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[INTERVIEW] Chivalry 2: Bigger, Better, Stronger - NoFrag

Thanks to Torn Banner Studios, answered by Steve Piggot.

nofrag.com

Highlights:

• It's the game that the studio has been waiting to make for a long time.
• Torn Banner is a team of 25 people (and growing), all based in Toronto, Canada.
• Dismemberment system, you can continue to fight after losing a limb

NoFrag : Before discussing the game in more detail, a word about Mirage: Arcane Warfare which was a flop. How was the atmosphere in the studio? Were you always motivated to work on something?

Torn Banner : Mirage released in early 2017 and it’s commercial failure deeply shook the studio. We put years of hard work and love into that project and for it to not just not take off, but truly crash and burn right off the start the way it did was hard and took all we had to recover from.

In a way it was also a blessing, as despite being a very painful time for the team, it forced us to look at how we were operating and how we got into that place where we created something that didn’t resonate with an audience. The failure was so complete that there was no option of shying away from our mistakes, so the only option we were left with was to get to work fixing the problems.

There is no doubt that this experience has strengthened and refocused our team. And now I’m happy to report that everyone here is motivated and giving everything they have to make Chivalry 2 the best game it can be. I believe it was ultimately our core passion for the Chivalry series that got us through those “dark ages” and kept us driving to make all the hard changes and improvements we had to as a company in order to be able to make a great game. We just knew we had more we wanted to accomplish in the series and no defeat would take away that potential from us.

• No single player
• Four class, plenty of room for experimentation and improvisation
• They've been working on Chivalry 2 for over two years, since early to mid 2017, immediately following the launch of Mirage.

NoFrag : How the combat system of Chivalry II will be different? Do you promise that we will no longer see any abuse of the combat system: touching opponents from behind, making it impossible to read the strikes or playing the ballerina?

Torn Banner: We think we feel the same way about the first Chivalry as many of our fans do, it was a game that had a tremendous amount of potential and was quite fun for a time, but at higher skill levels it fell apart due to the level of swing manipulation that at times looked absurd. It’s important to understand that many of the actions players were taking to do these moves were awesome and creative, but they looked silly or didn’t provide the opponent with a viable counter action.

So our goal this time around is to keep the creativity and control for players, but make their actions look good and be readable and reactable to other opponents. This is essential in a multiplayer game so that when you lose you feel like it was a result of your opponents superior skill and not an “exploit” within the game.

Chivalry II’s combat will feel familiar on a base level, while at the same time it is a substantial change from the first game. The combat this time around is much more fluid, varied and faster, it feels like a more natural extension of the players hands. We have significantly increased the moveset available to the player and iterated on the combo and input systems so the responsiveness and flow lets players engage in combat where they become whirlwinds of steel.

Our goal is to create the best melee combat ever, and when driven by a pursuit like that you can’t stay still.

• Dark and cinematic feeling from the original Chivalry will be recaptured in Chivalry 2, but also expanded upon, take place 20 years after the events of Chivalry 1.
• They don’t think horses have been done that well in any multiplayer game so far: "we aren’t happy to have them be glorified motorbikes, we want them to feel like massive 1000-pound war beasts. You’re going to be crushing people’s skulls with the hooves of these monsters. "

NoFrag : You mentioned an improved sandbox experience. It’s not very clear. Can you detail and give some examples?

Torn Banner: When we say improved sandbox experience, what we’re talking about is the dynamic tools and weapons players will encounter in the environment and will be able to interact with to quickly improvise new combat strategies on the fly. This is for both humor and tactical purposes, such as throwing rocks down on people trying to climb up the ladder or grabbing a shovel or pitchfork as a makeshift weapon. We have no doubt some players will spend the majority of their time picking up and flinging horse poo, because hey, its that type of game too.

• Siege weapons like catapults , various other siege weapons
• Castle siege.

NoFrag : I imagine you’ve heard of Mordhau. What would be the differences with the Triternion combat system? By the way, have you played the game?

Torn Banner : Yes many of our team have played Mordhau. It’s really a cool thing to see a game that has basically risen up out of the community from your own game and be as successful as it is. It is also validating and it’s shown just how huge a market there is for medieval video games, and specifically melee games. Essentially there are still very few developers doing stuff in that area and as huge fans of the genre we’re grateful for some competition.

We respect what Mordhau and others in the genre are doing, but we are confident that what we have planned for Chivalry 2 is a much more ambitious and impressive game. From the powerful atmosphere and scale of our new Team Objective maps, to the hilarious new character voices for players to roleplay with and the best melee combat ever made we are confident that Chivalry 2 will capture the potential the first game showed and help put the First Person Slasher genre on the map in a bigger way than ever before. We’ve also heard from some players who consider Mordhau essentially a sequel to the first game, and to that we say: well, I hope you are looking forward to Chivalry 3, because in many respects that is the game we are making.

• Along with Team Objective mode which is the focus for Chivalry 2, other classic game modes will make an appearance too.
• Probable mod support, but not at launch.
• Maybe a battle royale mode (not denying)

NoFrag : Dragging will always be present. Can you talk about it?

Torn Banner: Yes, dragging will be present. Dragging is a core aspect of the combat system, it is what allows the game to have the level of precision and control you would expect from an FPS. At the same time everything in the combat system needs to meet the criteria of feeling good to use – and to have used against you on the other side, so we will be limiting and controlling how much players can influence their weapons during swings to ensure the result has every action feeling physical and weighty- the way knights fighting in armour should. We do this primarily through our revamped animation system, where instead of the player having all rotation instantly at the hips, the motion is cascaded through different parts of the body proportionally, so turning your camera to the left turns the hips a little, the upper torso more and the arms and head even more. This more nuanced and realistic representation of the mechanics of the body motions during a swing are good example of how we are keeping the fun while dropping the visual jank that dragging has caused in the past.