There’s something about Fallen Earth that caught our Critical Eye. Perhaps it’s the effort the developers have made to distinguish themselves; more likely it’s the similarity the post – apocalyptic world has to the Critical Gamer offices after the Christmas party.
CG: How and why did you come to decide that Fallen Earth was the game you wanted to make?
Dave Haydysch: The idea for the game and the setting began about eight years ago. Along the way the ideas kept evolving into what they are now and even today we are continuously improving upon what we have for the future. We felt that the setting of the post-apocalypse and the American Southwest/Grand Canyon offers our players a very unique space to make their own compared to other genres.
CG: What influenced the game? Would it be fair to say that Mad Max and the Fallout games were major influences?
Dave Haydysch: The Post-Apocalypse is really the biggest influence, books like The Postman and the Mad Max / Road Warrior movies lent themselves to the feel we were going for. Fallout is a game a lot of us love and we would be remiss to say that it didn’t have some influence; it’s a great game series.
CG: MMOs, of course, demand a huge amount of time and effort from the player; playing two at once ‘properly’ would be very difficult. Why do you think the market is able to support so many at once?
Dave Haydysch: That’s a good question. There are more and more people who are being exposed to gaming in general, whether it’s mobile gaming, console, or PC/Mac, so with just that there are more eyes on us than ever. I believe that there is more variety in the games that are being offered, so those who might have been sticking to one game for a long time are getting the chance to see what else is out there. As far as MMOs, there really hasn’t been much variety, so we wanted to offer something different to players in Fallen Earth, in turn attracting new and old players alike.
CG: It’s clear that you’ve put a lot of effort into the backstory. What have you put into the game to tell the story to players who haven’t explored the website?
Dave Haydysch: Fallen Earth has a very deep story line players are drawn into right from the very beginning upon entering the game. You learn in the tutorial who you are, why you are there, and what you need to do. You are then sent out to find out more and entrench yourself in the fight for existence. Outside of the tutorial, the story line continues and draws players even deeper as they progress through the world.
CG: What do you think other MMOs tend to do wrong, that you have been careful to avoid?
Dave Haydysch: That’s a tough question, all games have their “wrongs” and they also have what they did right. There is a lot we have learned from other games; good and bad. We try very hard to not emulate other games, but include many different elements by creating our classless skill based advancement system, crafting system, and hybrid environment.
CG: Players are able to create their own vehicles. How much customisation is on offer?
Dave Haydysch: As you advance your crafting skills in the game you can learn how to craft different variations of our vehicles which have different stats, storage, weapons, colour and so on. The crafting system in Fallen Earth is geared more towards the wide variety of items you can craft rather than personal customization such as tagging that item as ‘created by (your name here)’. This is a request we have heard from our players and have made note of it.
CG: Does the game concentrate more on NPC attacks or PvP fights – and why?
Dave Haydysch: We have a good mix of both. The PvE world is enormous and offers a lot of content for our players. PvP includes battle for control of conflict towns against other factions or all out brawls in PvP zones scattered throughout the Grand Canyon Province. PvP players can expect to see new types of combat and further additions in patches coming next year.
CG: Who is the target audience for Fallen Earth – established MMO fans, or are you casting your net wider than that?
Dave Haydysch: MMO fans are our core target audience although we try to incorporate elements that those unfamiliar with MMOs could take interest in, like the FPS elements we have tied into our combat system.
CG: If you had to choose just one feature of Fallen Earth to grab people’s attention, what would it be?
Dave Haydysch: I would have to say the expansiveness of the world. There is an enormous amount of space in our game and many areas to explore. We have 70 towns and over 5500 missions, not to mention all the areas you might encounter wandering the wastes.
CG: What can we expect from you in the future?
Dave Haydysch: As always, our small but agile team is hard at work constantly improving what is currently in game as well as working on bugs and future development. We have a pretty aggressive development schedule and due to our independent studio we are able to listen and respond to our fans much easier which we love. So fans can keep an eye out for many more improvements and new content in the future!
Comments