Payload Studios explains why it decided to move away from open world survival crafting in TerraTech Legion

Fans of the TerraTech series were likely quite surprised when TerraTech Legion was unveiled at the PC Gaming Show earlier this month. The game, while still part of the wider series, is ditching the familiar open world survival crafting nature for more of a bullet heaven action style similar to what has become so popular thanks to games like Vampire Survivors. But why did developer Payload Studios decide to go in such a different direction with this game?

Recently, I spoke with lead designer Andy Harmon and senior producer Tom Page to learn more about the game and where its origins and newfound style came from. To begin with, Page explained that we can thank a game jam for TerraTech Legion, even if the many developers at Payload obsessed with Vampire Survivors played into it too.

Page started with where the idea came from, explaining: "A game jam, which is where most of these kinds of crazy ideas come from. So, yeah, as you said, we've been working on two quite similar games in terms of open-world survival crafting. And, you know, as a team of creatives, it's good to kind of... to basically dive into different areas. That's why we did the game jam at the beginning of the year.

"And this was, you know, this genre is a game that people within the studio, you know, love playing. You know, everyone's playing Vampire Survivors and Deep Rock Galactic. I think I remember when Vampire Survivors came out, everybody in the studio was playing it. So, yeah, I mean, those kinds of conversations probably started and kind of happened. And those seeds got implanted in your brain at that point, Andy. But, yeah, when we had an opportunity to kind of do something new, do a game jam, this is the output, really."

Harmon elaborated: "It's sort of the original seed of the idea, you know, really appeared when those genres really started exploding out, and it was like, well, you know, I just immediately saw some potential there. And what we were doing in the sandbox as, you know, allowing people to sort of customise their stuff, and the cross-pollination of that idea into this new genre that was up and coming, and we're like, wow, this just sort of like immediately starts to work in your head, with the pacing and stuff like that. So, yeah, it really took off from there."

You can see the full subtitled interview with Harmon and Page below, where we talk about designing a modular building suite, the roguelite nature, a potential console launch, and more.