Riftrunner from developer Larian Studios is the intriguing continuation to the Divine Divinity world. Divine Divinity was one of the top RPGs released last year. It came in second on our list of Top RPGs of 2002. Although not a direct sequel to Divine Divinity which is expected next year, Riftrunner is an entirely new RPG set in the same universe. We recently had the opportunity to interview Swen Vincke from Larian Studios and project leader on Riftrunner. He provides us with a very special glimpse into the world of Riftrunner and why it may ultimately surpass Divine Divinity and become one of this year's top RPGs!

Estimated Release: Fall 2003

TWO EXCLUSIVE JUST RPG SCREENSHOTS

RIFTRUNNER INTERVIEW WITH SWEN VINCKE

REMEMBERING THE ORIGINAL

JustRPG: Divine Divinity received much praise from reviewers and fans. What features do you think contributed to its success?

Swen: Divine Divinity was an overall RPG package. It’s difficult to single out particular features because a conscious effort was placed on creating what we termed the “Total RPG experience”… i.e. focusing on the actual features RPG players need to make it a true experience. Collectively, they included a strong and believable storyline, immersive dialogues, and the high interaction with NPC’s, enemies and the majority of objects within the universe. Then we come to elements like the open-ended character development system, the flexible combat system, and the huge assortment of engrossing quests.

That said and done, if I had to single out one particular feature that we were pleased with, it would be the high density of what we’ve called Gameplay Boosters. Gameplay Boosters can best be described as things which are interesting to do or fun to discover. Having a high density of them worked quite well, so we were pleased with the outcome.

EXTENDING THE DIVINITY UNIVERSE

JustRPG: What are your plans in extending the Divinity Universe?

Swen: When we came up with the concept of the Divinity Universe, we had already discussed the option of extending the story through Riftrunner. We hadn’t discussed the name, but the idea was there.

We knew what our vision was, but after three years developing Divinity, it was hard to remain objective. The motivation to start Riftrunner was pretty much due to the encouragement and positive feedback we got from the fans.

So our initial plan to continually develop the Divinity universe is back on track. As you know we’ve announced, we’re working on Divinity 2, but we also have further plans to extend and develop the universe. I can’t mention them at the moment but they are very real.

THE NEW RPG - RIFTRUNNER

JustRPG: Tell us about the development history of Riftrunner, and the major goals in the design of this game.

Swen: What we really want to do with Riftrunner is establish the base for a good RPG gaming system. It might sound surprising, but that’s something we weren’t very happy about in Divinity. The stats system wasn’t the best in the world and as a result there were quite some balancing issues.

On top of that, we also want to explain to players what happened after the events in Divinity 1. In that regard, it very much is a continuation of the original storyline and you will be meeting characters from Divinity 1 when traveling through Riftrunner’s universe – though not how you would expect it I think.

JustRPG: What is the background and story to Riftrunner?

Swen: The story in Riftrunner is very much related to the one in Divine Divinity. It is set twenty years after events in Divinity. The Divine one has erected a new order whose sole mission it is to eradicate the evil black ring and necromantic scum. You, the player, are a servant of the Divine with a distinct dislike for necromancers. You’re sent out on a mission to kill a particular nasty and powerful necromancer and as such things go, your encounter with him goes very wrong. You are dragged away by a very unfriendly demon to its own universe. There your adventure starts and contrary to what you might expect, you’ll find that it’s very linked to Rivellon, the land where the first Divinity started.

The main plot is you trying to escape from the universe you got trapped into. However, things rapidly get complicated. To start with, you are soul-forged with a death knight. What that means, I’ll explain by quoting him (or her or it for that matter – he/her/it never removes his helmet):

“As you slipped through my fingers, I felt a burning inside as you filled my very soul, and I yours. Now we are bound together in both life and death…Do you think I would choose this Servant of Light? Samuel's curse will not be broken easily. Our souls are as one. We can't be separated for long without suffering or even dying. If one of us dies the other one will share the same fate.”

So that’s not so good. To make matters even more complicated, you have a psychopathic demon called Samuel who organizes a worldwide hunt for you, a necromancer who tries to control you (one of the problems of being in a demon’s universe), a strange new race who needs you to save them and a bunch of imps gone totally crazy. And as if that’s not enough, there’s chaos magic everywhere guaranteeing some very strange and twisted encounters indeed.

The story itself is divided into five acts. Act 1 is pretty linear whereas the others are not.

JustRPG: You are using an updated Divinity engine for the game. Please tell us about some of the new improvements we will see as a result.

Swen: We’ve ported the engine to DirectX9. This eliminated any incompatibility problems that it had and it also allowed us to add more graphical elements. We’ve now included real time 3D characters, added a lot of glitter in the magic effects, allowed for higher resolutions and have included the ability to zoom in when playing at those higher resolutions. The graphical tweaks are nothing too groundbreaking but they are subtle enough to make the game better.

