Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Inventive Director right here at Thunder Lotus Video games. It’s an honor to satisfy you all to current our new sport, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus just a few 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 modern multiplayer co-op expertise set in our signature immersive, hand-drawn artwork and animation model.
It’s been a protracted journey to succeed in that purpose, and I can actually say that we’re very happy with what we’re revealing immediately. However let’s take it from the highest!
To start with… the one factor we knew was that we needed Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the inspiration 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 nearly every part 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 might carry 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 wanted 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 might make sense to have many gamers preventing collectively.
Ultimately, 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 all the way down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve at all times been fascinated by the large scale of raids and epic multiplayer missions present in MMOs. However the barrier to entry into raids – the mandatory 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 permit gamers leap into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the leap into every run as fast and seamless as attainable – to make this a “choose up and raid” expertise for… what number of gamers?
Admittedly, we didn’t determine on 33 immediately. We started to prototype our sport with the thought of many gamers coming into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to battle a big boss. And as we had been beginning to think about constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I needed to pick out a novel 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 revolt of souls, a soldier in a battle on your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – loss of life can and can occur typically (as can occur whenever 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 revolt’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 highway forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Sequence X|S, Home windows PC, and with Xbox Recreation Move and PC Recreation Move 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 yr.
Head to www.33immortals.com to study extra. We hope to see you there!