Norwegian independent studio Red Thread Games, understood to players for experience titles like Dreamfall Chapters and Draugen, has actually reappeared to reveal their upcoming video game Dustborn. The video game, released by Quantic Dream, is Red Thread’s first effort at the action/adventure category.
Continue reading for the full edited discussion with Founder, CEO and Creative Director Ragnar Tørnquist, known for his work on the Dreamfall franchise along with Anarchy Online and The Secret World when he was still at Funcom.
Dustborn will be launched in early 2024 for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X.
What can you inform us about Dustborn? Dustborn is really various from the things we’ve performed in the past in some methods. In other methods, it is very alike what we’ve performed in the past, being a story driven single player game. This time it’s an action/adventure. There’s more focus on action, and it’s likewise a journey, which is extremely essential. It’s a video game about people. Our video games are very character driven, however this
game more so than any other, and we have actually mechanics connected into the relationship structure. You can affect individuals in your crew in various ways. In Dustborn, we’re constantly unexpected you by throwing you into brand-new things with no preparation whatsoever. However you can’t fail in this game. It’s everything about playing the way you wish to play and making the choices you wish to
make, and the video game will adjust and permit you to continue. This is a game about the language and the power of words. Pax, our protagonist, has actually powers tied to language. She can utilize what we call Vox or vocals in order to emotionally, physically, and psychologically affect individuals. When they’re arguing, she can essentially inform her team to shut up. And although they understand how our powers work, they are affected by it. This is a game about propaganda, about the power of language, for good and evil.
The crew has actually stolen something. They’re transferring an object. They’re gon na leave this country called Pacifica, which is essentially California, and go into the American Republic, and they’re going to transfer this cargo throughout all of America.
Does the rest of the team have powers?
Yes. Pax is not the only one with singing powers. One member of the team, for example, is emotionally vulnerable and often requires to generally develop a shield around herself in order to secure herself both physically and emotionally.
Another has the power to make the crew feel better. That helps Pax given that she has been harmed from whatever happened before the game started. Despite the fact that it’s not recovering her, it’s making her forget the pain.
The members of the team understand each other well, so there’s a lot of small talk throughout the game. Dustborn is everything about discovering who these individuals are, how they connect to each other, and how to affect those relations with the words you select throughout the journey.
Can you speak about how dialogues work in Dustborn?
Our dialogue system is developed on a great deal of the stuff we’ve carried out in the past. First of all, you have the ability to interrupt people. We can cut into a conversation. You can alter the direction of the conversation. People will keep talking if you don’t talk, so you have a way to sort of either sit back or simply leap in. Often that’s gon na have different results.
For example, when there’s an hourglass near the discussion choices, it implies that this discussion will eventually time out. You don’t need to say anything. In some cases that’s a great decision, which will, naturally, change particular things.
It will change the discussion options you have available. It will change the info you find out, and it will alter how individuals feel about you. Often stating the right and incorrect things will affect how they feel about themselves. We let this one time out, and after that the conversation continues without you.
Often, remaining quiet will also benefit as brand-new dialogue options open. We get a brand-new subject, in this case, discussing our favorite fast food. Discussion can also time out, so by waiting, I might have lost a few of those discussion alternatives also. But there’s no wrong method to do it. It’s simply that you alter the way you experience the story.
Will there be any method to examine the relationship status with your crew?
We have a UI in the game that we’re disappointing today, but that gives you more insight into their emotional state and how they feel about themselves.
I understand that music plays a very big part in the game. Is that appropriate?
Absolutely. Both as a bonding thing, for instance with a little singalong on the roadway, and in the gameplay mechanics.
Were the songs made specifically for Dustborn? This is our world, and it’s a very various world from the real life. We likewise desired the music to reflect that, and we wrote a great deal of tunes that are tied more to our reality in the game. The gameplay mechanics I mentioned belong to the crew impersonating a band to slip through the border. This is where it gets like a rhythm game. The important things here is that you do not have to be great. Dustborn will never ask you to ace this. This is simply a concern of playing; if you do badly well, you’re a bad band, and that’s the story. If you do not find this a great deal of fun, you’re going to only have to do it a number of times. However if you like it, then you can practice more.
You can try to end up being really, actually good at it. We want individuals to feel like this is just an enjoyable diversion unless you’re truly into it. In that case, you can make it a larger part of the video game. The video game will react to that if you do severely. If I do well the exact same thing, the game will integrate that into the story. It’s something you can pick up pretty rapidly, anyhow. By the way, this is where Dustborn comes from. It’s the name of the band.
The game is also formatted like a comic book. Rather of chapters, we have comic book concerns, each with a cover. We have more comics elements, too.
