Blades of Fire's director explains how the game's unique narrative works

Blades of Fire differs quite a bit from your usual fantasy action game in multiple ways, but one of the biggest departures from the formula that we're used to is the focus entirely on the perspectives of our main characters. We don't know anything that they won't know, and we don't have a narrator explaining the world tot us.

Game director and MercurySteam co-founder Enric Alvarez recently chatted with us about what that means for the game's overall story and how players interact with it. "This is a narrative-driven game," he said. "It might not look like, because of the freedom the game gives you, but it's a strongly narrative-driven game. And characters are the most important thing. Because you don't have a good story without good characters. So, when writing the story, we wanted to have a certain exposed narrative through cutscenes, other characters, etc."

"But we also wanted to have a kind of organic, if you want, narrative, depending on how proactive you are. The curiosity will drive you through important bits of the story." Alvarez explains that the narrative is largely split between what cutscenes will tell you, and what you can learn from your companion Adso, who is often researching the world as you explore it.

"And you can also talk with Adso, you can stop at any time and say, Hey, Adso, tell me about the forgers. Tell me about the hammers," he said. "All this requires your curiosity and active participation. There's a lot of narrative delivered in this way."

Check out more details on Blades of Fire in our full interview below: