Interview with the executive producer of the game Eternal Return

A rather interesting mix of MOBA and the Royal Battle of the Eternal Return from Kakao Games and Nimble Neuron came out relatively recently, but already managed to collect the base of loyal players, sufficient for the developer to think about the release of the game on the consoles. Since the possible launch on the consoles is already under development, it is natural that developers and players are looking forward to this. The portal mmobomb.com managed to talk with the executive producer of the game.

_ Before we start, could you introduce yourself to our readers and tell a little about what is your role in creating Eternal Return? _

Hello, my name is Kim Son Hu, and I am the executive producer of the Eternal Return franchise in Nimble Neuron. I am responsible for all the developments, business and development of the IP Eternal Return.

_ The description of the Eternal Return says that the game is a mixture of Battle Royale, Moba and Survival. How did you decide to combine these genres and what exactly did you take so that everything works correctly? _

To begin with, once I was very intrigued by the world and characters of the game Black Survival. Although Black Survival is a full -fledged royal battle, the action of which takes place on a 2D card, we thought that if we transfer this concept to a three -dimensional Moba, the game would become even more exciting. That is why we started the development of the game. Everything is simple.

We always try to keep in our heads the fact that all the elements, such as the craft system, the combat system and the survival system were well combined with each other. And our players help us a lot in this, to which we often listen to when we resolve any issues related to the development of the game.

_ What was the most difficult to combine these genres into a single whole? _

Since new players will have to study quite a lot of diverse things, we are faced with considerable difficulties, trying to ensure good experience in terms of UX. Although we need to work on UX, so we plan to make some changes and improvements to the user interface.

In addition, this kind of PVP projects require a large number of information and descriptions of a variety of game strategies that are usually engaged in the active part of the players. We, in turn, make every effort to establish a connection between such active players and ordinary users.

_ with the development of the concept of Eternal Return what games did you pay the most? Or maybe the sources of inspiration were in other types of mass media, such as films, series and anime? _

This may seem banal and obvious, but most of all we were inspired by the original Black Survival. The most difficult part was the game adaptation of a unique worldview, and this still remains the most complex part. As for the visual component of the game, so that it corresponds to the 3D Moba Battle Royale genre, we turned to similar isometric moba games. League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm sometimes inspired us to certain decisions.

We are faced with many technical and artistic difficulties, when we converted original characters and background into 3D format. During this process, we used elements of various game subcultures, films and animations as references. We still find something new and cool as references and in order to keep up with the trends, we continue to improve the visual elements of the game.

_ What was the impetus for creating a plot associated with Aglaia and experiments on people? How did the plot affect the artistic style of the game? And did you affect at all? _

We wanted to make a game of the royal battle in the genre, but we also needed to understand how to create an interesting story and force the players to believe in it. The motivation of heroes of various works in the genre did not seem convincing to us. We believed that the characters need something fresh and interesting as the main plot detail, and our choice settled on a kind of experiments and the study of the evolution of the human body.

The Eternal Return has two locations that differ from each other: Lumia island, where the experimental areland, as part of the experiment, should fight in the survival game, and the laboratory where Aglaia researchers observe the experiment. For each zone on the island of Lumia, we created an old atmosphere, launched and overgrown with nature, typical of the Battle Royale genre. On the contrary, in the center of the island we posted the AGLAIA laboratory, personifying evolution and ideals. Thus, we increased the visual contrast between two completely different worlds.

_ for most royal battles, a huge number of people are involved, and in Moba fights, as a rule, occur in a 5 to 5 format. Why did you stop at the value of 18? _

I have already said that our community of players always helps us. Initially, 15 users took part in the match, but during alpha testing we carefully studied all the reviews and wishes of the players and increased the limit to 18 people. Now over time, the need and the opinion of our community has changed and we are thinking about reducing the number of participants to 15 people in single mode, and in cooperative mode, on the contrary, increase to 21.

_ in Eternal Return is a very large list of "experimental", about 50, according to my estimates. How do you manage to balance them all for this type of game and at the same time ensure the uniqueness of each of the characters? _

Balance in games is always that task. We collect a huge amount of statistical data, but the problem is that each mode will have its own balance of characters. And do not forget that the level of the game can affect the balance. For example, some characters are weak in the game on high ranks, but strong on other ranks where most players play.

Even the meaning of the concept of "too strong" can vary depending on which segment of the game we are considering. Usually, the number of murders or victory in the match is important, but as you rise in rank to a higher one, it also becomes very important how easily the subjects can earn rank points.

Remembering this, we follow the constant balance cycle, updating it once every two weeks.

_eternal Return has been in early access for about a year and a half. From the outside it seems that this is a long time. Could you tell us more about the early access and why such a game as Eternal Return may be at this stage for so long? _

The development culture in Nimble Neuron is not to achieve a favorable outcome with the help of marketing efforts supported by financial power. It is about the players to receive frequent updates to the game as soon as they are ready, and decide whether the game is worth playing in it based on the reviews of the players.

Early access Steam is a system in which player reviews can be obtained as quickly and accurately as possible. Even before the start of Early Access, we improved the game thanks to the reviews of the players that we received during several tests.

The concept of the completed game can be perceived in different ways depending on the point of view, so we want to continue to keep the game in early access to communicate with the players until we reach the level of quality that we will be proud of. Your readers can help us improve the game by playing it for free on Steam. Of course, we will continue to communicate with the players at Nimble Neuron after the official exit of the game.