Frozenbyte on Shadwen's Length, Gameplay, Story & Much More

Frozenbyte on Shadwen's Length, Gameplay, Story & Much More than

Finnish indie studio Frozenbyte used to be beloved by their fans, at least until Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power was released last year.

The studio apologized at length recently, and they're now looking to earn back the trust of gamers with their new project, Shadwen. To begin with, they released a free demo of the game on Steam and encouraged as many people equally possible to play it every bit it would accept lowered the price of the game, which volition now be just $fourteen.55.

Shadwen is an ambitious stealth game with which Frozenbyte is trying to become back to the genre'due south roots. Its premise and features, detailed on the official Steam page (alongside organisation requirements) are definitely intriguing, with a strong focus on physics. With the game due to launch in May for PC and PlayStation four, we've reached out to the squad in social club to bring you exclusive details on the game. Relish!

With Shadwen, yous moved from platform/puzzle to the stealth genre. What kind of challenges did this provide?
The challenges mainly stemmed from having a different gameplay focus. In that location's more emphasis on interaction with AI in Shadwen because yous take to manipulate your opposition (the guards) in one way or the other to get to your objective, whereas in the Trine series, the gameplay was much more centered on puzzles and platforming bits. Then everything related to the AI was more than important this time effectually, like the guard'southward field of vision, movement patterns, and the way they react to dissimilar sounds and and then on.

Will the story of the game provide any clues to Shadwen's motive to assassinate the King (and perhaps fifty-fifty if the King actually deserves it)?
Yes, yous'll discover Shadwen's motive during the game, and more will be revealed about the king'due south gruesome past besides.

Yous mentioned consequences for choosing whether to kill the guards or not. Can you give u.s. a hint on what those might be?
Lily, the little daughter who'due south following y'all will go traumatized if you murder guards in front of her. The relationship between yous (Shadwen) and Lily will irreversibly change should you determine to practice that, and the story of the game volition differ depending on your deportment.

So much of a stealth game's success depends on the AI. What are you doing to make sure that it creates a compelling, all the same not frustrating challenge for gamers?
While we do desire the guards to have good AI and react to a variety of stimuli (visual and audio), they can't be besides overpowered, or that will only make playing the game a chore. The time-rewind feature is something nosotros felt was crucial in alleviating the instant-game-over-upon-detection premise, which could otherwise be very frustrating for the thespian if he/she gets blindsided for instance. It'due south all down to balancing, which I remember we've achieved well.

How long will the game take to complete, approximately? Do you believe it will be highly replayable?
The game has a lot of liberty to solve the levels in different ways, so there's definitely room for replayability. You can besides experiment a lot with the various traps and different routes and play styles. The choice to consummate the game in lethal and non-lethal ways too adds a great flake of length, because people will probably desire to see the different endings! It's hard to say how long the game will take. I would approximate, however, that it takes about xx-xxx minutes per level for a new player, and we take fifteen levels in total. That would make for 5-7.5 hours in total, merely of form this varies a lot depending on your play mode and experience. I'm sure we could speedrun the game much much faster.

What about DirectX 12 support, is information technology something that might be added to the game at some bespeak?
Not in the about future at to the lowest degree. We need a full engine update showtime for that to happen, simply we'll see how it goes.

Which resolution/frame rate are you targeting for the PlayStation four version? Will the game's visuals settings exist lowered in comparison to PC max settings?
Shadwen volition run at 1080p/60fps on PS4 and looks great! Of course if y'all have the hardware to totally maxed out on the graphical settings and resolution on PC, the game will have more detail.

What are the chances that Shadwen might be released for Xbox One at some indicate?
There's a hope…a chance!

Equally a developer, what's your take on Microsoft'southward Universal Windows Platform? Is that something you lot might be interested in exploring for the time to come?
We haven't looked at that yet very much to be honest, but it's a possibility if nosotros go to the Xbox Ane in the future.

With the Trine games, you consistently delivered a great stereoscopic 3D experience. Given that VR is an evolution of that technology, are you interested in adding support for PC (Oculus/Vive) or PS VR for Shadwen?
Nosotros are very excited about VR! - We've got our hands on the dissimilar VR kits and then once we get Shadwen out on the initial launch platforms, we might try how it works in VR as well. The rope-swinging activeness could exist a bit too much for those with a weak stomach though, but we'll only know if nosotros try it. 🙂

How did your partnership with Gamestop come about? Tin can you tell united states of america how it'due south going to work for you and if yous'll be releasing Shadwen and perhaps Trine 3 to retail via GameTrust?
Can't really reveal much all the same, but Shadwen and Trine iii are not related to our deal with GameTrust. Nosotros're very excited about the partnership and look forward to sharing more than, but all in good time!