Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Q&A
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Q: For this game, you are using the Sourceâ„¢ engine from Valve. Could you explain why you decided to use this engine? To what extend does it answer your development objectives?
RC: Back in 2003 we were building our own engine. During a game show, we ran into a few folks from Valve who had played and liked our first game (Arx Fatalisâ„¢). We checked out the Valve booth at E3, saw their amazing demo and realized that the Source Engine was providing absolutely everything we wanted and more. We decided to start talking with them about a license.
Valve was very enthusiastic about giving us access to Source at an early stage, even before they would officially license it, which was great because it was just the engine we needed. Being the second generation of one of the most proven engines for first person action games, Source featured all of what we were looking for: super realistic rendering, stunning physics integration, solid multiplayer architecture and great flexibility for quickly prototyping crazy new features.
RWG: For me it is reassuring to work with a team like Arkane that does not have to focus on building an engine from scratch - with all the technical challenges which that entails - but instead. can dedicate all the creative energy on making great gameplay.
Very early on we were able to discuss the prototyping of some specific gameplay elements, instead of having to spend most of our development time in hoping that ultimately "it will work."
