The playable lead is Royal Guard Kim Rip. How did the team land on his distinctive look and the design of the rest of the supporting cast?Lee:
Our internal design team created the appearance of all our characters. In the early stages of the project, we initially aimed to depict a historical era, but in order to achieve a more eye-catching design, we combined traditional costumes with futuristic elements, resulting in the current character designs. This allowed us to create our own unique and distinctive characters.
The enemies in The Devil Within: Satgat are a mix of magical and mechanical aspects. Can you talk about bringing together this combination for the enemy design?
Lee: This combination naturally came together during the development process. As we ventured beyond the historical theme, we gained a significant level of freedom in the setting, allowing our development team to unleash their limitless imagination and creativity. As a result, we were able to design a wide range of dynamic and captivating gameplay mechanics, which greatly enhanced the overall gaming experience.
The Devil Within: Satgat has a vast, interconnected world. Can you talk about designing a world that is cohesive, but also interesting from a gameplay perspective?
Lee: The initial design of our world followed the traditional “Metroidvania” approach, where the entire world is open for exploration. However, as we analyzed the games in this genre that have been released, we noticed that many players were becoming somewhat fatigued with the traditional approach.
Therefore, we approached it from a slightly different perspective and devised a way to alleviate early-game fatigue and allow players to easily settle into our world. We introduced a method where players would follow a predetermined path through a portion of the world in the early stages of the game, and then gradually increase the freedom once immersion is established.
Source: Unreal Engine Blog