make sense to have five choices that
turn into two different outcomes. So
every choice has an impact.” In some
cases that impact will be slight, like
a simple reaction from a companion
to something you’ve said or done. In
other cases it can be huge, like the
loss of a companion, either through
them leaving you or their death.
You can even make certain political
factions disappear.Means to an end
With a lot of modern RPGs it’s possible
to continue playing once you’ve
finished to tie up loose ends, but this
isn’t something that the studio wants
for Greedfall. “The game will have a
real ending,” says Rousseau. “I think
that in most games where the story
ends and you let the player just roam
the universe, most of the time all
that is remaining is fetch-quests. As
we didn’t want any of those types of
missions it didn’t make sense to let
the player continue after the climax
has been reached. It was a design
choice, and I think based on the story
we wanted to tell it was the only
logical one.”
Many countries have experienced
colonialism, and it’s always been
difficult and often terrible and bloody.
The realities of this are touched upon
in the game. “Of course there are
some historical inspirations, but we’re
not historians,” admits Rousseau. “We
have no ambition to create a historical
game. We wanted to tell different
stories in a fantasy universe but some
are, of course, inspired by real things
that happened.” This includes themes
of xenophobia against the indigenous
population. It’s not so much about the
colour of their skin or gender though,
it’s more to do with their connection
with nature and that they display a
whole different culture. “We’re not
here to lecture people, but we want
something that is consistent and that
each player can believe in, so, yeah,
of course we’re also going to talk
about colonialism and xenophobia,”
says Rousseau.
Greedfall is an impressive feat,
given that it’s only taken 40 or so
developers to make it. A fantasy RPG
of this scale and ambition should
warrant a much larger production
team, but Spiders has managed
something magical. QWhen we last saw Greedfall back at
last year’s What’s Next event from
Focus Home Interactive, we were
surprised at the ambition for the game
given its small dev team. Returning
to this year’s event, we can see that
developer Spiders has used that
time to polish the game to give us an
enthralling 17th century fantasy RPG.
Malichor, a sickness of the blood,
plagues your homeland, and your
mother has fallen ill. In your search
for a cure to this deadly disease you
discover the island of Teer Fradee,
home to mysterious natives who are
magically intertwined with nature.
Colonisation is in full swing, and
you’ve been tasked with forming
diplomatic relations with the five
factions that now populate the island.
The main conceit for Greedfall
is freedom of choice and there are
many ways for you to tackle any
given situation, be it how you enter
a building during a mission or how
you resolve interactions with other
people. “We had to do a month’s
worth of recording because we really
wanted to give the player lots of
different choices and consequences
to those choices,” explains Spiders
CEO and Greedfall lead writer Jehanne
Rousseau. “We don’t want to propose
different choices to the player that
will have no impact. It just wouldn’tA linguist was hired to create the native language of Teer Fradee, and it incorporates Gaelic
Greedfall
Unite the land or dominate its
people, the choice is yours in
this enchanting fantasy
Adam Bryant
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE DEVELOPER SPIDERS
ETA SEPTEMBER 2019DUMAS
EFFECT
As well as being
inspired by RPGs from
BioWare, such as
Mass Effect and
Dragon Age, lead
writer Jehanne
Rousseau also took
inspiration from
many books and TV
shows. including
Shakespeare, The
Three Musketeers and
even Game Of
Thrones. “The political
aspect of Game Of
Thrones was in my
mind when I wrote
some of the
characters and
thought about all the
diplomatic
relationships with the
different factions,”
explains Rousseau.
“We wanted to give the
player different choices
and consequences”
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