1Up has just concluded a solid week of coverage on the action-RPG Hellgate: London. The coverage combines previews, in-game footage, interviews, developer profiles, and Diablo retrospectives into a massive look into the game and the people behind it.
<blockquote>1UP: What's up with people trying to shoehorn the game into different categories, and seeming to miss the idea that it's just an action-RPG? [. . .] Except everybody wants to say, oh, it's a first-person shooter, or it's an adventure game...what's going on there? Why do you think that's happening?
BR: People like to have easy ways to describe things. They want that five-second marketing bullet. And I think when you start breaking outside of those boundaries and designing something that is outside of the box, they still want to have a label for it. And it gets harder and harder to put a label on it. I remember we used to have religious arguments that would be occurring in the press and the fanbase over Diablo II about "is this really an RPG or not." And there'd be all this discussion why it was and why it wasn't.
And we think we're going to have a lot of those same types of arguments occur. What is Hellgate? Is it an RPG? Is it an FPS with RPG elements? Is it an RPG with FPS elements? And then there's the whole online scope of it as well. What is it online? Is it this, is it that? And it's the kind of thing where we just want to make a fun game. [. . .] It is what it is is maybe the easiest way to describe it, but that looks really crappy on the back of a box or in a marketing call-out. Hellgate: London: It is what it is...
We always pitch it as it's an action-RPG. That's what it is at its core. But then it has a lot of other layers and elements that we really do think are going to be attractive to other gamers.</blockquote>The coverage also extends to the most important element of all: loot.
Link: A week of Hellgate: London at 1Up.
Spotted at RPG Watch.
<blockquote>1UP: What's up with people trying to shoehorn the game into different categories, and seeming to miss the idea that it's just an action-RPG? [. . .] Except everybody wants to say, oh, it's a first-person shooter, or it's an adventure game...what's going on there? Why do you think that's happening?
BR: People like to have easy ways to describe things. They want that five-second marketing bullet. And I think when you start breaking outside of those boundaries and designing something that is outside of the box, they still want to have a label for it. And it gets harder and harder to put a label on it. I remember we used to have religious arguments that would be occurring in the press and the fanbase over Diablo II about "is this really an RPG or not." And there'd be all this discussion why it was and why it wasn't.
And we think we're going to have a lot of those same types of arguments occur. What is Hellgate? Is it an RPG? Is it an FPS with RPG elements? Is it an RPG with FPS elements? And then there's the whole online scope of it as well. What is it online? Is it this, is it that? And it's the kind of thing where we just want to make a fun game. [. . .] It is what it is is maybe the easiest way to describe it, but that looks really crappy on the back of a box or in a marketing call-out. Hellgate: London: It is what it is...
We always pitch it as it's an action-RPG. That's what it is at its core. But then it has a lot of other layers and elements that we really do think are going to be attractive to other gamers.</blockquote>The coverage also extends to the most important element of all: loot.
Link: A week of Hellgate: London at 1Up.
Spotted at RPG Watch.