RPS: Depths of Peril: It’s an obvious question to ask first, I know, but where did the idea of it come from? How long have you wanted to do something like this? Why did you decide it should be Soldak’s first game?

Steven: Well I’ve wanted to create an RPG for ages. Soldak’s first game simply had to be an RPG, because I had to make one. For any other upcoming developers I wouldn’t suggest making an RPG as your company’s first product however. They tend to be way more complicated than you realize. Of course, part of this was deciding not to make a simple clone. Even though I’ve wanted to make an RPG for ages, I didn’t think of some of the key things for Depths of Peril until shortly after I left Ritual. Exactly what RPG I have wanted to do changes depending on what exactly the circumstances are: like what engine is available, the game’s budget, what the distribution will be, etc. For example, not too long before I left Ritual I pitched an RPG that would have been very tense, as scary as possible, and first person. In other words, it would have been nothing like Depths of Peril.

I don’t think I even remember where all of the ideas came from for Depths of Peril. I just wanted something that was fundamentally different than other action RPGs. I didn’t want to create just another clone. I think I decided to add multiple factions fighting each other first and the dynamic world followed because it just made sense. I mean what happens if you have a static world and an enemy covenant goes and kills one of the bosses? It seemed to me that the world needed to be dynamic or I was going to have to make the covenant’s not really impact the world any. So like I said it just made sense.​