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Blades of Fire
Forging a New World - Blades of Fire Interview with Enric Alvarez
We chat with MercurySteam's co-founder and the game director on Blades of Fire about this exciting new action game.
Audio transcription
"If you could, just maybe a quick elevator pitch about sort of Blades of Fire, why people should be excited about it and what they can expect from it.
Okay. Blades of Fire is an action-adventure game where you are in a world where steel turns to stone by the spell of a witch.
So you are the hero and you have a problem because there's no steel for you to fight against the Queen's hordes of enemies which they can carry steel."
"Very conveniently, a hammer appears in your life and poses a number of questions because why you are given this thing?
Who are you in reality? And it seems that you have something personal in this adventure.
So yeah, I mean, we wanted people, confront people in front of a fantasy, a dark fantasy universe where steel turns to stone and you have to build your own gear, your own blades."
"So I think that people can expect a very long, meaty and lush world and fantasy with a lot of twists and turns in the story.
It's a narrative-driven game and at the same time it's a game that gives you a lot of space to explore and to find your way.
So yeah, I think it's a very intense single-player experience.
You were talking there about the narrative. I was really interested in that because it seems almost like a myth, something that's come out of a fable or something like that."
"Do you have any specific inspirations for narratives?
Hmm.
It was all ours.
The seed that gave birth to everything, narrative and gameplay, was the steel turning into stone there."
"That was the origin of everything.
So I'd like to say that we are 50% game developers and 50% storytellers.
And you never know when, you know.
So there's not a fight, but there's a constant interaction between both sides of things."
"In the case of Blades of Fire, both the narrative and the gameplay grew up together because the seed was a common thing.
It was the steel turned to stone.
So we created the story, we wrote the story based on that and we developed the gameplay in the forge, of course, based on that.
So I think that they both share a common source."
"Of course, I mean, you always are influenced by the books you read and the movies you saw.
In that aspect, I always mention Excalibur from John Boorman as one of the movies I like to mention.
Believe it or not, Lady Hawk is another one.
We took a few inspirations from that movie."
"The fantasy movies from the 80s, possibly 80s and 90s, were a source of inspiration for us.
Something that I like and something that comes across very 80s fantasy is the gore that you've got in there.
The real meaty combat.
Could you talk a bit more about the combat design and how it works?
What can players expect in terms of combos and things they can do?
For us, combat had to accomplish two conditions."
"One, it had to be fully connected with the forge.
So the decisions you take in the forge translate into the combat.
In a way, each player can find his or her style, their style.
I like swords, you like spears, the other person likes hammers."
"You can express yourself through every single weapon you want.
And second, maybe due to the first condition, maybe due to the forge, the combat, we want it to be very physical.
You play the game, right?
It's a very physical combat."
"It's an experience where you have to carefully time your movements, your position, your attacks.
When you defend, manage your stamina.
You can recoup instantly stamina.
You have a strategy to recoup stamina."
"Maybe you didn't notice, but fighting from a high ground gives you an advantage.
No, I didn't notice.
Yes, absolutely.
It takes less stamina, less effort to attack in this way than in the other way."
"So you don't allow an enemy to take the high ground.
Never, ever.
Because he's going to beat you.
So this kind of physical, obvious, common sense things are the ones that we wanted for the combat."
"It's complex and simple at the same time.
Because it's all related to very intuitive concepts, like this one of the high ground.
You always want to be in the high ground to fight, especially if you're handling a 10 kilos sword.
And the enemy doesn't want that, so they will try to circle you and get the high ground themselves."
"So, yeah, a very physical experience that allows you to feel like if you're there, and that allows you to feel that your decisions matter.
In the forge, they matter.
It's not the same thing, for example, building a sword with most of the weight close to the handle or close to the tip."
"It's a completely different thing, because close to the tip, yeah, it will deal more damage.
But it will be more complicated to handle it.
