KickStarter Underworld Ascendant Pre-Release Thread

[LESS T_T]

A couple more previews:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/classic-hardcore-rpg-gameplay-makes-a-big-return-i/1100-6458374/
https://www.pcgamesn.com/underworld-ascendant/underworld-ascendant-world-design

 

[Infinitron]

Nothing new here: https://otherside-e.com/wp/update-crafting-an-immersive-sim-pax-east-more/

UPDATE: Crafting an Immersive Sim, PAX East, & More!


Hello everyone,

We had a wonderful time this month at PAX East having a small, select group of press and streamers play Underworld Ascendant behind closed doors — and we’ve released a bevy of new content as a result!

Let’s dive in:

Underworld Ascendant at PAX East!
Before having people play the game, we showed off a new trailer for Underworld Ascendant featuring new footage and the incredible vocal talents of Stephen Russell (Cabirus) and Fryda Wolff (Aelita), who we featured in the last newsletter.

You can see the trailer for yourself right here.

We threw everyone into the game’s first level to help them learn the underlying immersive sim elements of Underworld Ascendant.

As we’ve mentioned, we’ve been working hard to introduce players to the logic-based systems that make up the immersive sim in a way where we teach players to teach themselves — without direct hand-holding.

The opening level is a series of rooms that can be solved in multiple different ways — with some level of experimentation and thought. Internally, we’ve been calling it our “un-training level” level, because we’re attempting to break people of assumptions of how game worlds work in other games.

We’ve also trying to make it not feel like a tutorial level and just be fun on its own. So, that’s a big challenge! But we had more than a hundred people play it over the course of the show, and it garnered a lot of positive response and we gained some excellent feedback.

Many players were quick to pick up on familiar mechanics, and others had a fun time recognizing how real-life physics would matter in the game. For example, a number of players were surprised when they started to pay attention to the listed weights of objects that they were carrying, and finally started to piece together that heavier objects could not be thrown as far.

We also witnessed multiple solutions we’d never seen before. Just when we thought we knew all the possible answers to a problem, someone would come by and demonstrate a logical tactic that we hadn’t known was possible. Many solutions were born out of players testing the limits of the physics and, honestly, we couldn’t have been happier to witness them live!

Special shout-out to those who circled back to the room outside of their appointment time to give Underworld Ascendant another run through with an entirely different skillset and play style. We walked away from PAX East with an enormous amount of useful feedback on how to further refine the level further to make it more fun and the systems more responsive and intuitive to understand.

You can watch our B-roll of the training level here.

The Latest Look at the Stygian Abyss

We released a new selection of screenshots along with our demo at PAX East, highlighting some of the new lighting changes we’ve been working on, and a sneak peek at an opportunistic Outcast targeting a Skeleton…

Here’s some press highlights from those who dove into the Abyss:

* Flickering Myth: Underworld Ascendant takes the immersive sim forward in what looks to be a malleable, intuitive experience and we have been able to touch on a mere sliver of what’s to come.

* GameInformer: Underworld Ascendant seems to be seeking to do more with its world than merely telling players to have at it, however, and is trying to be a game that uses its variety and openness to encourage replayability.

* The Sixth Axis: OtherSide are serious about not simply following the same path as Ultima Underworld, [but also] introduce plenty of new aspects that fans of both immersive sims, and RPGs, are going to find hugely compelling.

* GameSpot: Classic Hardcore RPG Gameplay Makes A Big Return In Underworld Ascendant

* Engadget: Underworld Ascendant that illustrates how the reborn dungeon crawler will work

* Rock Paper Shotgun: An RPG that drops you into a space and gives you freedom to explore and engage with the inhabitants with as few restrictions as possible. I want that.

* Destructoid: It’s time to put Underworld Ascendant back on my radar

Alienware Talks with Joe Fielder & Tim Stellmach

We also had the pleasure of being interviewed by Anna Maree from Alienware during PAX East.

Joe and Tim describe the basic premise of what you can expect from the game, and what goes into the design of a game based on highly emergent gameplay. Joe also walks through some elucidation on the magic system and examples of environmental manipulation, and we comment on future features not shown in released B-Roll.

You can watch the segment here on Twitch.

New Dev Diary: Crafting an Immersive Sim

We’ve also released the second installment in our popular Dev Diaries series, Crafting an Immersive Sim. In this episode, several members of the team — including lead engineer Will Teixeira, lead designer Tim Stellmach, and writer/director Joe Fielder — discuss the design points and mechanics that go into making an immersive sim game.

