Made In Australia: We Talk Broken Roads With Drop Bear Bytes
We whack on a couple of Akubras and head outback to chat all things Broken Roads
Back at PAX Australia in 2019, the recently formed Drop Bear Bytes exhibited at the show with little more than a concept and the hopes and dreams of its creators. The elevator pitch: Fallout in Australia (it's a quick elevator). But not the Fallout you're likely thinking - the one with Bethesda and Todd Howard's craftmanship all over it. No, this is pre-Todd Fallout; this is Fallout as developed by Interplay (1997) and Black Isle Games (1998), a CRPG that includes extensive and immersive dialogue and turn-based combat. Drop Bear Bytes was aiming to infuse that DNA into its project Broken Roads, and while it may have only been a teaser on display in 2019, it captured our interest and we've been hanging for it ever since. Fast forward to late October 2023 and we're roughly two weeks away from the release of Broken Roads on Xbox Series X|S and PC (with PS5 and Switch to come later). We were able to sit down and chat with creative director and Drop Bear Bytes co-founder Craig Ritchie about Broken Roads, its development and how they got that true blue Aussie flavour.
WellPlayed: When did development on Broken Roads begin?
Craig Ritchie: The first idea of the post-apoc game that would become Broken Roads came up between Christmas and New Year's 2018, we founded Drop Bear Bytes in January 2019, did the original designs in January and February of that year. By March we'd designed the basic story, key characters and the Moral Compass, but actual development got underway around the middle of 2019.
WP: How did the idea for Broken Roads come about?
CR: It started off with what I thought I could reasonably do with minimal funding and a team of friends helping out with the basics. It was an Oregon Trail-style road trip through a generic post-apocalyptic world. It had nothing to do with Australia at first, but then one day - and I don't recall exactly how it came to mind - I thought why not have this across Australia?
I had not seen many games set in Australia and after doing some more research I was actually surprised how few there were - neither already released titles nor any games that I could find in development.
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