July 24, 2007

Loki's Joe Ryan delves into the mythos and game mechanics for Cyanide's title
By Michael Lafferty

"Loki's mythologies and graphics are wonderful, but what really matters is the body count!"

Mythology comes alive with the upcoming PC title, Loki. The game promises to immerse players in the legends of four ancient peoples while weaving a compelling story as a backdrop to the hack 'n slash role-playing adventure.

Developed by Cyanide Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive, Loki's features include:

• An epic adventure through four great mythologies – Aztec, Egyptian, Greek and Norse – allowing the player to live through many of the key episodes that mark these cultures (the siege of Troy, Ragnarok, etc.) and setting him in the path of the most prominent figures within each episodes (Achilles, Thor, Akhenaton,etc...).

• Choose from four different heroes with their own attributes and powers. Each hero has a vast array of spells and skills to help him in his quest.

• More than 100 beautifully detailed monsters of all shapes and sizes. Dare to take on mythological creatures that struck fear into the hearts of our ancestors, including Fenrir the giant wolf, the Minotaur in his labyrinth.

• Weapons, being made of two parts (loosely "handle" + "cutting edge") and from different materials, can be customized at the village forge to change characteristics. Magic runes can also multiply a weapon's wonder.

• Play the adventure with your friends as part of a group or take on others in PvP mode inside a dedicated on-line arena or dice with death by taking-up one of the on-line challenges.

Intrigued, GameZone wanted to know more and got in touch with Joe Ryan, PR Manager, for Cyanide Studios to chat about Loki. 

You seem to be mixing mythologies with this title. What is the underlying theme that ties it all together?

Joe: We have four mythologies in Loki (Aztec, Greek, Egyptian and Norse) and they are brought together by the ability of the god Loki to pass from one to the other. The gods of the various mythologies had made an age-old pact never to cross from one world into another. Seth breaks this pact in search of allies. The role of the player (in the guise of one of the four heroes) is to track Seth down and destroy him. The game starts in the mythology of the chosen hero, but after that there is no set route through the game.

Has the hack ‘n slash (dash ‘n slash) genre changed all that much since Diablo 2? And what is Loki infusing into the genre to give it a fresh feeling?

Joe: Since Diablo I and II, several studios have tried their hands at hack 'n' slash. However, most have tried to change the basic rules established by Blizzard. Why not, but did anybody really gain anything from it? Of course, they were looking to avoid comparison with the original, but change for the sake of change serves no purpose. With Diablo, we asked ourselves "what was your favourite hack 'n' slash?" The answer was of course "Diablo." So we set about establishing a list of all that we thought good and bad. Our aim was not to revamp the genre. Our aim was to go back to the good old days, when a hero and monster knew that their sole role was to fight it out. No questions asked! Most recent games lack the frenetic rhythm of Diablo where you take on dozens of enemies at a time. Loki's mythologies and graphics are wonderful, but what really matters is the body count!

In some games, though you have a variety of core characters to choose from, the leveling process is basically identical for each class with just different names. How do the classes differ in this game?

Joe: The basic characteristics of each character are totally different, so their gameplay is totally different. However each progresses through identical mechanisms. The Egyptian is magic-based; the Greek is a range fighter (using disks, bows and traps); the Aztec can change shape and spawn allies and the Norseman is an out-and-out fighter who revels in hand-to-hand combat. Each has three specific skill trees with 17 skills each (for a total of 51 per hero) and these are unblocked as the game advances, depending on whom the hero is worshipping at the time. There are four totally different experiences within the game.

Loki was accepted as one of the Aesir, and was considered the Norse god of mischief. Does a deity system play into the game or do players have to worry about factions or other personal attributes outside of profession skills?

Joe: The player will encounter numerous gods from the four mythologies, but there is no deity system or factional rivalry to worry about. Of course, during the course of his adventures the hero will learn, for example, that Hades is unhappy with his lot, but he doesn't have to worry about it. He just has to destroy Hades.

What engine does the game use and what did it enable you to do to give Loki a fresh look?

Joe: We used the Gamebryo engine. We use it on other Cyanide games, such as Cycling Manager so we’ve got a fair bit of experience with the API. It's powerful and flexible and it doesn’t impose any particular graphic style or display technology. This allowed us to do our own thing when required. For example, Loki’s lighting is very particular in that nothing is pre-calculated (lightmap or other). We strived to make the display of organic material such as cloth, leather… as realistic as for the metals. This sets Loki’s rendering apart from any other game. The clothes worn by the Egyptian hero (who is very much a magician) will have as much visual impact as the armour worn by the Norse or Greek heroes.

Moreover, the Gamebryo engine is multithreaded and uses the possibilities of a multi-core CPU. This will make the loading of levels (which are randomly calculated) happen much faster.

You have a wide range of monsters in this game. What was the inspiration behind their creation? Did you draw from pure imagination, or was there literary sources that inspired them?

Joe: One of the reasons for choosing mythology as the basis for the game was the rich source of characters it provided. Looking through the various monsters, it's fairly clear that the vast majority are directly inspired by a given mythology. We are bathed in stories from Greek, Egyptian and Norse mythologies from a very early age and we understand the references without too much difficulty. The Aztec world did prove more difficult. Maybe because we didn't know it as well or because there are less characters (or they are just too difficult to spell/pronounce).

What about environments … you are taking on some diverse character settings so how do the environments carry the themes?

Joe: We have four different mythologies from four different parts of the world so we've created close to 100 different environments ranging from deserts to jungles, beaches to icy mountains, with all the relevant architectural features thrown in. Egyptian Pyramids, Aztec temples, Norse villages and drakkars, Minoan and Trojan palaces… The settings are designed to carry the game, not just to serve as "eye candy."

Also, how does the sound track immerse players within the worlds you have created? How many lines of spoken dialogue are there and how much original music was composed for this title?

Joe: Loki has a really immersive soundtrack which is in tune with the mythology in which the player currently finds himself. There was more than 1h30 of original music composed for the game. As for recorded dialogue, we are somewhere in the region of 1,500 lines. The various actions are accompanied by more than 2,000 sfx sounds.

Does the game have any kind of multiplayer functionality? What kind of online support does the game have?

Joe: Loki offers several types of multiplayer experience. In all modes characters can be used from the solo mode or they can be created specifically for multiplayer. If a player chooses to play via Cyanide's GameCenter characters will be stored on a closed server. The various modes are

• Co-op : allows up to 6 players to live the Loki adventure together

• Duel : allows one-on-one fights with an online ranking system.

• Battle : allows team v team with up to 4 players on each side. There is no online ranking system.

• Challenge : allows the players to take on some of Loki's monsters in configurations that do not exist in the solo mode (several bosses, for example). Up to 6 players can take part.

What do you consider to be the best features of the game that will, initially, attract gamers, and then hold them?

Joe: There are plenty of features that will attract and hold players. We've seen from initial reactions that the multiplayer is a major success. The numbers connecting took us a bit by surprise and we had to ramp-up server availability overnight. Today, Loki far outweighs all our other games in numbers of players connected. Outside the various multiplayer modes, we expect the thousands of collectable items to motivate many players. We put special care into the graphics to have as many 3D representations of such things as weapons and armour. Some of the rare items are really spectacular ! And, of course, a player can visit the forge and take weapons apart; build new ones or reforge existing items with new metals. The skills system should also appeal to many people. Not only does the player have to make a trade-off between growing his XP versus his skills, but once skills are acquired, they have to be actively managed. There are few passive skills so there is plenty of work to adapt skills to the current opponent. And, of course, there is the random generation of levels to guarantee maximum replayability.

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