Ever since its barnstorming E3 2014 reveal, which drew comparisons to Monster Hunter and the Devil May Cry series, all has been quiet on Platinum Games’ fantasy RPG Scalebound.
Pegged for an exclusive release on Xbox One, the new IP is in development under the watchful eye of impassioned Game Director Hideki Kamiya, and he recently took some time to speak about the inspirations behind the game along with the biggest challenges facing a new IP in 2015.
Per GameSpot, Kamiya outlined the ways in which Scalebound represents something of a passion project for him as a developer, evoking memories of old-school fantasy titles that packed a grand sense of adventure.
“It was something that was really appealing to me and over the course of time I wanted to make a fantasy game. Also, wanting to make a game like that… there’s not really many opportunities for that,” he explains. “I really wanted to make a fantasy game that had dragons in it because when you think about all of those really old cool fantasy games, the ones that had huge monsters and dragons were the coolest ones.”
Marking the first time that Platinum has collaborated with a western publisher, it’s understood that Microsoft will nurture the new IP as Scalebound nears its anticipated debut. Tackling a new genre is certainly no mean feat, though, and Kamiya noted that one pressing concern in development was designing the AI to be responsive to the player’s actions – particularly that of the dragon’s.
“The dragon is a totally new idea,” he says. “You’re fighting with an AI, how should the dragon be engaged in battle? How should we grow the dragon alongside you? Where is the focus for these things or that thing? None of that has a blueprint for us. It’s not that we can hit copy on the machine and get another one of these. We have to make the machine. In making that machine everything is a challenge because all of those parts have to fit together. The amount of decision making that you have to make and the amount of decisions that you don’t know yet because other decisions haven’t been made yet is pretty monumental.
Last we reported, Microsoft and Platinum had tentatively slated Scalebound for a release on Xbox One in late 2016.