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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Ken Rolston on Reckoning

Coming out of retirement.

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GRTV sat down with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's lead designer Ken Rolston to discuss game design, how he came to work on Reckoning and lots more in this intriguing 14 minute long interview.

Ken Rolston is something of a legend in the industry having been lead designer on The Elders Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and after Oblivion he announced his retirement:

"When I finished Oblivion I believed I had done everything that could ever be done in role playing games. That's because I'm an idiot, but of course, I wanted to be a deadbeat again and I spent four months being a deadbeat doing a lot of travel.

Then Brian Reynolds and a lot of people from Big Huge Games, old friends from the live action role playing set said: Hey, we're doing a role playing game... and I wanted to get involved."

At Big Huge Games Rolston and his team worked for two years on a major RPG that was meant to be published by Big Huge Games' owners at the time - THQ. But they pulled the plug:

"We developed a very charming game, that will never see that light of day - he says tragically - but the good thing is we managed to hook up with 38 Studios who just happened to have R.A. Salvatore and Todd MacFarlane who are not slouches at what they do."

Speaking about R.A. Salvatore and the fact that Ken Rolston arrived at a point in time where the world and universe in which the game would take place he had the following to say.

"It was a relief in the sense that I had to get over my own pride thinking that I'm one of the greatest setting and scene designers of all time. And having the bitter pill of having R.A. doing something a little bit better than I can do."

Needless to say, this is an interview you don't want to miss out on.

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