Game News Underworld Ascendant Prototype Gameplay Footage at PC Gamer and Polygon

[Infinitron]

Tags: Joe Fielder; OtherSide Entertainment; Paul Neurath; Underworld Ascendant

The last three biweekly updates for OtherSide Entertainment's Underworld Ascendant were not very interesting, and I had assumed that the much-awaited gameplay footage was still a ways off. For that reason, I was quite surprised to wake up this morning to discover that said footage had suddenly appeared on PC Gamer and Polygon.

At PC Gamer, Paul Neurath and narrative designer Joe Fielder were guests on the site's weekly livestreamed podcast, where they chatted with their hosts about stealth games, open world games, roleplaying games and Undertale, before finally getting to Underworld Ascendant at around 1:19:25. Polygon, meanwhile, just got the raw footage, so that's what I'll post here. The footage features a rather talkative female rogue-mage on a mission to steal some sort of Dwarven artifact, who finds herself pursued by a fearsome Shadow Beast. If you'd like a play-by-play description from the developers (and without the Polygon guy's annoying opening comments) I do recommend watching the PC Gamer stream as well. Anyway, check it out:

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Not bad for a game that's just seven months in development. For comparison, we saw our first serious footage of Wasteland 2 after ten months. I assume the voice acting in the final release won't be quite as...contextual.

 

[Metro]

 

[Metro]

Also, dat FOV.

 

[Junmarko]

"Created by some of the developers behind the original Ultima Underworld and System Shock, Underworld Ascendant is a dungeon crawler that seeks to give the player the ability to progress through exploration and experimentation, rather than scripted solutions."

So I'm guessing some of the developers that pushed exploration and experimentation have been absent during the development of Ascendent...

Also, what is with that horrid narration?

 

[Nyast]

For a game that has supposedly emergent gameplay, this looked awfully like a scripted sequence to me ...

 

[Bubbles]

Zep was right.

 

[Dyskolos]

This reminds me too much of driving somewhere using google maps's spoken instructions. Do you get a rerouting voiceover if you miss the light source?

 

[Bubbles]

This reminds me too much of driving somewhere using google maps's spoken instructions. Do you get a rerouting voiceover if you miss the light source?

Invisible walls, probably.

 

[Gord]

This reminds me too much of driving somewhere using google maps's spoken instructions. Do you get a rerouting voiceover if you miss the light source?

I guess that's more for presentation purposes than what will happen during normal gameplay in the final game. It's just a short showcase after all.
It would be cool to see alternative solutions for their emergent gameplay plans, however. Could a fighter take on that monster directly? Would I be able to lure it away and then come back to steal the stuff? Things like that. Nevertheless, I hope to see more soon.

 

[Infinitron]

The map is obviously designed to demonstrate this particular scenario, but I'd bet the underlying mechanics are not scripted. Even in the original Kickstarter pitch video they weren't entirely (eg, the spiders were actually following a rudimentary AI)

Could a fighter take on that monster directly?

According to the PC Gamer stream, yes. Maybe they haven't implemented that yet, though.

 

[Excidium II]

The map is obviously designed to demonstrate this particular scenario, but I'd bet the underlying mechanics are not scripted. Even in the original Kickstarter pitch video they weren't entirely (eg, the spiders were actually following a rudimentary AI)

It being completely scripted demo or not, it's still super linear (follow the non-physics lava to the big light source yay). They picked a really shitty scenario to showcase the game. Doesn't look Underworld-ish.

 

[taxalot]

The map is obviously designed to demonstrate this particular scenario, but I'd bet the underlying mechanics are not scripted. Even in the original Kickstarter pitch video they weren't entirely (eg, the spiders were actually following a rudimentary AI)



According to the PC Gamer stream, yes. Maybe they haven't implemented that yet, though.

Then they should refrain from showing anything. This could do more harm than good to the overall project. If it's not working, don't show how it's supposed to work. Show it when it's working. They have learned nothing from Molyneux.

This looked awfully like a Bioshock : Underworld to me. I am now legitimately worried.

 

[Infinitron]

It being completely scripted demo or not, it's still super linear (follow the non-physics lava to the big light source yay). They picked a really shitty scenario to showcase the game. Doesn't look Underworld-ish.

That chamber near the end where the Shadow Beast is killed seems like it opens up to more areas, though.

Then they should refrain from showing anything. This could do more harm than good to the overall project. If it's not working, don't show how it's supposed to work. Show it when it's working. They have learned nothing from Molyneux.

This looked awfully like a Bioshock : Underworld to me. I am now legitimately worried.

This is the "prototype build": http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...te-35-development-plans-lizardmen-vote.97688/

Prototype build sometime during Q4 2015.

Pre-Alpha build sometime during Q1 2016.
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So it's not even considered "pre-alpha" yet.

