Underworld Ascendant Interview
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3) What other key RPG elements can the player expect to find from the original games? How are they being elaborated and expanded upon? (Stat manipulation? Character customisation?)
We are actually still working on if/how we want physical character customization to work in the final game, but we've already agreed upon how we'll be tackling "stats" and "skills". We talked briefly during the Roundtable about how skills are unlocked through real experiences, and how we want your actual skill level to be represented and improved upon ingame. For example, let's say you start your game and you're an excellent shooter/archer. After a few headshots and completing a quest or two, you'll be able to unlock a skill that basically gives you a "scope" to shoot at enemies from afar, and allows you to do even better shots. While I'm on the subject, I also want to echo what Chris Siegel mentioned, which is that when you start the game, you will be at "level 0" and not "level -10". In other words, your own skill level is your starting point. We won't be purposely ensuring some of your shots miss just because you "just started as an archer" in Underworld Ascendant. If you can pull something off right off the bat, we'll let you do it.
4) How goes the creation of ambience and music for this new vision of the Underworld? Any chance of George Sanger being involved? Dave Govett? Mr Schmidt or Blackley? Any intended nods to musical themes of the past that you can share?
Ambience in particular is very important to the Abyss, and our current musical score reflects that. There are a number of sound effect cues that hint at the presence of monsters, items, and even areas, so we want to make sure the music sets a mood but doesn't distract you from your goal. You may have noticed that Jim Bonney has joined us as our new Audio Director! There's still room and time to include musical themes from UW1&2, so we'll have to see about that.
