4P: Do you get sub quests like in role playing games or are they about smaller things?Le Breton: It doesn't look at all like a role playing game where you get a quest and then another one which is unrelated to the big picture. Here you are on your path with different objectives along the way. Once they are fulfilled you get skill points, which allow you to upgrade your character and customize him. Sometimes you have secrets. They are very short and give you a bonus, something like: "While you are here, there is a chest nearby...”
4P: Does the story evolve in a linear way or do you get to make choices?Le Breton: It is linear most of the time. The gameplay itself is not linear in that you can choose between hundreds of opportunities. It will be different depending on whether you chose to be more of a rogue, a warrior or a mage. And if you use the elements, the physics around you, it may be ten times easier. If you set fire and lure the guards into it you can kill five guys in a second. If you are a wizard you can freeze them, push them, make them explode or freeze the ground, so that every time they come forward they fall to their death because it is on an edge – you got different ways to achieve the objective. Also, during the last third of the game you are going to face two critical choices: left or right. They will have an impact on the end of
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| Have a nice flight: This former enemy just stood too close to the abyss to let the chance go. |
the game. We give you four different endings, depending on which way you choose. That's not a lot compared to a role playing game, but for an action game I think it is very much.
4P: Something I am always interested in: Who is going to do the music and what is it going to be like?Le Breton: We hired an American composer named Sascha – I can't remember the full name [Sascha Dikicyian, ed.]. He is from Eastern Europe and he was chosen mainly because his style is very close to what [Hans] Zimmer is doing: It's orchestral, but with an electronic edge to it. He uses electronic sounds, eerie atmospheres and it's on top of the orchestral score. It starts like Howard Shore in Lord of the Rings, and all of a sudden you have percussions and drums that give it a more modern edge and make it darker and make it easier to transform it into loops if you want ambient sound that will be the same throughout the level. If you listen to the music of Gladiator or what Danny Elfman did for Planet of the Apes – it's close to what we give you in Dark Messiah.
4P: So, no Heavy Metal?Le Breton: *laughs* We didn't want that!
4P: Although I could imagine that...Le Breton: It could have been a choice, something like: "Let's take a Metal band and we're going to make it like Prince of Persia 2." But we agreed with Arkane on something more epic, something more fantasy. But we didn't want a classic John Williams score with the Leitmotifs and the full orchestra. It's not that we don't like it, but we chose something a little more suited to the atmosphere of Dark Messiah, which is sometimes a bit freaky. Your character, for instance, will have nightmares. As I said, we tried to make cut scenes a little different from the ones you usually get.
