Sacred 2 - Interview @ Gaming Nexus

Mario Kroll from cdv discusses Sacred 2 at Gaming Nexus:

As far as isometric RPGs go, Space Siege has been largely written off by critics as a failure, and Too Human has been raked across the coals likewise. How confident do you feel stepping out into this very chilly RPG climate?
I don’t think we’re seeing a “chilly RPG climate,” rather a “tired of the same” climate. That happens in every genre, and unless you’re really willing to bring something new to the table, gamers will be less than happy with you. So, with Sacred 2, we’re throwing all sorts of incredible features at gamers, and editors have noticed that the developers have raised the bar for fantasy Action RPGs once again.

First, there’s the online drop-in/out multiplayer, which allows the game to scale dynamically depending on the number and level of players. Start out by yourself, and the game sets the challenge appropriately. Then, as more friends drop into your game, it’ll make quests more challenging, adding more or more powerful monsters to encounters, making the bosses tougher, increasing the loot drops and unlocking unique party drop items only available during cooperative games.

Our online cooperative play will support 16 players on PC, and four players on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, which means you’ll always have plenty of room for a big exploration party. Game play on the PC will allow each player to view their own screen, while the console versions utilize a shared screen, with all four players lassoed together on one screen. You can even play on the same console with up to two players by plugging in an additional controller.

Also, our game world is hand-made, nothing procedural or random about it. So you have a massive 22 square miles both above and below-ground to explore. You’re going to get a massive amount of replay value out of Sacred 2, that’s for certain.

Since the game world is so huge, we allow for mounts, which are custom to each character type. The Seraphim, for example, rides a saber tooth tiger. The Shadow Warrior rides on the back of a Hellhound, the Dryad a giant Monitor Lizard, the Temple Guardian a giant mechanical wheel, while the Inquisitor rides a lethal giant spider. The mounts serve as both a means to travel more quickly, but also permit mounted attacks, including unique attacks for each type of mount. You can even upgrade and equip the mounts, giving them better armor.