Chronos: Before the Ashes - Interview @Gamingbolt

Gamingbolt spoke with the devs of Chronos: Before the Ashes about the combat structure, progression, and more.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is itself an overhauled version of 2016’s Chronos, so how much have you had to go back and change and add things to the story, given the fact that Before the Ashes is a prequel to Remnant?

John Pearl, Design Director: The story of Remnant: From the Ashes picks up just a month after the end of Chronos. We very intentionally followed the story and lore we set up in Chronos as we developed Remnant. This meant in Remnant, we expanded on the ideas and fleshed out elements from the world of Chronos. Sticking closely to this established lore meant we didn’t have to change much post Remnant except for a few dates on some journal logs and give things official names. An example of this would be the World Stones. We never specifically called them anything in Chronos, but we officially named them in Remnant, so we went back to make sure they were named properly.

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Chronos: Before the Ashes’ combat has been described as “unforgiving and brutal”. The same could probably also be said for Remnant: From the Ashes, which also adopted a Souls-like structure in many ways. How much does Chronos have in common with Remnant in those regards?

Pearl: With Chronos, much like Remnant, the game was heavily inspired by Dark Souls and Bloodborne. One of the big differentiators between Chronos and Remnant, is Chronos is entirely focused on melee combat. Similar to Remnant and Dark Souls, you’re never taking on hordes of enemies, unless of course something went terribly wrong. Each encounter is meant to pose a challenge to the player as one wrong move can leave you open for an attack, and like Remnant, your healing options are limited.

The combat, however, is never meant to feel like a slog. Much like Remnant, we designed the combat to be challenging but we give you a lot of tools that once you master them, you can always remain in control of a combat encounter. In fact, fans of the combat of Darksiders 3 will find a lot of similarities with the combat in Chronos. The moment to moment combat is built around perfectly timed dodges and parries followed up by powerful arcane counters. The combat isn’t supposed to be as flashy as Darksiders since you’re just a human from a remote island and not a Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Unlike Dark Souls games, we do offer difficulty settings. We really love the world and lore of our games and want as many people as possible to experience all of the story and cool moments we packed into the game. We offer an easier difficulty which is balanced to allow a player to get through the game’s story without punishing them. On the other end of that, we offer a hard difficulty that should feel closer to that “brutal” difficulty Souls fans look for in a game.

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