PCGamesN interviewed the game director of Tyranny about the sill system:

Tyranny's game director on its new skill system and creating "different shades of bastard"

Tyranny is a deceptive kind of game. At first glance, it looks like yet another entrant in the "what's old is new again" revival of classic RPGs that seem to be all the rage these days. But the time I spent with it at a preview event this weekend has proven that, underneath that layer of Infinity Engine nostalgia, Tyranny is a very different type of RPG. With a skill system reminiscent of Skyrim and a story that shrugs off the heavy mantle of fantasy tropes, Tyranny feels like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

 

During the event, I got to preview Tyranny's unique Conquest mode, which introduces you to the world by letting you conquer it. I also sat down with game director Brian Heins to talk about how Tyranny isn't here to pay tribute to an older generation of RPGs and what it means to be good in a kingdom ruled by bad.

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Obviously that's super telling in Tyranny's skill system. Can you run me through how that works?

This is something I wanted to do differently because I love skill-based systems for games, it's my favorite type of game to play. The way it works in Tyranny is you have different weapon, magic, and support skills. As you use those skills you gain experience, the more experience you gain the higher they rank and the more your character levels up. People who've played Oblivion or Skyrim will be familiar with that type of skill system. As you go up in level on your character, you can purchase attribute points that make your character more powerful, learn new talents that give you new abilities, and new passives that make your character more specialized.

So with the old class system so deeply ingrained in this type of RPG, why abandon it in favor of more freeform character progression?

It's my favorite type of RPG system to develop and it's like coming home for me to work on that type of game.

What do you love so much about it?

Class systems are great because you have defined roles that you know—if I'm playing a fighter, I know it's going to play a certain way. But oftentimes I want to make the hybrid, I want to make the fighter-cleric hybrid. I love living in that grey space in between the defined classes which is one of the things that a skill-based system allows you to do. You can create your own character. Whatever concept you have, by just focusing on the right skills, you can really make that character for yourself which allows you to roleplay the character the way you want to.

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