One day, while enjoying the sunset alone in the game, I suddenly thought how great it would be to have a few companions to pass the time with me here. This may be one of the reasons why we turned Tower of Fantasy into a multiplayer online open world game.Furthermore, we also love God of War: Ragnarok. We believe their seamless map teleportation fully utilizes the high-speed SSD and Kraken hardware compression features of the PlayStation 5. As seasoned action game enthusiasts, our team has always strived for excellence in refining combat and the sense of impact. We want players to have a more exhilarating experience in combat and have room for combos, rather than simply relying on numbers to defeat bosses.
Can you explain how the game’s real-time combat system works?
Kee: In the introduction to Tower of Fantasy, the keywords “action” and “act” are always mentioned. In combat, we have incorporated many classic elements of action games, such as double jumps, mid-air combos, and time dilation after dodging, also known as “bullet time.”
Implementing a feature like bullet time is relatively easy in single-player games, but it becomes much more complex in an open-world game with multiplayer capabilities. What are the boundaries of player interactions? How wide is the scope of bullet time? How long does it last? Should there be a cooldown? How long should the cooldown be? These are all things that require careful tweaking and countless iterations, which can be quite a headache. However, we really love this feature, and I believe many action game enthusiasts do too, so we persisted and made it happen.
And then there’s the mysterious “sense of impact.” Achieving a satisfying sense of impact requires perfect coordination between visuals and button feedback. For example, how the sword gleams when a player swings it, creating the feeling of every strike hitting flesh. It takes a lot of time to get it right. Here, I want to apologize to the amazing artists, as I often dragged them into lengthy discussions just for a specific particle effect.
We also made efforts to diversify the combat mechanics. Players can use grappling hooks to approach enemies, climb on the backs of bosses for attacks, or even perform environmental kills by knocking enemies off high edges or utilizing objects in the surroundings. In short, there are various ways to engage in combat. In this open world game, we hope players can experience deep and engaging battles. That’s a small dream from an old action game player like myself.
Source: Unreal Engine Blog