Was it daunting, breaking into a genre dominated by Bioware and Bethesda, and threatened somewhat by MMORPGs?

Personally I find it more motivational than daunting. It’s really fair competition and we are not “enemies” on the market, as there are very few good RPGs for players to choose from. Still, we do struggle to get the best reviews, scores and awards. I think we did really well because the genre tycoons grew a little overconfident and stuck to the old clichés. We had to come up with an idea for a new, fresh and modern RPG experience that would still feel familiar to Baldur’s Gate or Elder Scrolls fans. I think we were also a little faster in noticing that to compete with the more and more popular MMOs, you must offer a completely different experience. Many single-player RPGs still contain too many gameplay elements that are simply more exciting in a multiplayer game, like money grinding and random drops. Instead we focused on elements that just don’t play an important role in MMOs – a captivating storyline, meaningful choices, character interactions and emotions.​