Here’s how Australian Broken Roads is: instead of magic potions, you drink beer. Game director Craig Ritchie casually mentions this when listing consumables, alongside bandages and first aid kits. “You can’t get magic potions in our game so we have multiple sources of beer,” he says. “The beers have different abilities.”
Broken Roads is so Australian one of its character archetypes is summed up as someone who “wouldn’t even blink in a shit storm”. Funny thing is, this post-apocalyptic homage to classic RPGs like Fallout wasn’t always set in Australia. It wasn’t even always an RPG. When Ritchie first told a friend about his videogame idea in 2019, it was a tactics game, “A road trip with tactical battles along the way.” The focus was on turn-based combat, and the setting was a “pos-apoc place”.
That friend was Jethro Naude, who became co-founder of Drop Bear Bytes with Ritchie, and Broken Roads became their first game. But not without changes along the way. Within a month they realised it made sense for an Australian studio to set its Mad Max-esque game in Australia, and they wanted it to be about more than just combat. They wanted to deepen the characters, expand the story, make it more like the game they both consider their favourite: Baldur’s Gate 2. “We made a decision, I think in early February,” Ritchie says. “This is going to be a narrative-driven RPG like the greats of the genre that we love.”
Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av PC Gamer.
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av PC Gamer.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BITING BACK
The tooth is out there in adventure TEETH OF GLASS
SMOKE ALARM
THE INVISIBLE SMOKE FACTORY is back in a Flash
MECH ME OVER
Move over Mario, here's mech-based platforming in ARMORED SHELL NIGHTJAR
"I like Pillars of Eternity better than Baldur's Gate III"
PILLARS OF ETERNITY deserves a bigger space in the CRPG pantheon
"A harrowing dark fantasy about hapless, bright-eyed children"
Spelunking into hell with MADE IN ABYSS: BINARY STAR FALLING INTO DARKNESS
THE IMMORTAL LOCK
A massive, meaty game in a single horrific Quake map.
NEW MANOEUVRES
Building a dedicated sim racing space in an average family house
OVERWATCH 2
Save me space girl.
REET GOOD TIME
THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE HERE is a riotous recreation of Yorkshire
THE PLUCKY SQUIRE
How many games let you make friends with a MtG card?