Underworld Ascendant - Interviews

PCGamesN interviewed Paul Neurath about Underworld Ascendant and the games industry.

Neurath emphasises the physicality of the environment; it’s a character you’ll be interacting with, a place you’ll become intimately familiar with.

“From the Underworlds through System Shock and Thief, one of the things we did that was very distinctive from a lot of games today was we created these very close and richly interactive spaces. You could reach out, there were things you could move or shift, or levers you could pull, or things you could jump on or swing on and ropes you could climb, there was a lot of rich interaction with the space around you, then you use that space and those kinds of interaction as part of solving any challenge or riddle you were faced with.”

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“One of the things which is great is that myself and other team members have been in the games industry for quite a long time now, and we’ve developed a community over the years. So I've worked pretty closely with Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts and Brian Fargo and others and so when we thought of Kickstarter, I went to these colleagues who had already done Kickstarters and they were very generous in providing insight and sharing what they would do if they had to do it again. So there really is this community.”

Garriott provided more than advice, it turns out, as Shroud of the Avatar and Underworld Ascendant are now inextricably linked through their fiction, just as Ultima and Ultima Underworld were. The Dark Elves from Shroud’s New Britannia travelled through a portal and found themselves in the Stygian Abyss, and Neurath also points out that players in Shroud will be able to find a Dark Elf shield that glows with a mysterious light if the player has a character in both games. It will glow “with the bond of friendship between the two worlds,” he says.

Then there is this interview with Chris Siegel about the game.

It had to be cut short, due to audio problems, but the complete audio file can be found here.

Thanks Eye