To learn more about the partnership between Paradox and White Wolf OnlySP has interviewed CEO Tobias Sjögren and Lead Storyteller Martin Ericsson:
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Thanks Farflame!‘Vampires, Werewolves, and Mummies, Oh My’: White Wolf Publishing on Bringing the World of Darkness Back to Video Games
The World of Darkness (WoD) IP has a curious history in video games. After quickly garnering a cult following in the early 2000s with the Vampire: The Masquerade and Hunter: The Reckoning series, the property was purchased by EVE Online developer CCP Games, and the company began work on an ambitious MMO. However, that project was cancelled after seven years of development, with CCP seemingly abandoning further development of the IP.
Thankfully, such a rich universe could not languish forever, and, in 2015, Cities: Skylines and Tyranny publisher Paradox Interactive announced that it had purchased the WoD brand and re-established the setting’s original owner, White Wolf Publishing. Since then, White Wolf has been working to make the property into a household name, with the first major attempt being Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide Studio’s upcoming action RPG Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
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The setting is grounded in the fantastic, yet its individual properties have always reflected social themes of perpetual importance. From the explorations of morality in Vampire: The Masquerade to the idea of balance in Mummy: The Resurrection, the World of Darkness is ripe with opportunities to engage with real-world issues. For the revitalisation of the IP, White Wolf decided to lean on this fact, rather than the brand recognition of Vampire: The Masquerade. As such, when Cyanide pitched a vision for Werewolf: The Apocalypse that homed in on the environmental themes and questioning of violence, White Wolf leapt at the idea.
“Not saying that Vampire can’t address burning contemporary issues, but holy s**t does Werewolf feel like the right story for our strange times,” Ericsson said. “The tagline for Werewolf is ‘When Will You Rage?’ It’s essentially a radical revenge fantasy where you become a savage warrior of nature, ripping oil-pipelines, corporate boardrooms and narrow-minded bigots to shreds. I think a large percentage of the world can relate to the anger and frustration the Garou feel as they watch us humans f**k up the planet. And on the flip side it asks the question ‘what’s the price of using violence to change the world’.”
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