Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Interview
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In creating the world of Amalur, Salvatore looked toward existing human mythology and folklore in search of patterns of cultural behaviour. By studying the evolution of creation and destruction myths found in different cultures at different times, Salvatore was able to handpick different world views and customs and place them side by side, rearranging them like pieces of a puzzle.Sorry GameSpot, but Reckoning is not Copernicus "re-imagined". It's just the first of two games the companies are actively developing.
"Why did some cultures succeed and others fail? Why did one thing work in one part of society but fail in another? I tasked my team of writers on Amalur to ask these questions and to research different mythologies from around the world and imagine what the world would be like if some of these stories were actually true. What would a real race of elves or dwarves behave like? We worked backwards, unraveling the stories we found and putting them together again."
This, Salvatore believes, is the secret to world-building. All cultures follow a pattern, be it political, religious, or economic--a certain kind of symmetry that dictates how all humans relate to each other and the world. It's this symmetry that's responsible for the human fascination with the inexplicable, a fascination that Salvatore says is the reason he pays so much attention to Big Foot.
"The reason people love conspiracy theories is because the human brain is wired to put things together and come up with something bigger. People don't know what draws them to these ideas, but they want to believe it's true."
Of course, the outcome is always the same: it turns out it isn't really Big Foot, just an unnaturally large bear.
"People know the reveal is coming but they keep on watching. They're drawn to it for the same reason I'm drawn to fantasy: there's something comforting about having something that science can't explain. Personally, I'm a science guy. I believe in empirical evidence. But magic, fantasy, all that stuff--it's very primal. On an irrational level having something that cannot be explained is comforting to people."
