Hel: The Last Saga it is currently a project Kickstarter di Mythic Games, Inc. who, five days after its conclusion, managed to achieve a truly excellent result: plus 1 million dollars achieved. This title struck us right away, both for the Viking setting and for its careful design. Precisely for this reason we decided (in addition to supporting him) to contact the production house to find out more. While the development team is full of work towards the conclusion of the campaign, they have managed to carve out some time to answer our first questions. To welcome us, among them, there was nothing less than Sam Healey, a real institution in the world of board games. The Community Director of Mythic Games, Inc. he managed with a lot of patience to get us even more into the dynamics of Hel: The Last Saga, talking about the 360 ° project in this long interview.
Here are our questions and answers!
From what we read on the regulation, the inclination of the individual characters can lead to being a semi-coop game compared to a coop title. How true is this statement?
Sam Haley: It is possible, through the evolution of the characters and the way the story progresses based on the decisions made by the players during the campaign, that the game may make a slight detour to a semi-cooperative experience. Each character has their own destiny and unique destiny within the campaign. How these are processed in gameplay depends a lot on the choices made during the game.
Translation is fundamental for a narrative game: given the desire to localize it in many languages
SH: Personally I don't know who will be in charge of translating the game, however it will be a full 360 ° translation that will offer a good product. We know how important the narrative is and we know how much it takes for its playability. We are currently in talks with two professional translators who come from the recreational sector, but for contractual reasons I cannot yet declare who they are.
It has been stated that if a scenario fails, it will need to be repeated. Don't you risk creating an infinite loop?
SH: The number of times will be limited to a certain value that we still have to define, at the end of which the player will take the worst result and move on. What we are aiming for is to offer a game experience that is always different with each repetition, to avoid that the game is always the same.
How will it be possible to combine the semi-coop aspect with the coop one?
SH: In the beginning the game will be mainly co-op, indeed almost exclusively. As the scenarios and encounters proceed, the characters will be able to mature their story and go to face choices that will bring out the semi-coop nature of the title. Therefore, only by unlocking the progression of the character, during the campaign, will the aspects that can potentially lead to conflicts emerge and therefore push the players to make choices.
It has been stated that the title will also be available in solo mode. How does it fit the existing duopoly between coop and semi-coop?
SH: The solo mode will be more purely survival, much more than the multiplayer version. This choice was made to offer a less headache game mode for managing this aspect of conflict between coop and semi-coop and at the same time be much more focused on offering the player a pure survival experience. There will be specific chapters of the saga told in the songs that will be exclusive to solo-mode and cannot be unlocked in multiplayer and vice versa. All to make both gaming experiences unique.
How come after years of play testing, they have been completed only two songs (chapters) out of 13?
Sam joined the team in January, two professional writers wrote every single part to match and that's why they only checked 2. The main story is in French and they are working on the translation to playtest all together. To check the flow of the narrative they often resort to sessions of D&D to make sure the story is congruent and fluid.
What do you think is the strong / innovative point of the game, the narrative or the gameplay?
SH: For the designers the strengths are: (1) the simplicity of the mechanisms that allow the narrative to be easy to manage, (2) they studied the game starting from Gloomhaven, which they found too heavy, and they took inspiration for make it leaner.
How difficult will the game be? Is there a possibility of setting it on different difficulties?
SH: For now it has not yet been discussed, to date they foresee a difficult level and that's it. The testers carried out the first test with the expedition scenario docking at WHOLE, being killed several times in an attempt to complete it, they are therefore deciding how to calibrate it so that each new attempt (or game) is different in the game experience in terms of events, while maintaining the same difficulty.
Will it be possible to benefit from aggregate shipments again this time?
SH: In the past Mythic Games has already managed the aggregation of shipments. At the end of the campaign, they will make sure to aggregate them by also working with very solid players in the transport hub sector with whom they have already been partners for some time.
Lately, a lot of plastic is being released and added, which will inevitably increase the cost of shipments in direct proportion to the weight of the product. How was it estimated? Could it change?
SH: It is important to note that now the shipping cost is only "estimated", it is absolutely not to be taken as "definitive". There Mythic Games does not want to make money from shipping and make money on it, but just wants to guarantee the minimum necessary to ship. The price was calculated based on the best possible scenario of unlocked add-ons, so all the plastic that is accumulating is taken into account.
In these latest updates, many new extra add-ons are announced. Will priority be given to the miniaturistic part with new contents?
SH: To date, they have provided new miniatures which, however, will not be add-on inclusive, but extras to be purchased separately. They have not yet made a decision for dipping, it will eventually be evaluated as an extra.
How much has COVID-19 impacted on the launch of this project?
SH: In reality, the lockdown did not impact much, as in any case we were able to continue working between remote, tabletopia / tts and online sessions. However, we had to manage the publications of the year on Kickstarter, anticipating some and canceling others.
In what sense "anticipating some and deleting others"?
SH: Initially Hel: The Last Saga was supposed to be our 4th ks and not the third, we have decided to postpone the 3rd that we are not announcing yet, and to anticipate WHOLE and actively devote ourselves to him.
7 Kickstarter? Don't you risk wasting your energy on so many games?
SH: At first glance this might seem like the main effect, in reality they are well divided teams that have different games in mind. But above all the basic idea is to create games that are for different targets and not for example, all great titles (such as Joan d'arc, Solomon kane o WHOLE), but also introducing "lighter" games that are still valid for addressing many different users.
Despite the campaign positions itself after Frosthaven (all time record) and ANKH of CMoN, it seems that Hel: The Last Saga is doing very well, having in fact exceeded 1kk in the last few days. What do you think about it? Is this a result you had hoped for?
SH: To be honest, yes, precisely because we were aiming so much for both lore and modality. We are happy that this project is our second project for value and success on KS and we want to put all our effort into achieving it. The fact of Frosthaven and ANKH unfortunately it was not wanted in the least and indeed we had to run for cover and reorganize the scheduling of the projects on the platform.
The interview is over, we hope we have satisfied many of your questions, if not, we remind you that tomorrow at 18:00 we will go live on Twitch with a fantastic playthrough along with Sam Healey which will lead us to the discovery of the title. If you have more questions to ask, follow the live because we will answer them all!
