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Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy
HQ
Answer The Call (Gamescom) - Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy Interview with Microids Studio Paris
We spoke with producer Baptiste Taborin to learn all about this upcoming remake of the famed adventure classic.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor. We're currently in the Microids booth and, well, just had a look at seeing a bit of Amazon and I'm here right now with Baptiste, one of the developers involved with the game, so you're going to tell me a little bit about the game, a little bit about the things that maybe I'm not so knowledgeable about. So tell me Baptiste, first of all, what is Amazon? What is this? What is this sequel that we're doing here and why should people be excited for it? So the Amazon is like the faithful remake of an old-school game, like, it's been like 25 years ago you released, so it's a basically an old-school point-and-click game where you incarnate a young French journalist going through an old country called the Amazon in South America, where you have to follow the steps of an old mad scientist who stole an egg 60 years ago and you have to bring it back. So this is a game about the environment, the decline of a dictatorship, and it's also a story about a redemption. And tell me a little bit about the process of taking a game like Amazon that people, some people might be familiar with obviously because it's sort of a remake of it, and then bringing it forward to the modern day like this, what sort of steps have you taken to preserve the original experience? So the first thing, we as a team work really closely with the former creator of the game, Benoit Sokal, who unfortunately passed away two years ago."
"And so we are like the bearer of his heritage, and we've been working with him for more than 10 years, especially our lead writer, and so we decided to take over the game to make a proper remake by keeping the core of what made the first game. I mean, we have the same story, we have the same puzzles, but we wanted to do something that was for the first gamers, but also for the newcomers, because it's an old-school game, it's very hard, it's very, it doesn't have the same quality of affordance that we now require. So we bring more lore to keep the player more interested in the discovery, in the exploration. We bring more environmental storytelling by the quality of our art, which we are focused to keep the same level as our previous game, Cyberia, for the world before. And also we decided to bring more affordance by the designs. So we have new puzzles, we have a new level of information, and a difficulty level to help players address the puzzles, and I can assure you the game is very good, very playable, very nice. Yeah, I guess that's something that people don't talk enough about when it comes to remaking these older games. Quite frankly, the way we play games has changed a lot, so I can see why that's something you prioritize. But tell me a little bit about the way that you've incorporated puzzles, and what can players be expected to be doing in Amazon? So we kept the first puzzles, and we work on it, find new ways to improve them, add more interactions, more information to complete them, make the first player find again what they loved at the first game, but also for the newcomers, and also for the first players, so find again what they loved, but also have more things for them to discover. So this was the base of the game. Then we decided to add more complexity, more interaction, more mechanism, because we are also following the heritage of Cyberia series, where we are very focused on mechanism. But since we are in the jungle, we focus more on the tribal aspects of the puzzles, so it was a delight to make some research, find the way they work, because it's very important to make sure we respect the tradition, the culture of South Americans, the Indians. And so we worked on that, we made the puzzles, we tested them, of course, and we made sure by communicating with the family of Benoist Cal, who has the privilege to keep his heritage going on, to make sure that everything suits what Benoist would have loved."
"And we've seen in various other remakes that sometimes there's a bit of creative liberty with obviously bringing a control scheme to what players kind of expect in the modern day. Why have you decided to retain the sort of point-and-click strategy? So, first, we think that we need to keep the movement system, which is part of the DNA of the first game. It's a strong choice, a dangerous one, some may say, but we think that we can, and we have, add more layers through design to make sure that it's very pleasant and it feels modern. So we've added what we call body awareness, the sense to have a body, to be part of the world, so it's more immersive. And also we use it as a camera, so you are a witness of what's going on in this country. So this movement is very right. And also we should point out that Amazon is not a hidden objects game. This is basically the problem with very old games where you have to find the correct pixels. And with this system, it eases the experience. You may find it like on this other game, maybe you've heard of it, Riven, which decided to have like a free movement system, and it's very nice, but it makes things harder because the first game wasn't thought to move around to places where you don't have interactions with the game. So we decided that, and actually we are quite pleased. And then as a final question Baptiste, when Amazon does eventually make its debut, what's something you're really excited for players to experience for themselves?
The immersion. It's all about the immersion. We have great graphism, we are very proud of our artistic direction, we think that at the same time we respect the first game, and on the other hand, it's quite wonderful. Our design team made a wonderful job to make you feel that you are inside the jungle, in a volcano, in a swamp. We play with a lot of creatures, we made funny little creatures like Benoit Drow in the past, and also we have the pleasure to still work with Inon Zor, an American composer, and he did very great. One final thing then, when can we expect to be playing Amazon and on what platforms? So the game is expected to be to release in November on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC with Steam, GOG, and Epic. Well there you have it, there's a little bit about Amazon. You want to stay tuned for this one because it's very interesting and it's definitely going to be something for those who enjoy a bit of a mystery and a bit of a puzzle. So yeah, stay tuned for more on Amazon, on your local Game Rector region, and the same as well for more Gamescom content. Until then, thank you for watching."
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