to appear in combat. Each race will have a specific preference for combat. The player will be able to quickly discover who (expert or rookie) is standing in front of you simply from the way he stands and moves. The way we do that is one of our key gameplay features. Each weapon class then has a defined number of offensive moves, such as combos and finishing moves, and defensive moves such as blocking and dodging.
Depending on the character every player can learn a specific weapon class and get better and better. The player decides which move he wants to learn for his favored fighting style and his favored weapon class. Therefore the player can become a master of one weapon class and dominate all moves or he acquires solid knowledge in all weapon classes.
Turn the page to learn more about Elveon.
_PAGE_BREAK_Shack: How is damage reflected on character models? Dented armor, severed limbs, anything like that?
Slavo Hazucha: You will be able to see damage on armor, and the health status of your opponent will be visible in the way they move--wounded opponents will start to limp and move with much more difficulty.
Shack: Can you give us a full example of a cinematic duel?
Slavo Hazucha: In the dark interiors of an abandoned outpost, the player's character suddenly turns his head around as a Merian assassin jumps down from the dark heights of the tall stone hall. The Merian stands up and unsheathes his long black daggers in a graceful move. The player turns towards the Merian and goes into a combat guard position with his longsword. The Merian starts to move in a circle around the player.
The player decides to open up with a strong offensive movement and triggers a power-combo action. The Merian effortlessly dodges to one side, hitting the player with a quick side-blow. Before the player can re-compose himself, the Merian starts a swift attack chain. The player is not able to react quickly and gets hit two times before he can put up a last-moment block. The Merian assassin strafes around the player and then quickly dodges to a side and launches a quick fluent dodge-strike attack. This time, the player manages to react just in time, jumping back, avoiding the Merians attack and quickly stepping in with his own attack. The Merian, however somehow manages to dodge out even from this quick action.
The player realizes that his opponent is much faster than him and chooses to try a counterattack strategy--he timidly waits for the next attack of the Merian and blocks his strike with perfect timing. The weapons collide in slow-motion and the player can connect a block-strike chain of fast attacks. The Merian is hit--the player's sword has a damage upgrade and the Merian only has a weak armor. The camera recedes back in the standard fighting position--the Merian stretches his daggers in front of him and curses the player, before attempting another dodge-strike attack. The player has learned to anticipate this move, frequently used by the Merian assassins and evades with a side-dodge. Before the Merian manages to start a new action, the player jumps towards him and launches a kick. The camera dynamically focuses on the successful hit and the Merian is thrown back and stunned, grasping for breath. The player sees his chance and unleashes a power-combo action with his sword--the stunned Merian is unable to evade and the combo fully hits home. The camera dynamically moves to show the hits from different angles in close-up and high detail--showing the details of the hit animation and the fresh scars of damage on the Merian's light black armor. As the combo ends, it fluently recedes back into the fighting perspective.
The Merian is hurt, he has lost more than half of his HP, starts to limp visibly and abandons his offensive strategy, cautiously circling around the player and dodging all attacks with the sword. The player sees that the dangerous part of the combat has passed and decides to pay back the humiliation of the opening sequence. He changes his weapon and draws a spear--he has balanced his weapon expertise between sword and spear and has unlocked strong moves with the spear. The spear is a mighty weapon and the one he has is furthermore upgraded to cause critical hits more often. The player waits for a suitable moment and attempts to hit the Merian with the fast-combo action--although this is still comparably slow with the spear, he manages to hit on the second try and scores a critical hit. The camera shakes and changes the perspective slightly as the Merian is thrown back and falls down to the ground. The player dashes towards the helpless opponent and before he can stand up, he grabs him in a kill-move grab. The camera shows the choreographic action in close detail. After a moment of struggle ... the player manages to finish the kill move--lifting the Merian up and then breaking his backbone. The helpless body of the Merian collapses on the ground while the player's character stands over him in a graceful pose, the camera slowly receding from the special perspective to the normal gameplay view.
Shack: Will Elveon include any multiplayer modes?
Slavo Hazucha: Elveon has mulitplayer, and even it is primarily a story-driven. Multiplayer includes several different modes that will exploit the tactical possibilities of Elveon's combat system. Within multiplayer the player can choose from different characters and equip them based on a certain set of rules. Moreover, it is as well possible to play a one-on-one as to play "team matches." Therefore we implemented a corresponding ranking system in the game, too.
We're considering a few updates to multiplayer that would be applied after the game launches. We're thinking about several modes like co-op for example. But we will reveal more about that in the future.
Shack: Will any features differentiate the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game?
Slavo Hazucha: Of course there will be differences in the obvious areas of the control mechanics and the navigation in the entire menu system. Both the 360 controller and the PC's keyboard and mouse will receive an optimum control and navigation setup that works best on the given platform. The extent of the game-feature differences between the platforms is currently under review, so we cannot provide more specific information here.
Shack: Thanks for your time.
Elveon will be released during the third quarter of 2007 for PC and Xbox 360.
