Two months ago, we've reported on Sci-Fi online FPS RPG Glory opening pre-orders ahead of its Early Access program. Since then, we've managed to talk quite a bit with Adrian Vergara (CEO, Creative and Design Director) of Reach Studios to learn more about the game, which has been approved on Steam Greenlight and targets a full release on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in fiscal year 2017.
There are plenty of gameplay and story details in our exclusive interview. Enjoy!
- To begin with, can you tell me a little more about the universe of GLORY and the role players will take into it from the storytelling point of view?
- GLORY begins on a near-future Earth, as a war of apathy sweeps nation after nation. Players take on the role of explorers and pilgrims for a new land, a new hope for humanity. After a cinematic yet player-driven intro sequence players find themselves on Ferramor, an arid desert land. Players are the driving force of our game world. As a living, social game, we plan on making live changes to the overall universe narrative direction and gameplay based on player feedback and how they experience the story.
- What are the main features of GLORY and what players will be doing during the moment-to-moment gameplay?
- At its core, GLORY is a social open-world FPS RPG. Players will roam and explore the entirety of Ferramor's vast open world either alone or in a co-operative squad, and find other players along their adventures with which they can group up with. Ferramor is full of hidden stories, tales, and of course treasure in the form of coveted artifacts, weapons, and armour. GLORY also features a full robust player progression system, with a number of class and talent tree options which players can switch out at any time. Players do not lock themselves into a class upon character creation, and more content and progression is planned in the content drops following GLORY, followed by our first expansion season, FEAST OF WORLDS, which currently players who pre-order will receive as part of the Dawnseeker edition. Along the cinematic main line quest campaign, sprawling world events and side missions, not to mention our intense competitive MP suite, players will also experience a breadth of live PVE and PVP events which will unfold over the weeks and months following launch. In addition, players will explore the Caravan of Glory - a persistent social experience within Glory, and find hidden stories, treasures and more.
- You mentioned that you intend to make live changes to the narrative direction based on how players experience the story. Does that mean that it will be possible to influence the story itself while playing GLORY and if so, how?
- We intend to make changes to GLORY on the micro and macro level. As a narrative-driven RPG and our innovative Hot Dialogue system, players will make choices in the core campaign which will have an impact on their local game story. On a bigger scale, we'll be steering the larger universe narrative based on player feedback, the choices they're making in-game and our larger plans for GLORY.
- Will GLORY feature a seamless world (no loading screen between zones) with no instancing? Also, you said that Ferramor is an arid desert land, but can we expect to find more biomes while exploring this world?
- We're not yet talking too much about how the game works in that regard, but what I will say is that we want players to be at the forefront of the experience at all times when they're navigating the world. There are plenty of zones to explore in Ferramor and these have their own visual aesthetic: from caverns to mountains to swamps and plains and beyond with more exciting locations to come post-launch.
- Speaking of the class system, will the game adhere to the standard MMO "trinity" (Healer, Tank, DPS) or not? Also, will there be a level system and if so, what's the cap at launch?
- When our Sandbox team looks at classes, we want to make sure each one has a purpose in the world and in the story. To some extent their purpose is important in the context of the trinity, but because of our Ability Core system, players are able to customize and progress specific parts of the class that interest them, and can of course modify them should a situation arises where they might want to take on a different class build. Because of these advanced vertical progression and customisation options, the delineations between tank/healer/dps becomes much less apparent, because players have more control over how they want to play their class. Gear itself and their properties also have a huge impact on how players choose to spec their build. Horizontal player progression uses player and item levels to gauge player progression through levels and content, but given us still being in development, we don't yet have a level cap to announce.
- On the website, you teased Raids. Can you tell us a bit more about this activity and how it might differ in GLORY from the usual Raids in other MMORPGs?
- Raids are some of the biggest challenges will face in GLORY. Multiple players squad up across a variety of difficulty modes to take on Ferramor's biggest threats and learn more about the state of the universe after the story campaign. Some of the finest treasure awaits players who can successfully destroy these threats to humanity's glory. While Raids are end-game content, they only occupy one portion of our goal for end-game. I'm hesitant to go into detail about how exactly a raid moves from moment to moment, because I think there's so much for players to explore and experience within it. What I will say is that we wanted to merge the insane moment-to-moment action our gameplay team can put together as a shooter and the fun of player progression and the RPG side of things and make Raids as awesome as they can be. In terms of how GLORY handles Raids differently from other games (and we're not really classing ourselves as an MMO, we're an action shooter/RPG at heart), what I will say is we consider our Raids to be living parts of the world, just like any other world zone, and players can expect these encounters to not only change, but the metagame and narrative within them to evolve over the life of that content. Honestly, some of the most exciting stuff to me about Glory is how we're able to make content meaningful and give life to this world by evolving it and reacting to players.
- In regards to the PvP/competitive MP suite, will it be possible to turn on fellow Seekers anywhere in the world and at any time or rather you have prepared dedicated Arenas for this purpose?
- So one of the goals for GLORY was to ensure we have a breadth of content, and this goes for PVP just as it goes for PVE. For launch we're planning to have traditional matchmaking arena-based competitive MP in addition to PVP events which introduce new modes of play both technically and mechanically. I'll tease one of these major events by saying matches take place on an arena which exists in the open world. Think of a tournament event existing in the world much like a spectator sport. Events (across PVP and PVE) will introduce new NPCs, metagame and progression paths, rewards, and obviously, gameplay.
- This Caravan of Glory sounds intriguing, is there some additional detail you can reveal about it?
- The Caravan is the major human settlement which you establish in the campaign soon after landing on Ferramor. As you move through the story and explore the world, you'll start to expand the settlement and find new allies. open new vendors and locations, and learn more about the world of GLORY. The Caravan (and its satellite settlements across Ferramor) act as a place to restock, repair and re-arm, but also to take a load off and relax with your squadmates, or maybe encounter new friends to take with you on an adventure. As with all of Glory, the Caravan will have a dedicated team who will support this social space with new content; like activities, characters, and other fun encounters, further bringing life into our world.
- Do you plan to have an Open Beta event before release in order to allow interested players to try GLORY?
- We plan to have a number of formal closed and open alpha and beta tests before Glory launches in our release window. Players can stay tuned to FindOurGlory.com for more information on our Road to Glory promotion later in 2016.
- In terms of technology, do you intend to support DX12 and/or Vulkan APIs for increased performance? Also, what about NVIDIA's GameWorks or AMD's GPUOpen on PC - do you intend to use any of these tools for the PC version?
- While we've nothing to announce with regards to DX12/Vulkan at this time, we plan to have a dedicated PC engineering team that can ensure our PC version of GLORY is the best it can possibly be. In addition, Epic are absolute great partners to work with and the Unreal community are phenomenal in the additions and features they're adding to Unreal 4. Where possible, we integrate these innovations into our core engine codebase, in addition to having a fantastic graphics engineering team to support the PC version of GLORY.
- When can we expect to get a first look at GLORY with a gameplay video?
- We'll have more footage to share and in-depth looks at GLORY as we near closer to our Alpha later this year.
- Thank you for your time.
