Gambling goes to visit the developers of the Divinity series and gets acquainted with their new game about dragons, where each hero will have a wing hand, and instead of a heart-a fiery motor

WHAT?

Dragon Commander – a game in which there is everything you wanted to know about dragons, but were afraid to ask.

WHERE?

Belgium, Gent, office Larian Studios.

In the song Road to Mandalay, Robbie Williams was sad that there were no more dragons left with whom one could fight. In the modern game industry, the situation is diametrically opposite: Dragons have a demographic explosion. Dragon Age 2 met the players of an angry giant reptile, in the second “witcher” the winged creature pursued Geralta up to the final credits, on the approach of Dragon’s Dogma and, of course, The Elder Skirim, where the hero absorbs the wisdom of defeated giant lizards. Here Larian Studios is there: right now, the Belgian studio is working on Dragon Commander, a game, which is entirely dedicated to these sacred cows of fantasy. But Larian is possible. They have been engaged in dragons for a very long time.

Ego Draconis

Arriving in Gent, we found the head of the studio in confusion. They were just preparing for the presentation on Gamescom and could not decide where to start their performance. Whatever they do, it seems to all the "test" to the listeners that this is all the same Divinity 2 , only with mother -of -pearl buttons. It is not difficult to get confused: there are still fiery knights in the spotlight (heroes that can turn into dragons) are still at great attention is paid to air battles. Someone in Larian suggested starting the presentation with the words: “No, everything is not as you think!"

[[Bullet]] Turbine on your back will allow your monster to make swift jerks. Simply put, this is an analogue of nitro from racing games.

Firstly, the new game is fundamentally different from Divinity 2 in terms of basic mechanics. And secondly, this project simply does not exist today. Dragon Commander is completely dedicated to dragons, covered with scales from head to toe, there are only dragons and nothing but them.

At first glance, however, the game really resembles Divinity 2, from which they deleted the “superfluous”: heroes, quests, hiking and generally everything that is under heaven, and not in them. Instead – a global card divided into hexagons, elusively reminiscent Total War. At your disposal, unit figures that can be moved around the field, capturing the territory. As soon as you get to the enemy cage, the game goes into real time mode, the Dragon Fight, familiar from the last game Larian.

[[Bullet]] This is what your throne room looks like, here you communicate with advisers and princess.

Then all kinds of subtleties begin. Fights occur only in heaven, the earth serves only the decoration – it is clear that whatever the scope of the battles, it would be just boring to fly in an absolute void. That is why every battle should be unique. Larian prepare a lot of scripts – both staged and accidentally generated.

Total Dragon War

The key task of the developers is to leave as much spaciousness as possible for tactics, so that the player is not just rushed in the clouds and spit with fire, but constantly made important combat decisions. There is always a choice.

Directly before your eyes, an airship with ammunition for the enemy battleship flies through the sky, and you know for sure that the enemy is holding a host of the hero who will give you a bonus to attack. What to do? Cut the way for enemy reinforcements? Try to help the hero? Or do not give a damn about all this, with acceleration to fly into the enemy base and incinerate the bastard with fiery breathing? Depending on the chosen style of the game, each solution may be correct.

[[Bullet]] game now at the very early stage of development, all screenshots are made on the Divinity engine.

Units of support give additional tactical depths. You cannot directly control them, your business is to wave their wings and burn with fire, and AI is responsible for subordinates. All kinds of turrets, air defense systems and offensive units will help in battles and, no less important, will set the appropriate entourage to the battle. Imagine: while mosquito aviation forces find out relations with enemy fighters, turrets are knocking enemy bombers, heavenly cruisers are blazing far away, and in the midst of all this is your dragon, sowing chaos, death and destruction. After this, the ability to call the dragon seems to be a childish torture in Skyrim.

Finally, the third element of the combat mechanics of Larian is spells. There are a huge amount of them, each can be played out on the cage of the global card in front of the battle, and it immediately changes the pattern of battle. Some slow down enemy units, others accelerate yours, the third strengthen the dragon, the fourth lure enemies on your side.

