Let's talk about your new game. It promises to be visually richer, as it is developed on the basis of Unreal Engine 4. Are there any plans for cutscenes or the narration will be conducted only through dialogue means, as in The Age of Decadence?

Only through dialogues. Animating numerous cutscenes would require resources we don't have. Apparently, Bioware doesn't have them either.

What are your inspirations for creating The New World? Aside from Orphans of the Sky, obviously.

Assorted 50's sci-fi from Asimov's Foundation to Van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher and Aldiss' Non-Stop.

There will be 12 potential party members in The New World. Even if we consider that we will not meet all of them during a single playthrough, it's quite a lot. How much will they be integrated into the plot?

A lot compared to what and why?

Anyway, first and foremost, the party members are mortal and expendable, so you'll need extra companions in case you start running out. You'll get up to 3 out of 4 characters in the starting town (the Pit) to make sure you get all the help you need, the rest as you explore the ship. While they won't be as one-dimensional as Dungeon Rats' companions, they won't have tragic backstories, childhood issues, or personal quests of self-fulfillment. Their job is to watch your back, occasionally backstab you or to keep you in check, and affect your options.

Most party members will be "unlocked" via exploration and side quests, a couple will be provided by factions.

There are mutants planned to be among the party members. Will they have any abilities that are inaccessible to ordinary people?

No. Our mutants aren’t Fallout-like super soldiers but outcasts and that’s what we’re focusing on.

How will the faction reputation system work? Basically, in old games, if you were performing a task for a rival force, it would mean that all the NPCs in the location became "red" and started attacking you, which is pretty stupid and primitive. Will The New World use a different approach? Maybe they'll send an assassin for you or try to punish you in some other way?

We’ll continue developing concepts we used in AoD. Working for a faction will slowly reduce your reputation with the rival factions, reducing your employment opportunities and eventually reaching a point demanding actions (attacking your base of operations, sending bounty hunters after you, etc).

In AoD we hesitated to go too far as such actions would mean instant death for non-combat characters but the party setup offers more flexibility when it comes to the “righteous infliction of retribution”.

In one of the updates you wrote about new hit system in The New World. Can you give a detailed explanation about how it works.

Instead of rolling for passive and crits separately (like in AoD), we'll go with a single roll and 4 outcomes:

• Miss
• Graze (half damage)
• Hit
• Critical Hit (damage X modifier, which is 1.25 (default) + feat bonus)

Basically, something like this:

• 1-5 critical hit
• 6-70 hit
• 71-80 graze
• 80-100 miss

By default CS range is 5 and Graze range is 10, but they can be modified by certain weapons and attacks. For example, a shotgun would have a much wider graze range than a pistol.
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