It's slower, and that maybe, I don't know, 30 milliseconds difference between the speeds, allows the enemy to counter attack."
"So that's the kind of game we are proposing.
I noticed that myself when I was forging.
The first hammer I made at the start of the game versus the hammer I made later in the game, there was a really significant difference."
"Speaking on the forge, how deep can someone go with that?
I've already noticed myself in a couple of hours that there's layers and layers.
Could you maybe explain a bit of how that will work and the depth people can go to in crafting their own weapons?
There's two processes in the forge."
"There's the process of configuring your blade or your weapon, making decisions.
That's one part of the process.
This process totally depends on the steels you have.
And the steels you have totally depend on the materials you gathered in the game."
"So the more you explore, the more materials you're going to get.
A few ones there are incredibly rare.
So you're going to need these materials in order to get a certain amount of steel.
That steel is not infinite."
"So you might get an ingot of steel and once you use it, it's over.
So you need to get the same materials again.
So on one hand, you have the decision process of putting the right steels.
Sorry, the right steels."
"Putting the steels and the rest of the materials in the different parts of the weapon.
Have you went through the wooden statues that give you parts?
Yes.
So you're going to have a lot of different parts."
"They are not only aesthetic.
They are functional, all of them.
So you might want to add, for example, a different handle, a different pebble, a different guard or a ricasso.
Or even the geometry of the shape of the sword might change."
"And then there's the other part of the process, which is the forge itself.
When you're forging, you are setting the quality of your blade.
And the quality has to do with the durability.
The number of stars you get."
"These two processes can go as deep as you want, essentially.
For example, just an example.
Have you noticed how the parry works in this game?
Depending on how you build your weapon, you have a number of milliseconds to parry."
"So let's say that you are in love with a specific sword, but you like that parry is over, for example, 40 milliseconds.
Because it's where you feel comfortable.
Depending on how you configure your sword, even if you are maybe not making it as dangerous as you possibly want.
Because you need to use a lighter steel in order to get this 40 milliseconds time for parrying."
"But that might be the best sword for you.
Maybe it's not the most lethal, but the capacity to parry is giving you this extra lethality you're looking for.
In one hit, you parry your enemy, and you have an extra damage per parry, as you know.
So that might be your cup of tea."
"For me, for example, I don't parry very well.
So I don't time the parry very well.
So I prefer, for example, to have long curved swords.
Because they deal a lot of damage."
"They are not useful all the time, because you can find enemies so well armed that the sword is ineffective against those.
But then you have to change to a spear or a hammer or something.
The game is not forcing you, but suggesting you the right weapon for the right moment.
Guys, we have time for one short question."
"One short question?
I talk too much, sorry.
No worries at all, it's really, really good answers.
I was just going to ask then, I guess going back to the narrative about the protagonists, Aaron and Adso, and the fact that the story is told through their perspective alone."
"We don't have, say, a big narrator going, this is what this is, this is what that is.
What was the decision-making process behind that, and how do you think it will affect the story?
We... That's a nice question.
This is a narrative-driven game."
"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.
Curious you are.
The curiosity will drive you through important bits of the story.
For example, you realise there's a mechanic that you can talk to Adso anytime."
"Actually, there's two mechanics.
One mechanic is, okay, tell me what you know about the mission you're accomplishing.
And they will tell you vague stuff, because they don't know it.
They actually don't know everything about that."
"So, you as a player will know what they know.
And there's a second layer, which is, no, I want to talk about specific topics to Adso.
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."
"Tell me about the master forgers, or about this castle, or about this new character we just found.
All this requires your curiosity and active participation.
There's a lot of narrative delivered in this way.
So, I think between both, we have something quite cohesive and interesting."
"In this game, most of the story doesn't come for you.
You have to go for it.
You have to actively pursue wanting to know more.
And you'll find quite crazy characters in this game."
"Quite crazy.
That will give you a different perspective on what's going on in the game.
And many surprises. Many.
Thank you so much."
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