Last week I received the great privilege to interview Mr. Haydn Dalton, Lead Designer at Vigil Games. As Lead Designer Mr. Dalton works close with all members of the Darksiders 2 development team and is always looking for new ways to make Darksiders 2 an even more fun experience for gamers worldwide. Read the short interview here:
A heap of loot
Loot will play a great role in Darksiders 2. Loot will be divided in rarity and special stats. Successfully defeating bosses will reward players with higher tier loot and also a lot more loot. The ultra rare “Possesed” and “Legendary” items will be obtained by destroying certain enemies or performing special tasks.
ROG: “I understand that loot drops from enemies and could be armor, weapons or gold. Will there be different tiers of armor and weapons? (Comparible with the color coded loot in games like WoW or Diablo 3?) And will bosses drop (special) loot? (Powerful gear that might only drop once every 100th boss kill for example?)”
Mr. Dalton: “Yes there are tiered loot drops, which are based on rarity and the amount of stats applied to them. Bosses will drop higher level loot, and a higher quantity of items (always feels good to burst a boss pinata ). We have very rare possessed items (very low frequency drops) and Legendary items (one-off items that can only be found by defeating a specific enemy, or found in secret locations, completing a task etc.)
Necromancer, Slayer or Wanderer?
Darksiders 2 will have three different sorts of armor. Players can pick out of the Necromancer (magic abilities) , Slayer (melee) and Wanderer (hybrid of the first two) armors.
ROG: “Could you tell us anything about the different builds you can create for your character? The different weapons seem to play a big role when it comes to personal playstyle. Would it be possible to make a super fast character that wields a heavy 2h hammer?”
Mr. Dalton: “We have 3 specific armour types; Necromancer (magical abilities), Slayer (melee combat focus) and Wanderer (rouge-ish armour that is a hybrid of the two other armour types). Upon starting the game, it’s always good to figure out what type of gamer you are, and focus on that element, be it magic casting/protection or, full on melee combat. As you focus stats and items towards those play types, you’ll see big rewards. Hammer wielding will always be slower than Scythes, but you could use the melee hand-to-hand weapons, such as gauntlets and claws which are incredibly quick and devastating.”
Secrets, Sidequests en Legendaries.
Mr. Dalton told us that Darksiders 2 will have many secrets. The optional sidequests will give players awesome rewards and teh ultra rare Legendary loot will have it’s own name, lore and statistics.
ROG: “You’ve mentioned that there are many secrets hidden in Darksiders 2. Will there be optional sidequests that reward you with unique loot? A legendary weapon perhaps?”
Mr. Dalton: “Yes, there are many secret items in Ds2, including option side-quests that reward with Unique loot. As I mentioned before, we are having Legendary one-off items that have their own name, lore and stats. “
Special reward for Darksiders 1 players
Fans that played trough the original Darksiders will recieve a special ingame reward that can be used in Darksiders 2. Unfortunately Mr. Dalton can not disclose anything yet so we’ll just have to wait a couple more weeks.
ROG: ‘Do you think that the current achievement system could be used to give players unique In-game rewards? Players who have finished the original game on Apocalyptic could get cool extra’s like a Abbadon armor for Death or getting to ride on Ruin as Death? Or something similarly epic?”
Mr. Dalton: “I can’t get into this too much, but there is something in the game that rewards players of Darksiders 1.”
We would like to thank Mr. Dalton for his time and will keep you updated with the latest Darksiders 2 news.
Darksiders 2 will be available in stores around August 21st for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. A WiiU version is also in development.