Are there puzzles in Dustborn?
We don’t truly do a lot of those in the video game. It’s more about setting up these entire dramatic scenes and after that letting you utilize the crew in whatever way you wish to use in order to get through it. Sometimes it will be harder, naturally. There may be several options to an issue, however we desire this to feel like an interesting narrative experience that constantly pushes you forward.
It’s more about how you decide to play it instead of you scratching your head and confusing out what’s happening. The story and the characters are always at the leading edge.
Is it possible to piss off some characters a lot that they would leave the team permanently?
The team will alter throughout the video game, although we are not going to put players in a scenario where they state the wrong thing and an individual leaves. All that things is part of the story.
The options you make are more about how individuals feel about them and how they feel towards you, which alters the discussion in the video game. But we were hesitant to do a thing where if you said something incorrect, they would leave.
By the method, the bus is an important part of Dustborn. You’ll spend a lot of time on the bus. Here players can do various things, such as interacting with the crew, building more of these relationships, or experimenting the guitar. You can constantly take your time when you’re on the bus. Simply take it easy. The bus and campfires are where we get to do more character exploration.
How is your version of America different from the real one?
It diverges starting at some time in the sixties or fifties. Both California and Texas have seceded from the nation and up in Canada, there’s been some modifications too. We are going to be covering all of this throughout the video game. The journey covers a vast variety of geographical areas, a great deal of intriguing surface, stories, and characters we get to satisfy.
What are the action components of Dustborn?
Like I said previously, the video game is about the power of voice which manifests itself in the action series too. This story is about relationships and dialogue and exploration, but it’s also about facing this authoritarian routine, and often you’re going to have to do that with weapons.
Fight is divided into 3 crucial features. One is the bat, which is a ranged and melee weapon. The second is the group who exist to assist you. Often you will be signed up with by 2, 3, or 4 crew members who exist to eliminate. And the last one is the power of weaponized voice. Regrettably, when we combat robots, that’s not gon na do us much good because robotics do not respond to language.
Fight is influenced by old-school brawlers like Streets of Rage or Teenage Ninja Turtles. We desire it to be hectic, visceral, fun, gratifying, empowering, and many of all, simple to get to grips with. While the combat system has a lot of different elements, you can just mostly resort to utilizing your bat and you got to survive it. Likewise, we have different difficulty modes for Dustborn. You can play in a more narrative mode, making fight really simple to make it through.
If you get knocked out, the crew will pull you up. The crew can likewise handle themselves quite easily, so you can let them do a great deal of the combating.
For individuals who might not wish to engage in battle, exists a method to play through Dustborn and avoid these battles?
No, you will still have to play them. However for one of the most part, as I stated, it’s not going to be extremely tough particularly if you set it on narrative mode. But I believe this game depends on the action too. It is a story about facing the opponents that are hunting the team throughout America, so we need some action to inform that story. That was always a challenge for this game. Are we going to be able to do something that engages individuals who are primarily narrative gamers who remain in this for the good story and the characters and also have them play the action? And I think up until now, screening has shown that people do appreciate it and it doesn’t feel too hard. It doesn’t feel too prohibiting. However you’re right. If you’re somebody who really doesn’t want any battle, then this game may not necessarily work for you.
Actually, there aren’t a lot of battle encounters in the game. I think there are about 10 in overall, so sometimes you can go an hour and a half without battling at all. Dustborn is mostly about checking out with excellent character interactions. It’s not a constant thing, and you can even prevent combat in a number of cases. If you ‘d rather escape, you can do that also.
I think most people are going to enjoy this, however yeah, this video game is not going to be for everyone, which was never our intent either. We wished to create something fresh and various and different and a bit crazy in a market where we have a lot of games doing the specific same thing, looking extremely alike.
I think it’s refreshing to get something that consists of all these gameplay modes, and we have not even shown you everything. There are certainly some features that we’re still keeping hidden. It’s been fun to make. It’s been a new obstacle for us, especially to craft the combat, since we’ve focused a lot more on storytelling and options and repercussions in the past. This time we’re going a route that’s much more about relationships and about action and the road trip. Again, it feels terrific to do something brand-new.
Are you checking out doing early access or some sort of feedback duration with the general public?
We’re not talking much about that, but Dustborn will not be an early gain access to game. There may be other ways for people to evaluate the game, but not like an early gain access to, as it doesn’t really make sense for a single gamer video game.
One of my buddies is a huge fan of your writing work. She wants to know if there’s anything more in the works for Draugen or if that story is done and dusted.
Dragon did OK. It wasn’t a substantial success for us, however we’re actually proud of it, and we have a story in mind. Ideally, one day we’ll get to the second part of that story.
Thank you for your time.