Lovely scolding

Spells, in turn, are issued by advisers. You have four such ministers: one is responsible for defense, the other for the economy, the third and fourth – for magic and politics. Everyone expresses his position, argues with others, requires certain actions from you. Naturally, advisers will often swear, arrange scandals, but the main thing is to give you new spells if you act in their interests. A peculiar fifth adviser can be considered https://big-win-box-casino.co.uk/ the wife of the protagonist.

[Bullet]] In a flying castle there is also a laboratory where you can make new devices for your monster. Some, for example, will allow you to slow down time.

Here you need to explain in a nutshell where the wives come from the fire lizards. Making a comprehensive game about dragons, Larian, of course, could not pass by such an important aspect of dragon life as a kidnapping. There are several races in the game world, each has its own heiress, and every dynastic marriage can improve or worsen your interethnic relationship. Geopolitical relations are immediately reflected in the game: in heaven there are always a full neutral monsters, which are patronized by different races, and if you have managed to quarrel with one of them, then the vassals will respond to this with aggression.

It should be noted that, having stolen the princess, you will receive not only the location of her relatives, but also a heap of problems. Girls are capricious and will constantly demand new feats from you.

All of the above politics is happening on a global map, as well as on your flying aircraft carrier "Raven". It is there that the ministers sit, the princess lives there, there your house and from there you can plan further actions. In fact, this is the same Castle of the hero from Divinity 2 (well, or the abode of the Lord from Overlord ). At the same time, Raven is your main unit on a global map, you control it, moving from cage to cage.

There was one such … wings did

Thus, Dragon Commander offers a very complex gameplay. Global map, scripts, spells, support for various races-Larian's ambitions remained at the level of the 90s, when each first developer considered it his duty to make a giant game with a bunch of opportunities. Excess confirmation of this – types of dragons.

[Bullet]] Animation in such a game is of fundamental importance. While the dragons do not look too elegant, even in an old Lair for PS3, they looked more lively. However, Larian still has a lot of time.

Each race has its own lizard. What will they be – the subject of severe disputes. Right now, a discussion of the final set of races and their dragons is being discussed in the walls of the studio. Clothes are drawn, the concept changes, all new individuals are born on paper, and then they are sent to the garbage bucket or to the desktop of designers and animators. Dragons are the most important part of the game, and the developers want to achieve perfect balance from the very beginning.

[[Bullet]] Small monsters not only create the effect of extras, but also really help in battles. In theory, you can generally abandon the dragon pumping and concentrate on support units.

At the moment, three types of monsters are known: the Dragon-man-a classic, graceful lizard; dwarf – a pot -bellied dinosaur with wings; as well as a dragon-IMP. The incident happened to the latter: when the flaming knight of this race first tried himself in the beast form, it turned out that he was turning into a stupid water snake. Without wings. The hero was not at a loss and made them himself – from metal. Watch how ridiculous this monster in the sky is ridiculous, desperately waving with homemade wings, it is impossible without laughter – but such a dragon is excellently versed in technology. This is the most important feature of the world of the game: here magic is adjacent to the most advanced military technologies. Dragons are soar from the deck of the aircraft carrier, like combat aircraft, and a couple of machine guns and missile systems will be an excellent company with fiery breath. The apogee of technocracy in the game is a powerful turbine, which can be attached to the back of the monster – with it it will fly like a rocket. As the head of Larian Sven Vinka says: “Dragons are the standard of combat power. Swift, like fighters, maneuverable, like helicopters, and destructive, like combat cruisers. ". The flying fire -breathing lizard hung with rocket launchers – it seems that this is what we missed all these years.

In the near future, Dragonomania clearly will not decline, and Dragon Commander will have to break through in these conditions somehow. In the frontal attack, the Belgian studio could hardly be able to cope with monsters like Bethesda , but Larian go on their own, special path. They are professional romantics who proved that they can not only conceive a “dream game” with a huge number of elements, but also make them work at a completely acceptable level. Here is Dragon Commander – not a frivolous action about lizards with machine guns, but thoughtful tactical game with a rich inner world. And the fashion for dragons has nothing to do with it.