Project Eternity - Interview @ Hold The Line

Hold The Line interviews Obsidian co-founder and Narrative Designer Chris Avellone about Project Eternity.

Q: You guys have stated that Eternity will be a pretty mature and dark-themed game. Slavery, drug use, etc. Are you afraid that might turn off some potential fans, or cause some unintended controversy within the gaming media?

Chris: If it’s true to the story, we’re afraid of nothing. There are a lot of elements we’ve often wanted to explore in previous titles that we haven’t had an opportunity to do, and Eternity gives us free rein to deal with those subjects. We don’t include elements like these for shock value – if they fit in with the game’s themes and if they add weight to the player’s moral choices for the player, then they are absolutely worth adding to the world. Similar themes worked well in interesting ways in Fallout 2, for example, and seeing some of those same evils explored in Eternity from a different perspective is something we’re looking forward to - and that’s only a small part of what we have planned.

Q: Will Eternity allow players to explore companion storyline/quests like they might have experienced in Fallout: New Vegas?

Chris: Each companion is intended to have a storyline, background, and quest that either advances them, ties them to the game story, or ties them to the theme, and preferably, some combination thereof. It may not be exactly like the New Vegas quest structure (we go as far back as Torment internal quests and the KOTOR2 advancement arcs), but companions will have agendas and quests of their own. More on this will likely come out in the coming months (and it may change as the companions are fully fleshed out), although the specifics will likely wait until the players are actually playing the title.