 

[Aenra]

This could do more harm than good to the overall project. If it's not working, don't show how it's supposed to work. Show it when it's working

We've also criticised them for failing to present any ingame footage. We need to decide where the balance lies i think
(and you can find my criticism on the UA thread)

It is very early to talk of 'linear' or of 'not looking like LGS'. It is also obviously a canned demo that most probably won't make it to release at all. Me, i'd stick with the details, what's there and what it could mean.

fake edit: ninjaed by infinitron

 

[Darth Slaughter]

I had a bioshock vibe too. The thing about the map is in the room with the artifact and the lava tree, if this game was made in the 90's, you would be able to go down there where the lava lake is, and you woul have a levitate spell and a protection against heat effect and you woul be able to walk on that lava. But I guess it's one of those cases that it will have an invisible wall that won't let you fall, or you'll die instantly if you fall and get a game over screen before you reach the ground.

 

[Excidium II]

This looked awfully like a Bioshock : Underworld to me. I am now legitimately worried.

Yeah lol. Actually it looks like every AAA game demo. Immersive slow camera pans and everything.

 

[taxalot]

I do get the point that they need to be able to show something, but I wish we had honest footage. This is far far worse than faked screenshots which only lie about the quality of the graphics but at least tell nothing of the gameplay.

I would have been happy with just a set of screenshots, and another series of "here's what we intend for you to be able to do" ramblings. This video sends mixed feelings to my brain : "You know it's bullshit, but it's okay, they can be trusted".

How many times have I been wronged that way ?

 

[Infinitron]

I had a bioshock vibe too. The thing about the map is in the room with the artifact and the lava tree, if this game was made in the 90's, you would be able to go down there where the lava lake is, and you woul have a levitate spell and a protection against heat effect and you woul be able to walk on that lava. But I guess it's one of those cases that it will have an invisible wall that won't let you fall, or you'll die instantly if you fall and get a game over screen before you reach the ground.

Going to copy-paste this directly to their forums and ask if that's the case.

 

[taxalot]

Yeah lol. Actually it looks like every AAA game demo. Immersive slow camera pans and everything.

The voice narration makes it awfully close to Bioshock Infinite. Have they explained if this is an actual feature or that it was specially added to add some rhythm to the video ? Because yes, there is NO way they will be able to record all kind of PC dialogs/inner thoughts to deal with every situation in the non-linearity they advertise and make it work enough so that it plays the current voice file with what's the player is doing. It sounds like an awful load of work for something that takes away the immersion they should be so proud of.

 

[Excidium II]

Yeah, the problem isn't bulshitting as much as not featuring what should be the strengths of the game. It should have enviroment interaction that looks like simple systems working together instead of some scripted one-off quest, a fake map showing a sprawling dungeon level, an overlook to some level below, monster factions fighting...etc.

 

[Turok]

Jajaja what a piece of shit.

 

[Infinitron]

That was quick: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=876.msg14948#msg14948

So to answer a few questions...

First of all THANK YOU. It is gratifying to hear that our core backers like the progress. General internet rumbling can be a bit discouraging.

We wanted to (a) keep the demo short and (b) really try to nail the concerns you guys had on look and feel. For that reason there is a lot of depth that you won't see until the playable around the end of the month.

We were playing with the Shadowbeast look and animations right up o just before ship so yes, this is an iteration, not a necessarily a final look. I think the way he fades between shadow-look and in-light look is pretty cool. Again you couldn't see much of that in the video but you will when you get to play around with him.

My primary job in all this was as the "Shadowbeast wrangler" aka AI designer/implementer so let me clarify a couple of points.

None of this was "scripted" in the sense that all of the Shadowbeast's actions were based on real AI. Again, you didn't really get to see him do his stuff fully, but his attacking the theif's torch was because he recognized a light source in the environment and responded to it. You also didn't get to see much of it but he hammers on the closed door and that, too, is dynamic recognition of something in the environment to react to.

Finally, if we could have spent more time in the big room you would have seen that he responds to light levels and will stop chasing you long enough to put out torches you light.

This is all the beginnings of that context aware AI we promised you and its working pretty well so far. We still have a lot of work to do though to make it easy for our level designers to use and to fill out responses.

Last comment, the voice over is not necessarily what will be in game at all. We wanted the video to be clear as to what was happening to people who knew nothing about UU and thought the VO was the quickest and most dramatic way to do it.

 

[Turok]

Yea sure and no one see me behind the lava right? i was there with a hammer waiting for the shadow guy.

"is dynamic recognition of something" is there but you cant see it, same with the pony.

 

[Raapys]

Looks like crap in all ways measurable by this footage.

 

[Sinatar]

That Shadowbeast looks like something from the boxart of a 90's GPU box.