Swen Vincke, fundador da Larian Studios: It’s easy to go along the beaten path, but then you’re not going to have any evolution in games. You’ll have rehashes of the same thing over and over (entrevista)

No que aos videojogos diz respeito, 2014 promete ser um ano bastante promissor em termos de lançamentos relevantes (indie e AAA), de diversidade de títulos e, espera-se, em termos de qualidade. Até há muito pouco tempo (leia-se: alguns minutos), o RPG isométrico Divinity: Original Sin estava a passar por baixo do radar, porventura por desconhecer os restantes títulos da Larian Studios no universo ficcional da série Divinity. Mas se na aparência Original Sin se poderá assemelhar muito a action role-play games como Diablo (as primeiras imagens são especialmente evocativas), na prática parece capaz de chegar àqueles jogadores que (como eu), de bom grado trocam as mecânicas repetitivas de grind que estão na base do género por mais e melhores elementos narrativos e de exploração de mundo. 

Com a promessa de um RPG sem classes, com um modo de co-op bastante interessante (pelo menos no papel) e uma oferta multiplayer opcional que não interfere com quem deseja apenas uma experiência de jogo individual, Divinity: Original Sin poderá ter tudo para agradar a este nicho de jogadores. O jogo já está disponível no Steam Early Access, para quem desejar participar nas fases finais do processo de desenvolvimento; o lançamento oficial do jogo está agendado, em princípio, para a Primavera - em entrevista a Nathan Grayson para o Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Swen Vincke, fundador da Larian Studios, recorda as atribulações por que passou com o desenvolvimento e o lançamento de títulos anteriores, e não se quer comprometer em demasia com uma data de lançamento:

As long we’re finding bugs – and we still have a long list of bugs to squash – we’re not going to release it. If it’s not ready by spring, we’ll just postpone it. We’re not going to release it early. Not this one. So much love and effort has gone into it, and so much hope on our side, that it would be suicidal to release it.

A entrevista de Vincke, aliás, revelou-se numa leitura interessantíssima sobre o dia-a-dia de estúdios de pequenas dimensões, sobre a importância do crowdfunding nos dias que correm (Divinity: Original Sin arrecadou um milhão de dólares no formato), sobre a evolução dos RPG enquanto género - e sobre a insistência da Larian num modelo que hoje parecerá distante dos role-play games na terceira pessoa com orçamentos milionários. Um excerto:

Nathan Grayson / Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Conventional wisdom used to say that no one wanted these sorts of games anymore. And you’ve gone from making Ego Draconis, which was much more an RPG fused with an action game to Original Sin. But this is like, by many standards, a niche within a niche. You’re making a very specific type of game. Are you at all worried about a worst case scenario? A small crowd buys it and loves it, and everyone else says, “eh, not my thing”?

Swen Vincke: (...) I refuse to believe that our players currently are the only ones who want to have an evolution of the RPG genre as it existed and that was cut off. It was cut off because it turned out that the action-RPGs sold easier and were easier to make.

I personally think that, in the early 2000s, RPGs were cut off, because there were a number of production values that went up, and it was impossible to… Well, it was possible, but it was decided not to do it by the powers that be. So the genre stopped evolving. This was the case for a lot of genres. Now we have the resurgence of the indies. We have Steam Early Access and Kickstarter. Suddenly we have games that nobody would have ever invested in. Like Wasteland 2, for instance. Do you really think a publisher would have put a dollar into that? No. Look at it, how it’s soaring up the charts. That’s conventional wisdom for you.

The guys that have the conventional wisdom, I’m sorry, but I never agreed with them back then and I still don’t agree with them nowadays. It’s easy to go along the beaten path, but then you’re not going to have any evolution in games. You’ll have rehashes of the same thing over and over. There’s a lot of gamers out there, more gamers than ever, and they’re looking for a little bit more intelligent content. That’s where we want to be with this one. (...)

E, logo de seguida, Vincke fala nos benefícios de ter uma equipa de escritores composta por elementos de ambos os géneros - algo que tem sido alvo de debate aceso na indústria nos últimos tempos:

NG/RPS: (...). You mentioned that you have a male-female writing team. That is, sadly, still quite rare in this industry. How has that affected Divinity? Was it a game-changer?

SW: Oh yeah. Sarah joined the team as a result of the Kickstarter, actually. She was one of the hires as a result of the Kickstarter. Best decision ever. It’s balanced completely the dialogue writing, which was indeed too male-focused. Now we have this balance going on. You notice in the dialogue, we have a much bigger variety of characters. You get better interaction between them going on, which is more realistic. I’m very happy we did that. If I were to expand my writing team, I’d try to keep that gender balance in there. (...)

A entrevista completa pode (deve) ser lida no Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Se todos os bugs possíveis de ser corrigidos forem corrigidos a tempo, Divinity: Original Sin deverá ser lançado no final de Abril. Abaixo, o trailer para o Steam Early Access:

Fonte: Rock, Paper, Shotgun