Other additions and improvements include a new character development system, with a new skill system and advanced character creation options; a new reputation system; the special function of real time generation of dungeons, maps and quests; and a better balanced equipment and trading system with many new and unique items.

One final subtle but important improvement is the all-round sturdiness of the engine. For an RPG to be as interactive and open ended as possible, the Divinity engine sometimes took a battering. The additional work now means that the engine remains rock solid. Save games are also a lot faster, at least at this point.

JustRPG: Tell us more about the new character development system as well as the new reputation system that will be featured in the game.

Swen: We're preparing a special feature around the character development system so I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise by explaining it all here. But to give you a hint some parts of it are very different to that of Divinity 1, and there are good reasons for that. I'm quite sure most people will like it a lot. It’s definitely much better balanced, much more detailed and the skill system rocks.

The new reputation system will have a big impact on the gameplay that gets generated within the random quest generator and on some of the sub quests. The new system will not let reputation interfere with the pre-scripted quests though since we got a lot of negative feedback about that in Divinity 1. However, with the generated ones, that's a different story.

JustRPG: One of the exciting new features is the real time generation of dungeons, maps and quests. Tell us more about this very exciting addition.

Swen: Battlefields is the name of our new technology that generates random quests and worlds. They are accessed through special portals, and once through these portals, you will find yourself in areas which are totally generated and where all quests are random. Usually you visit the Battlefields to boost your character, gain an item or learn a new and rare skill. The main purpose of the Battlefield technology is to give players replay value plus a lot of extra content. There are also different levels of difficulty in the Battlefields so players will always find something for them to do there.

I have to say that I’m surprised at how good some of the areas generated by the Battlefields look – it doesn’t have a generated feel at all. We’re still very busy with the story generation part and if we get that as good as we’re getting the world generation, then I think the Battlefields will be pretty popular. I also have to add that while the Battlefields are generated worlds, some parts of it contain handcrafted surprises. We'll be releasing more details about the Battlefields over the coming months.

JustRPG: Riftrunner is introducing a new party system, tell us more about this.

Swen: In Divinity the party system was limited and you just had followers in the form of summoned creatures, which you couldn't control. In Riftrunner, you have total party control and you can micro-manage your party if need be. You and your soul mate are the two dominant party members. Upon your travels you will encounter certain characters that you will be able to recruit and order about. Once you have mastered the Summoning Dolls feature, the resulting creatures will also be able to join your party. I can’t give you too many details yet as some parts of the party control system are still in flux.

JustRPG: It is always appreciated when developers listen to the fans. What are some of the features that you are adding to Riftrunner that fans have requested?

Swen: I believe the new stats and skill system address a lot of complaints we’ve been reading in our forums. We reduced the amount of hack&slash to manageable levels since players were pretty unhappy about that. We’ve also made sure the ending of the game is a lot more fun than it was in Divinity 1. Actually, the ending was one of the first things we did, just so that we’d be sure we wouldn’t run out of time and ruin it again. The Battlefields are our answer to the many players who are replaying Divinity over and over again. The Gameplay boosters are more prominent. And very importantly, we’ve paid a lot more attention to items and equipment, making sure that you have pretty cool uniques. There’s more but that should give you some idea.

JustRPG: What are you doing in Riftrunner that you were not able to do in Divine Divinity?

Swen: There were a lot of things we weren’t happy about in Divinity and having the chance to rectify them is pretty cool. Divinity 1 originally had party members in it and we had to kick those because we were running behind schedule. Now we’ve been able to put them back in. This time around we also have the chance to spend more time on the actual gameplay rather than the zillions of features which were necessary to get the engine running – that makes a big difference.

FINAL COMMENTS AND CURRENT STATUS

JustRPG: Currently, how far in development are you and when do you expect to release the game?

Swen: Riftrunner’s development is at an advanced stage. If it carries on reaching its milestones then we will have the game fully developed and ready by the end of Q4.

In terms of release date, well we are in the process of organizing Riftrunner to have a simultaneous worldwide release, but as a consequence there is a small chance that we may move the release date to very early Q1. But it won’t suffer from any major slippage

JustRPG: What do you think fans will appreciate the most about Riftrunner?

Swen: There are many different types of fans but if there was something they liked about Divinity, they will definitely find it back in Riftrunner and if there was something they didn’t like about Divinity, chances are high that it’s been rectified in Riftrunner. I honestly think that if you like CRPGs, then you will most probably enjoy playing Riftrunner.

Riftrunner Official Website

Divine Divinity Review at Just RPG

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