You can watch the first of the Dev Diaries here on YouTube , and watch the newest Dev Diary here.

New Insider Blog: Designing for Emergent Gameplay

Ever wondered how the tutorial level was designed to accommodate for so many play styles?

Justin Pappas, our Lead Level Designer, gives us for an inside look as to how the tutorial level was crafted in this month’s insider blog! Building for multiple play styles can be challenging, but incredibly rewarding for players. (And we find a lot of bugs along the way!)

Those returning to the Abyss should be advised that some areas of the tutorial may look familiar… consider this a spoiler warning.

You can read it on our site here.

The password is available here (for backers only!)

What’s Next?

In May, we’re going to be heads-down and working hard on our next milestone as we prepare for E3. Following that milestone, we’ll have more news to share about the Backer Alpha build for EXPLORER tier Backers and above ($50+).

As always, if you want to check in on our progress, we post a weekly update on our forumsdetailing what our goals for that week are and what we’ve worked on. If you haven’t made a forum account, now is an exciting time to join us!

We also occasionally post WIP gifs on our socials, like our puppetmaster experimentations on the skeletons.

Be sure to join our Steam community to see some of the latest content between newsletters and let us know what kind of media you’d like to see from us next!

Cheers,

The Team at OtherSide

In Other News…
In case you missed it:

* 35 Years of Influence – A Look Back at Origin Systems, Creators of Ultima and More via TechRaptor

* Denis Loubet, the original artist for the cover of Ultima Underworld®, is the artist for our Collector’s Edition of Underworld Ascendant! Consider becoming one of his Patreon subscribers here

* We were awarded the Marooner’s Rock Writer’s Choice Award for Underworld Ascendant at PAX East!

 

[Nano]

Underworld Ascendant – An Interview with Director Joe Fielder
Giving everyone options...
Written by Jakejames Lugo on April 30, 2018 at 12:24 pm

In this exclusive interview about Underworld Ascendant, our own Senior Editor Jakejames Lugo talks with the game’s director and writer Joe Fielder. The two of them discuss the game’s focus on giving players many choices and options to create an immersive sim. But what other things can players look forward to in this new immersive experience from industry greats?

Underworld Ascendant is a sequel to Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, it is scheduled to release on PC in 2018.

At around 12:30 they start talking about the art style. He's saying that they wanted it to look stylized so it would be "timeless", among other things. I wonder if they regret that decision considering the reception the art style is getting.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

What reception are you referring to?

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1955.0

Morning everyone! I thought I posted a weekly update yesterday but alas...

So this week we're still heads-down working on our milestone for E3. There's a lot we want to fine tune given the feedback from PAX, especially since at E3 we won't be able to give as much context to the game's setting and history. That means tuning quests, more UI work, and of course, combat tweaks. A few people were surprised that we have localized damage, as well as an interactive soundscape. ("Oh wow, if I throw something over there, the AI will actually go and check it out? Like Metal Gear?")

We also posted our latest newsletter which recaps all of the PAX East feedback and articles, as well as the release of new screenshots, a new Dev Diary, and Justin's insider blog about the first level's construction. I know we were already discussing this in a couple of other threads

On a final note, we've had a couple of people asking about increasing their pledges on BackerKit. As a reminder, we've locked down all orders because we're in the middle of production with manufacturers. If there's an urgent edit that needs to be made (change the shipping address, credit card update, etc), then you can let me know at support@otherside-e.com and I'll help update your information.

I think that's it for now! Next week, we may have another insider blog ready...

 

[Nano]

What reception are you referring to?

A lot of people have complained about the game looking cartoony or MMO-ish.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

The numbering on that map roughly matches the order of scenes in the 10 min gameplay footage



Actually recognized the area marked with "2"
Mostly because of the broken stairs.

Finally saw the video, and watched it comparing with a gameplay of the first level of Ultima underworld. Managed to see where each part of the level correspond to UUW1. The main difference is the scale. It's nice they're making it similar, but I believe it will be only for the first level, and the next ones will be gradually different, to the point you won't be able to recognize them anymore.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

What reception are you referring to?

A lot of people have complained about the game looking cartoony or MMO-ish.

You can't please everyone, certainly, but I don't think the opinion is pervasive enough to label that view 'the reception', particularly given the significant changes the art direction has received over the past year or so.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Give this a watch if you haven't seen it. Insight like this keeps me believing.

 

[Junmarko]

Insight like this keeps me believing.

The transparency from them is solid - especially when Paul articulates exactly what their heightened focus is.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Give this a watch if you haven't seen it. Insight like this keeps me believing.

