Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Artistic Director right here at Thunder Lotus Video games. It’s an honor to fulfill you all to current our new sport, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus a couple of years in the past to move up a brand-new workforce constructing the studio’s very first on-line multiplayer title. Our purpose: to create an progressive multiplayer co-op expertise set in our signature immersive, hand-drawn artwork and animation fashion.
It’s been an extended journey to achieve that purpose, and I can actually say that we’re very pleased with what we’re revealing in the present day. However let’s take it from the highest!
At first… the one factor we knew was that we wished Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the muse for our sport world. To the uninitiated, “The Divine Comedy” is a 14th century Italian poem, a bonafide literary basic, and a private favourite of our studio founder and lots of members of our workforce. We had settled on our inspirational supply, however virtually all the pieces else concerning the sport was a clean slate.
The workforce and I started by deeply exploring the historic context, non secular symbolism, and mythology of “The Divine Comedy”, to tease out what we may convey into the universe of our sport. As epic as the story of Dante’s journey via the afterlife could also be, in an actual sense the important thing story in a multiplayer sport is the one gamers are creating in-game, on the fly. We would have liked to take the literary setting as a basis, upon which we’d create a world stuffed with unbelievable creatures and epic surroundings through which it could make sense to have many gamers preventing collectively.
Finally, we settled on our key concepts: what if gamers had been souls within the afterlife, condemned to everlasting punishment in Inferno? What in the event that they had been to insurgent towards their destiny, risking the Wrath of God within the course of? What if all the good characters of “The Divine Comedy” had been serving to them on their journey?
With the essential setting squared away, we bought right down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve all the time been fascinated by the big scale of raids and epic multiplayer missions present in MMOs. However the barrier to entry into raids – the required time funding, the preparation and apply – as a participant, I discovered this stuff to be a flip off. This raised the query: what if we made a sport that allow gamers soar into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the soar into every run as fast and seamless as attainable – to make this a “decide up and raid” expertise for… what number of gamers?
Admittedly, we didn’t determine on 33 right away. We started to prototype our sport with the thought of many gamers getting into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to combat a big boss. And as we had been beginning to contemplate constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I wished to pick out a singular quantity to hold our fantasy and world. “The Divine Comedy” has 100 chapters and is split into three main sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, every with 33 chapters! It was settled: 33 Immortals was born!
So, we tie all of it collectively: in 33 Immortals, you’re a renegade within the insurrection of souls, a soldier in a combat on your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – demise can and can occur usually (as can occur once you defy the Almighty). However gamers can optimize their builds to match their playstyle, mixing and matching weapons, perks, and chronic upgrades to steadily enhance their insurrection’s odds of success.
Every sport session ends with a large raid-like Boss encounter, difficult the rebels to cooperate to counter lethal assaults and defeat their gigantic opponent. Above all, 33 Immortals actively encourages gamers to collaborate all through the runs, to make sure that the biggest and strongest group attainable survives via to the boss fights.
There’s a lot extra to inform – however we have now a street forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Sequence X|S, Home windows PC, and with Xbox Sport Cross and PC Sport Cross in 2024. Till then, we’re inviting you to come back assist us make the sport as epic as attainable, by collaborating within the 33 Immortals Beta later this 12 months.
Head to www.33immortals.com to be taught extra. We hope to see you there!
