Road Redemption Interview - Exclusive

Our string of exclusive content continues today with this Road Redemption interview, whose team (Darkseas Games) was kind enough to reply to our questions just in the last few hours of their Kickstarter campaign. Their main funding goal has already been reached, but there are many interesting stretch goals left (they will also have Paypal funding available soon). For those of you who are not familiar with the game, let’s just say that the idea is that of a spiritual successor to Road Rash, a racing/fighting game very popular in the ’90s.

Let me just introduce a small anticipation: you may notice that this article is fully in English. It’s effectively the first one in our process of going international with Worlds Factory: we have seen that our audience is composed of people from all around the globe and as such, we have decided to give them the opportunity to enjoy not only our interviews (which we used to publish in Italian & English), but also all our other interesting articles, ranging from news to reviews and opinion pieces.

We hope that you will decide to stay with us and join our community; by next week’s Wednesday, we plan to have everything translated in English, from menus to articles, even old ones. Now, without further ado let’s get to the interview with Darkseas Games!

 

 

WORLDS FACTORY: Thank you for being with us. Please, introduce yourself and your game to our readers!

DARKSEAS GAMES: We are the Road Redemption development team. Our team members consist of industry veterans from companies like Sega, Sony, Bioware, Gameloft, EA, Pyro Studios, Disney Interactive, 2K Sports, EA, and Lucasarts. More info on our team is available on our kickstarter page, so let’s skip to the good part: Road Redemption!

Road Redemption is our spiritual successor the the classic Road Rash games of the 90s. We intend to being the look and feel of the classic game into the 21st century using technology that just wasn’t available when Road Rash was first released. We also aim to bring back challenging gameplay that just isn’t available in modern, mass-appeal AAA titles.

 

WF: In your recent AMA session on Reddit, you stated that the game will have deep RPG-like elements in the single player campaign and you expressed your appreciation of games such as XCOM. Since we know that it is possible to recruit and upgrade gang members, does this mean that there is the chance to permanently lose them, like XCOM, thus making them more valuable and more important to protect?

DG: Some of your gang members will be critical to the story of the campaign and their fate may already be decided. Through the course of regular gameplay, it is likely that losing a gang member during a mission may result in an immediate mission failure.

 

WF: Speaking of the upgrade/progression system, you mentioned a skill system. Can you talk a bit more with us about it?

DG: As you progress through the single player campaign, you will discover various bikes and weapons of different types. Your ability to use these items will be based off your skills. As you progress in the game, you will be able to choose which skills on the skill tree to unlock. For example, using a heavier weapon may require “Super Strength” skill and attacking while accelerating would be more successful with a “Dexterity” skill. These are not set in stone yet.

 

WF: You seem to bet a lot of Road Redemption on the campaign. Is there going to be the chance to influence the story outcome through player choices, or will there be a fixed narrative going on to witness?

DG: While we would love to build an infinite world of options and outcomes, it’s just not realistic for our timeline. We plan to have a fixed narrative, and the player’s ability to to master the different aspects of the game (driving skill, combat skill etc) will decide how quickly the character moves up in the ranks.

That said, we’re really adamant about this game being a community project. We’ll be releasing our source, so if anyone wants to implement this, we think it would be really awesome.
WF: You said that in multiplayer, players will be able to play team based matches and that there will be ladders. I’m wondering if you plan to have a dedicated clan vs clan (or gang vs gang if you will) matchmaking system so that they can compete directly with one another, and maybe have tournaments/dedicated ladders?
DG: Multiplayer modes include free-for-all and team-based missions. We look forward to seeing Road Redemption gangs forming online, with their own unique gang insignia.

Online features also extend to the single player campaign. You can compete with your friends, via online leaderboards, to prove that you are the the most skilled combatant.

There will be built in matchmaking and dedicated servers. You will also be able to form a gang with your friends which will allow you to easily find each other online and join the same servers.

We will be discussing this with our fans to figure out what they want the most and what is possible.

 

WF: You’ve announced that the game might come to WiiU and Xbox 360 if the stretch goal is met, but what about next generation consoles like PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox? Also, do you plan to use DX11 features for the PC version?

DG: We would like to be able to give as many gamers the ability to the play the game with the best possible specs. That being said, we’ve talked about rolling out a X720/PS4 stretch goal, but there are still a lot of question marks about those systems right now. As for DX11, we would definitely like to include some of the cool new shader capabilities into Road Redemption. By using Unity 4, we will have that ability to do so.

 

WF: Why do you think there have not been any other revivals of this formula for so many years, and do you see EA following in your footsteps should your Road Redemption be very successful?

DG: Up until the last few years large companies have dominated the game market. Reviving retro favorites is a risky move for large companies like EA because people expect games from them with a multi-million dollar budget. The audience for this game, while sizable to we humble indies, is such a niche market that it wouldn’t give AAA studios anywhere near the monetary returns they could get for rebooting a game with mass appeal.

We can’t speak for what EA may or may not decide to do, but we do know that Dan Geisler still plans on making his own spiritual successor. Dan has been so supportive of our team over this last month. We wish him the best of luck and can’t wait to see what his vision is!
WF: Do you want to add anything more for the readers?

DG: We are humbled by the response we’ve had on this project and we can’t wait to share it with the community. We can’t wait to get the game into your hands and see how fans modify the experience once the source is released.

Since we have hit our initial finding goal we are now pushing towards our XBox 360 and Oculus Rift stretch goals. RoadRedemption.com will be live to accept PayPal donations as soon as the Kickstarter ends.