I guess many kids have had similar experiences like what he describes in the beginning. Mine was in an old kindergarden where I would get in by squeezing through the fence and climbing a low wall. I was exploring it while walking my dog. It was my Thief experience before playing Thief :D

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1960.0

Morning everyone!

From last week's update, you know that we've been heads-down working on a build for E3, and that continues into this week.

We had a TON of new/revised art assets make their way into the game, and I shared an example of the door upgrade we just pushed. (Old door on the left, new door on the right.)
What makes this change so remarkable for me is that it was JUST re-texturing the door. A new coat of paint really does make any car look years younger!

We've also continued to work on revising certain systems to fine tune gameplay like stealth, which as the Thief postmortem has indicated years ago, can take a long time. Now that localized damage and our new Puppetmaster are in for enemies, we're also making sure that melee combat up close and personal is readable and that you have more control over where and how you swing. I believe up until now, we've just had a placeholder light and heavy attack that only struck in 1 set motion with a sword, and we wanted to make sure that parrying felt right.

Today, there will be an insider blog released within a few hours by Will Teixeira, our Lead Engineer! A few of you have asked about what it's like to work at an indie studio, so we wanted to share what that's like at OSE. When it's up (around 12pm ET), you can read it here.

That's it for now!

 

[Big Wrangle]

What makes this change so remarkable for me is that it was JUST re-texturing the door.

Gee I really couldn't tell from it having the same frame!
Jokes aside, I like it; fits the setting more. The old door always looked odd to me.

 

[LESS T_T]

The old door always looked edible though.

 

[LESS T_T]

BBC radio interview with Joe Fielder and Warren Spector: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066hrv2

The interview starts around 10:00.

It's mostly about usual things but at the end (25:05) Joe mentions latest features introduced in the game, such as humanoid AI's realistic reaction to physics (related to this I guess) and a new type of arrow that creates a concussive blast of air.

 

[LESS T_T]

UA in the midst of the struggle of (AAA) immersive sims: https://www.pcgamesn.com/underworld-ascendant/underworld-ascendant-immersive-sims

With a quote from the head of Eidos Montreal out of nowhere.

Underworld Ascendant's quest to keep immersive sims alive

At first glance, Underworld Ascendant appears to be a doomed project. Immersive sims like it have proven to be a hard sell in recent years, with the likes of Dishonored 2, Prey, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided failing to attract as large an audience as expected. Developers Otherside Entertainment believe they know the secret to making Underworld Ascendant work with clever, budget-savvy design, but are more than aware of the genre’s struggle. Recently, they opened up to us about the possible reasons behind the genre’s low sales figures, and why that doesn’t worry them.

“They're not simple games to play all the time,” Tim Stellmach, lead designer of Underworld Ascendant, says of immersive sims. As a veteran developer of Looking Glass Studios, having worked on projects like System Shock 2 and Thief, he should know. “They can demand involvement and problem solving on the player's part, and that takes a certain amount of commitment,” Stellmach adds. “Those are all elements that are a good thing for the experience that's had by the players who do go in for it, but maybe those are elements that stand somewhat in the way of broader accessibility.”

Walter Somol, Otherside Entertainment’s VP of marketing and business development, makes a point of how failing to attain that broad accessibility can be unattractive for triple-A developers. “If [a project can’t] sell 100 million, or generate 100 million in revenue, a publisher may not look at games in this genre,” he says.

It’s an important situation to think about, especially when you consider how much it costs to make a triple-A immersive sim. For example, Raphael Colantonio, former president and co-creative director at Arkane Studios, recently tweeted that it took four days to create a chair in Dishonored 2 and Prey. When you consider how many assets are in an immersive sim, and how many rooms and environments that must be densely filled with such objects, you can already see how the costs of these games rack up, and why it’s vital that they make substantial revenue.



Huge budget immersive sims are something David Anfossi, studio head at Eidos Montreal, is more than familiar with. Having worked on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Thief, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, he’s witnessed a full range of critical and commercial hits and failures. The idea of what the genre offers being potentially too complicated for players was at the forefront of Eidos Montreal’s mind when developing Deus Ex.

“During the development we talked about how we can communicate a game that orders you to do whatever you want,” Anfossi says. “We were saying that you can tackle the obstacles the way you want, that you are free to play the way you want. There is nothing complicated around that, but it's the contrary. When you say that you can do everything, [players] say ‘Oh no, it's too complicated. I have to be able to master the acting, gunfights, stealth, social mechanics, and everything’. So it's a bit of a paradox.”

