Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Creative Director right here at Thunder Lotus Games. It’s an honor to satisfy you all to current our new sport, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus a few years in the past to move up a brand-new workforce constructing the studio’s very first on-line multiplayer title. Our objective: to create an revolutionary multiplayer co-op expertise set in our signature immersive, hand-drawn artwork and animation model.
It’s been a lengthy journey to succeed in that objective, and I can actually say that we’re very proud of what we’re revealing immediately. But let’s take it from the prime!
In the starting… the solely factor we knew was that we wished Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the basis for our sport world. To the uninitiated, “The Divine Comedy” is a 14th century Italian poem, a bonafide literary traditional, and a private favourite of our studio founder and plenty of members of our workforce. We had settled on our inspirational supply, however nearly every thing else about the sport was a clean slate.
The workforce and I started by deeply exploring the historic context, spiritual symbolism, and mythology of “The Divine Comedy”, to tease out what we may deliver into the universe of our sport. As epic as the story of Dante’s journey by the afterlife could also be, in a actual sense the key story in a multiplayer sport is the one gamers are creating in-game, on the fly. We wanted to take the literary setting as a basis, upon which we’d create a world full of unimaginable creatures and epic surroundings in which it will make sense to have many gamers preventing collectively.
Eventually, we settled on our key concepts: what if gamers had been souls in the afterlife, condemned to everlasting punishment in Inferno? What in the event that they had been to insurgent towards their destiny, risking the Wrath of God in the course of? What if all the nice characters of “The Divine Comedy” had been serving to them on their journey?
With the fundamental setting squared away, we received all the way down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve at all times been fascinated by the monumental scale of raids and epic multiplayer missions discovered in MMOs. But the barrier to entry into raids – the obligatory time funding, the preparation and observe – as a participant, I discovered these items to be a flip off. This raised the query: what if we made a sport that allow gamers soar into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the soar into every run as fast and seamless as doable – to make this a “pick up and raid” expertise for… what number of gamers?
Admittedly, we didn’t determine on 33 right away. We started to prototype our sport with the thought of many gamers coming into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to combat a gigantic boss. And as we had been beginning to think about constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I wished to pick out a distinctive quantity to hold our fantasy and world. “The Divine Comedy” has 100 chapters and is split into three main sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, every with 33 chapters! It was settled: 33 Immortals was born!
So, we tie all of it collectively: in 33 Immortals, you’re a renegade in the insurrection of souls, a soldier in a combat on your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – demise can and can occur usually (as can occur while you defy the Almighty). But gamers can optimize their builds to match their playstyle, mixing and matching weapons, perks, and chronic upgrades to steadily enhance their insurrection’s odds of success.
Each sport session ends with a large raid-like Boss encounter, difficult the rebels to cooperate to counter lethal assaults and defeat their gigantic opponent. Above all, 33 Immortals actively encourages gamers to collaborate all through the runs, to make sure that the largest and strongest group doable survives by to the boss fights.
There’s a lot extra to inform – however now we have a street forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass in 2024. Until then, we’re inviting you to return assist us make the sport as epic as doable, by taking part in the 33 Immortals Beta later this yr.
Head to www.33immortals.com to study extra. We hope to see you there!
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