Interview Jason Anderson Interview

VentilatorOfDoom · Jun 26, 2012

Tags: Jason Anderson; Troika Games

Gamestar.ru interviewed ex-Troika Jason Anderson. Have a snippet.

We are very disappointed that the majority of the developers make us manage a no-name deaf-and-dump Chosen. Should the main character of the role-playing game be a «full-bodied» like Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Or it would be harm to identification of the player with the character?

Troika always believed the player should dictate the character they wished to create. This is modeled after traditional PnP RPG’s and we wanted to give the player that experience on the PC. We firmly belived that in order for a game to truly be an RPG, it had to be that way. However, after playing Planescape: Torment, one of my favorite games, I changed my opinion. I think there is room for both models. This all being said I believe pre-defined character’s work best in today's game environment. Contemporary games rely heavily on cinematics and pre-rendered assets making it much easier on production to go with the pre-defined character. It would be very difficult to create the variety of art necessary for someone to create their own character from scratch and also give people the in-depth interactions that they’ve become accustomed to.

So, Gamestar.ru is disappointed that some (older) RPGs didn't feature a fully voiced, set protagonist. Them russians are so whacky. It's not an RPG if you can't play a dwarven fighter-cleric, everyone knows that.