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided allegedly had a $70 million budget, and so these audience concerns had to be taken into consideration. Underworld Ascendant, on the other hand, is operating with a much smaller bank account. This actually grants Otherside more freedom.

“As a smaller indie studio, it's a space that we can play in that some of the big guys can't,” Somol says. “We don’t need to sell Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, or World of Warcraft numbers. We're built in a way where we can make something that it is commercially successful for us.”

As such, Otherside have been focusing on depth of mechanics, rather than creating a broad world with many environments as in Deus Ex and Thief. Underworld Ascendant’s fewer locations evolve over time, which not only works as an interesting mechanic, but an effective method of using fewer resources.

While they’re being careful with the budget, Otherside are not worried about finding an audience for Underworld Ascendant. Joe Fielder, the game’s writer and director, points out that there’s still a huge appetite for immersive sim design. “If you look at the new Zelda, it's a game that has a lot of immersive sim elements, and I think it was fairly successful,” he says wryly.

“I think that in general there's a really big opportunity for games that you can play multiple times and have a radically different experience,” he adds. “When working on BioShock Infinite, I spent six years on that game and the weekend after it came out the entire thing was on Twitch. It was really a game that has one way to play, whereas in our game it's more of an everlasting gobstopper. We feel like things like Twitch could really help get the word out about that.”

Stellmach agrees, and points out that things like Twitch can help immersive sims find new audiences long after the launch window, and thus encourage new sales. “One of the great things about the current environment in the games industry is that it is now much more possible for a game to be out there for long enough to communicate what kind of game it is,” he says. “You're not limited to the few weeks that they would have left your game on store shelves in boxes back when that was a thing. So it is not like trying to make a big budget triple-A game in that respect, but it's another way that we live in fortunate times.”

Somol believes that the right players will always find immersive sims eventually, but that your game must be tailored to the type of audience who will embrace it. “We like to think of this game as handcrafted; it's kind of like we're like the craft beer of videogames,” he laughs, before quickly pointing out that he hates the analogy. “There are people out there, and you can reach those audiences now. They're looking for high-quality, crafted, lovingly made experiences, and maybe they don't have to be the most mass-market games.”

Thief, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2, and Prey have all fallen victim to the industry’s insistence on blockbuster-level launch week sales, which in turn has painted a picture that these games have struggled to find audiences that justified their budgets. While long-term sales have shown that immersive sims can be strong slow-burners, all eyes are now on Underworld Ascendant to see if it can usher in a new, more budget-savvy era for the genre. With any luck, Otherside will be able to replicate the successes Larian have had with Divinity: Original Sin 2, proving that you can make a triple-A-beating experience with smart use of a more modest budget, and put to rest any murmerings that the immersive sim is dead for good.

 

[Junmarko]

With any luck, Otherside will be able to replicate the successes Larian have had with Divinity: Original Sin 2, proving that you can make a triple-A-beating experience with smart use of a more modest budget, and put to rest any murmerings that the immersive sim is dead for good.

hmmm...always felt Immersive Sims were defined by the sum of their parts. Other genres have always been adopting their ideas, but largely remaining their own thing. Not sure I get what Raff means here...

(unless he means the genre class itself won't exist, once Immersive Sims take over the entire industry? Haha. I wouldn't complain)

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1964.0

Morning everyone!

Dang, I really wish I could share the gif I mentioned about in the Special Arrows thread...

ANYWAYS! We're still heads-down busy here at the Boston office, with Walter and Joe flying out today to visit first the Austin studio and say hi to everyone working on Shock3, then heading straight over to LA for E3's Pre-Judge's Day presentations on Wednesday.

We're super excited about this opportunity, and busy accommodating for it... we're working on filming and getting new screenshots ready once all these new level lighting bakes are done. One of Unity's lighting experts actually helped us do a pass at one of the levels we were struggling to pin down, and he'll be teaching us how to incorporate that into the rest of our levels, which is REALLY COOL! It really puts the game into an entirely new light (heh).

This week is locking down the build for the Judge's Day presentation so the judges can play the build, and then work on the game as usual. I'm going to start writing up the newsletter today and tomorrow, too, so I'm hoping to focus on either the magic system or some narrative background, depending on what's ready to show in a few weeks.

I think that's all for now, hope to share more soon!

 

[Big Wrangle]

Would be hilarious if the E3 build contains similar... eccentricities.

 

[Curratum]

Reading the last few pages of this and seeing people's overall reaction gives me some optimism. I had lost all hope for the project, but I despair easily. It's just that too many of my favorite franchises were butchered in the last half decade, I suppose, which made me a bit too much of a kneejerk guy.

