DualShockers - Interviews

'We Need To Earn People Coming Over:' Smite 2's Gameplan To Retain Its Players

Jack Coleman — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 19:30:13 GMT

Among live service games, Smite is an interesting case study. It doesn’t have the popularity of the biggest MOBAs, like League of Legends and DotA 2, but has weathered a volatile decade in gaming, one where appetites for live service experiences have dwindled considerably. Despite these trends, Smite has attracted a dedicated and passionate community, a community which developer Titan Forge Games hopes will follow them to the newly announced sequel, Smite 2.

"I Don't Know How We Managed It:" How Fallout: London Succeeded Where Others Faltered

Robert Zak — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 19:30:17 GMT

The robustness of Bethesda’s mod tools for its games, combined with the neverending creativity of the modding community, is as endemic to the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series as Todd Howard, Pip-Boy, and Horse Armour DLC. But the freedom offered by these tools, along with the untethered ambition of modders, has led to many tantalising total conversion projects that fizzled out or are yet to see the light of day. It’s a mystery whether we’ll see Fallout: Miami and Fallout: Cascadia come to fruition, while the massive Morroblivion, Skywind, and Skyblivion projects have all been in development for over a decade.

We Got A Sneak Peek At The Remake A Cult Classic RPG From The 2000s

Robert Zak — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 22:45:29 GMT

Before the Elder Scrolls series became the all-conquering mainstream RPG that it is today, there was Gothic. Released in 2001, over a year before Morrowind came along, the original Gothic was, arguably, the first great 3D RPG, throwing you into a highly charged prison colony environment. You’d have to choose which faction to align with, each with its own intrigue and politics, which would drastically alter your path through the game, while NPCs had advanced AI behaviours that gave them daily routines and had them reacting dynamically to the things happening around them.

In A Packed Genre, The Lies of P Director Tells Us How His Game Hits Different

Samuel Woods — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:10:34 GMT

We're now on the precipice of the launch of Lies of P, a Korean-developed Soulslike focused on the storied tale of Pinocchio, seemingly by way of Yharnam. As with all games of the genre, there is an air of mystery around the title. Many questions remain about the game's setting, story and gameplay, and at Gamescom 2023 we sat down with Lies of P Director Choi Ji-won to answer at least some of them.

'We Have More Stories To Tell': Dave The Diver Creator On His Breakout Hit

Kyle Knight — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 18:00:26 GMT

With only a few months left in the year, Dave The Diver has popped its head up from under the water and cemented itself as one of this year's smash hits. It's the perfect blend of relaxation and adventure that has had me hooked from the moment I picked it up.

'We Made SSX 20 Years Too Early:' Creating A Successor To A PS2 Classic

Robert Zak — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 18:00:28 GMT

Just recently, I spoke to Steve Rechschaffner, the mastermind behind the legendary yet long-gone EA Sports BIG label, about those halcyon days when EA dabbled in sports games that let go of reality. Remember? Remember when sports games actually dared to be different?

What Happened To EA Sports BIG, EA's wackiest experiment?

Robert Zak — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 18:00:27 GMT

2001 was a vibrant time, a garish time. We were running around with Nokia 3310s with replaceable faceplates (I still remember owning a skull-themed one, with an impractical hologram over the screen obscuring everything I did). We were listening to the questionable sounds of Nu-metal—questionably procured off Kazaa—whose lyrics still find a way bubble up from the bowels of my long-term memory and belch out of my mouth sometimes. Christina Aguilera pioneered the low-slung jeans-and-whale-tail look much to the uncontrollable excitement of adolescents everywhere, and God knows what rags a 13-year-old me was trying to pass off as clothing back then.

Diablo 4 Devs Tell Us Why Season 1 Works The Way It Does, And They May Have A Point

Jack Coleman — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 18:01:26 GMT

Diablo 4’s Season 1 has begun and with it, the grind is officially back on. With the launch of Season of the Malignant, the community is diving back into Sanctuary once more to pursue new chase items, experiment with new builds and power through new content. Of course, all of this is being done with new characters. You won’t be able to access seasonal content with pre-existing characters, a decision that sparked some controversy among the community.

The Outlast Trials Devs Have Some Crazy Ideas For The Future Of The Game

Robert Zak — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:00:21 GMT

Each time I dive back into the Murkhoff Facility, the dystopian MK-Ultra style research lab where The Outlast Trials takes place, I’m amazed at how well it all just clicks. The excellent social hub, the balance between shallow-breathed suspense and co-op silliness, the unlikely performance polish for an Early Access game—from the cutscenes, to the sound design and graphics. It’s odd to say, but to me The Outlast Trials never had a right to be this good. Yes, the Outlast games has a strong legacy of commercial success, but they were very much ‘jump-a-minute’ ghost train rides, and by the time the second one came out, I for one had already had my honeymoon with the ‘run from things in straight lines’ genre.

Interview: Salad Fingers Creator Talks Making And Playing Games

Robert Zak — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 18:00:18 GMT

The early 2000s were a golden era in gaming, when the likes of Silent Hill 2, GTA 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker were propelling the medium in terms of storytelling, graphics, and open-world design, moving 3D graphics from their blocky infancy towards a level of verisimilitude that still resonates when we play those games today.