Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden - Interview

[HiddenX]

Mp1st interviewed Stephane Beauverger, the Narrative Director of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden:

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Took 4-5 Years to Make; Not AAA but AA Says Don't Nod

If you haven't played Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, then you might not know just how big the game world is. It's a massive area that players can choose to scout around for side missions, treasures and whatnot. Not only that, but the game also has more than your run of the mill fetch quests for side missions, with some spanning multiple, interconnected narratives that takes quite a significant time to complete compared to your standard video game side quests.

For something as big as Banishers, how long would a studio take to develop it from start to finish? This was something we asked Don't Nod in our exclusive interview with the dev team.

MP1st: I have to admit, I was caught a bit off-guard by how big Banisher's world is. How long did Don't Nod develop the game from start to finish?

St&eacutehane Beauverger, Narrative Director: It is not easy to define the full development time for a game, it really depends how you consider it. From scratch? From the very first idea written down with a pencil and a paper during the first conception phase? From the first playable sequence? And even after the release, people are still working on the game, like working on patches. Let's say that it took between four and five years to create Banishers.

Given how big Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is, and when you factor in the visuals, fully voiced dialogue (even NPCs) and the like, one might assume that it's a full-fledged AAA game, right? As it turns out, it isn't, and it's just AA according to Don't Nod.

MP1st: For its first AAA project, Banishers is very ambitious. What prompted Don't Nod to create an open-world game of sorts right away instead of, say, a more linear, single-player game?

St&eacutehane Beauverger, Narrative Director: Banishers is not an AAA game, it's a nicely crafted AA game - and we are proud of it. We have the will and passion to deliver a great experience to the audience, hence the large size of the map, and the huge amount of content. The game structure also depends on the nature of the game we make. Story-driven games like Life is Strange or Tell Me Why are more in need of a linear structure. With Banishers, we felt it was necessary to open the world and let the players investigate the mysteries of New Eden at their own pace, and in the order they were more comfortable with. Hence the more open structure of the game.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

@Couchpotato spotted another interview on MP1st:

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Interview With Don’t Nod – Endings, Sequels and Development

 

[Couchpotato]

Yeah seems this site loves to breakup the interviews into multiple articles.

My guess it's to get more clicks and revenue.

 

[JDR13]

I gave it a try but quit after 10-12 hours. It's not a bad game, but it wasn't for me. I think more story-oriented gamers will like it.