 

[Comte]

I bet this will be a total dumpsterfire when its released.

 

[Big Wrangle]

I doubt the combat will be half as good as Dark Messiah.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/underworld-ascendant-sneak-peek

EXCLUSIVE: GET A GLIMPSE OF A BIG BADDIE FROM UNDERWORLD ASCENDANT

Twenty-five years ago, a little first-person RPG game called Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss from Looking Glass changed the world of video games forever. The early 1990s were a time when the industry was still finding its footing, offering newer and better ways to experience other worlds in the comfort of one's own home. In Underworld, players found themselves in the Stygian Abyss, an underground system of caves that once housed a now-defunct utopian society.

Filled with scary monsters, a damsel in distress, and gameplay that encouraged creative solutions to certain obstacles, the game was an instant success. A sequel, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, was released a year later, with the franchise impacting youngsters, who would go on to develop their own games. You can see the influence of Underworld in everything from Bioshock, to Skyrim, to Fallout.

All of these open-world RPGs owe a debt of gratitude to Underworld, and now the series is making a comeback at 505 Games. The development team contains some serious heavy hitters like original Underworld developers Warren Spector and Paul Neurath. Joe Fielder, whose previous credits include Bioshock Infinite, was brought on to help write the story.

Underworld Ascendant will drop sometime this year, but SYFY WIRE caught up with the development team to learn a little bit about what it's like reviving such an influential classic. For one thing, we've got your exclusive first look at one of the game's big bad guys, Typhon.

Credit: 505 Games

Credit: 505 Games


While the setting is familiar, the franchise has come a long way since 1992, Neurath told us during a phone conversation.

"You meet some of the same characters, some of the same monsters, but the game in other ways is fairly different, partly because we’ve learned so much in the intervening years about gameplay and the technology has moved so far that we’re able to explore things that just weren’t even possible," he said.

One of the biggest elements of the game will revolve around players coming up with creative solutions to certain obstacles. The environment is ever-changing, meaning that the gaming experience will continue to evolve and become more challenging. Spector, Neurath, and Fielder are all looking forward to solutions that even they didn't anticipate.

"A local professor from Emerson, came in and she picked up one of the glue balls off the glue plants in the game and all of our traps are physics-based, so they they’re not just playing an animation, they’re exerting force, so if the player blocks them with a heavy object or, as we soon discovered, used glue to glue the seams, you can stop them," Fielder said. "She walked over, picked up the glue ball, and threw it right along the seam of this whirring blade and it stopped. None of us had ever seen that before."

As for the "puzzles" you'll be encountering, Spector usually steers clear of the word.

"In an immersive simulation, we don’t create puzzles, we create challenges, problems for the player to solve and then we give the players a series of tools to solve those problems however they want," he said. "The whole idea is, it’s not how clever and creative a designer is in creating a puzzle that has a single solution that you have to suss out or be clever enough to figure out, it’s that there are many, many ways to overcome the challenges that we create... Not puzzles, but problems."

 

[Big Wrangle]

So Typhon's a big tentacled man that vomit all the time?

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=1968.0

Morning everyone!

Walter and Joe are finally back from the Pre-E3 Judge's Day presentation we had last Wednesday, and things are looking positive! We were honored and excited to see several judges actually return to play the game after hours and some even challenged each other to improve. ("I finished the level in 20 minutes!" "Okay, but I played for forty minutes, unlocked way more Memora than you and already started investing in these skills. So I can fly now." "WHAT?!?!?! I want to try that...")

On the dev side, Chris M is back from his vacation in Hawaii, and we're back to working on optimization and tightening up the levels you'll see for the Backer Alpha build. One of our awesome contract animators has also been improving our puppetmaster system for the AI, which has been leading to some really interesting environment interactions. (People tripping over crates you chuck at them in the dark is ALWAYS funny.) I believe we're also working on upgrading to Unity 2018 because there's a bug we've been struggling with for awhile that can apparently be remedied by upgrading, so while we have a breather, that's the first thing on Will's to-do list today.

Lots of big stuff in the works that I can't share about yet either, but once those are further along, you'll be the first to see it!

Next up, I'm actually going on vacation next week! I won't be back until June 4, so there may not be a very fulfilling weekly update on the 28th.

HOPEFULLY, you'll all be able to forgive me, since I'm planning to post some content this week AND the week I'm out to tie you all over... also, look forward to June! We'll have another big announcement coming then

Big announcement eh. Like maybe a release date?

...something like that.