Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Interview @ Twinfinite

Twinfinite interviewed the creative director of Owlcat Games - Alexander Mishulin - about Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous:

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Interview: New Gameplay Changes, Better Tutorials, & More

There have been many isometric RPGs in recent years that have echoed the design of the genre’s late-1990s heydey, but none of them are quite like Owlcat Games’ Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Designed with a philosophy that adheres more strictly to the pen-and-paper ruleset it’s based on, Kingmaker is an extremely faithful video game adaptation of a TRPG. This has won over a substantial fanbase of passionate players, though it’s also guilty of isolating others as a result of its often daunting depth and lack of solid tutorials.

Now, the studio is planning an even grader sequel called Wrath of the Righteous, but they’re intent on learning from past mistakes and producing something that’s both a complete TRPG experience and more accessible to newcomers.

To get the gist of how Owlcat Games is approaching the development of Wrath of Righteous, Twinfinite spoke with the studio’s creative director, Alexander Mishulin.

Alex: While Pathfinder TRPG players would have been in their element, Kingmaker wasn’t the most accessible isometric RPG at launch. Are there plans to make Wrath of the Righteous easier to understand and less intimidating this time around or are you committed to designing Wrath of the Righteous first and foremost around the TRPG ruleset in the same way?

Alexander Mishulin, Creative Director at Owlcat Games: While making Pathfinder: Kingmaker two of our main goals were to expand the pen-and-paper experience to the CRPG, and also to revive the great old school hardcore CRPG experience, the one we grew up on ourselves.

While we succeeded at it and received good feedback from the hardcore audience, we understand that the huge Pathfinder system ruleset was left tricky and unclear in many ways for the new players unfamiliar with the tabletop game.

We want to fix that in Wrath of the Righteous, to make it more approachable to the players, to explain the rules better and make situations that are difficult (in terms of rules) more easy to understand. And of course, we are leaving space to think and explore, and providing opportunities to learn for those of the players who want it.

To make it so, we decided to develop not just some special tutorial, but a whole new learning curve system that spans through the whole game and helps the player in a number of ways, and is on hand anytime they need it. We are making this system non-intrusive, so the players who prefer a bit more old-school approach can play in the way they love so much.

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