I found a very old video interview with our new Castle-boss Enric Alvarez. It was made when they announced Lords of Shadow last year. Enjoy!
- *Interviewer: Enric, when did the development start?
- Enric: It started at past december (December 2007)when we made our first agreement with Konami......(IN this part he repeats everything included in an interview I wrote long ago in this thread; he talks about how he broke relations with CodeMasters and began with Konami...)
- *What genre Lords of Shadow fits in?
- Lords of Shadow fits in 3rd person adventure genre; the game is vast both narrative and geographically; with this genre, we try to recover the idea of presenting a world, not a simple game, like Scrapland... (Begins to talk about Scrapland; this game had average reviews, but all of them praised how well presented was its recreation of its own world)... we are making a living world when action and story go by. (This almost confirms that it's a sandbox, Scrapland was a sandbox).
- *Do you have any influence on this tittle?
- There are great games in this genre like God of War, Devil May Cry, heavenly Sword. We look at these games NOT with the intention of borrow elements but trying to see what are the good and bad points of the genre, what things work and what not. It's logical when you are making a game looking at the greatest ones in the genre, but we're doing it only for know how far they go and how farther we can go. You must have a starting point because you must to go forward, deliver a new experience. Those are our references, and - why not saying this? - our beloved and old Blade (for Play Station)
-*Hou could you define the combat system?
- Lords of shadow for what I can say you now, is a game where combat is important, special and gaudy. You can guess it by the Trailer, but I can only say that it will satisfy the fans of action games those like ability and timing above other things.
-* What can you tell me about the storyline?
- We can't talk about that but I can tell you proudly that in lords of Shadow, the story is very, very important, is extremely important. It's a cute (??)story, we have heroes, we have villains we have characters those aren't what they appear to be, and we paid all our attention in making a good relationship between story and playability; we wanna make a global experience, a world where things happen and th eplayer is interested in them; what we want to make with the story is that the player cuold inmerse itself in the fantasy world we are proposing. That's why we are being very cautelous with story.
-* Is the magic important in the game?
- The magi is important, but I can't tell you anymore; this aspect of the game will be good enough for all the fans of the genre,
-* Will the protagonist have SECONDARY WEAPONS?
- Of course he will; we tried to give a twist to the traditional concept of secondary wepons and we made the concept go far.
-* Do you think the game will be re-playable?
- Yes, a lot; first of all, the combat system is very challenging, you are rewarded by learning how to use it and you are rewarded by making the moves better; we think that people will like to replay it not only by it's rich story buy by mastering the combat.
-* Is the game made entirely in Madrid?
- No, only 90% of the game is made in Madrid, the design the hardware, graphics, sound, the programation... Konami gave us an incredible creativity freedom; and we are developing the game we want and have to develop. Around MercurySteam there are other people and enterprises involved in. We are planning record the soundtrack with a foregin symphony orchestra (Now we kno that it's the Bratislava Symphony orchestra) the dramatic cinematic scenes are planned to be motion-captured in New York