When it comes to battle royales, we all get different things out of it. Some of us only care about winning, others seek out the most kills, but a select few of us revel in tormenting our enemies. There’s a strange joy in running circles around someone, knowing you could easily take them out of the game but instead dragging it out and toying with them a little. Unfortunately, this often backfires, but it still puts a smile on my face.
The upcoming Deathverse: Let It Die is all about this kind of gameplay. With just 16 players in each match and a series of small and tight areas, there are all sorts of opportunities for sneak attacks, merciless hunts, and general mayhem. We sat down with Game Director, Hideyuki Shin, and Sound Director, Akira Yamaoka, to take a look at how Let It Die took shape.
Note: The questions and answers have been edited slightly for clarity.
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GLHF: What were the determining factors for having Deathverse play more like a battle royale and less like a game with Dark Souls-style progression?
Shin: We received a lot of feedback about Let It Die’s combat, and how fun it was, but a common request was for the ability to play against real people. We wanted to use the world of Let It Die to offer the type of real-time combat players were asking for.
GLHF: What were some challenges you and the dev team faced when deciding to go down the battle royale route?
Shin: The online real-time action aspect was very difficult. In Let It Die, even when you die you can kind of just keep playing, but in Deathverse we had to add a bit of a buffer. It was difficult to keep things balanced, so that took up most of the time during the development process.
GLHF: Does Deathverse use dedicated servers? How will players worldwide experience connecting to the game?
Shin: We have separate servers for the database and matchmaking. For matchmaking servers specifically, we have servers worldwide, so players will be able to find a good connection regardless of where they play. Distance is definitely an issue, so we wanted to make sure we got what we could to help players find the best online battle experience possible.
GLHF: Any memorable or funny bugs or glitches that occured during development?
Shin: When we discover bugs or glitches we really can’t laugh it off — we get really nervous about that kind of stuff. One bug we did find funny though was with one of our shaders. It caused the skin of the characters to appear super shiny for some reason, and it looked pretty cool, so we thought it would look great as a custom skin option for the players.
GLHF: There are five weapons in the game — machetes, katanas, arms, buzzsaws, and hammers. How did you settle on the current roster of weapons?
Shin: We actually have six, but five will be available at launch while the sixth, dual knives, launches a little later on. The main roster of weapons we decided on was because we wanted to use weapons that were easy for action gamers to recognize at a glance.
Most action game players are familiar with hammers, katanas, and the like, so we think it’d be easy for everyone to pick up. For the two odd weapons, specifically Arms and Buzzsaws, we wanted to incorporate some of the unique feel that the Let It Die universe has, so we gave them quirky toolkits.
We are planning to add more unique weapons in the future on a regular basis — we really want to incorporate as much wackiness from Let It Die as we can, so we’ve got some surprises that may even catch die-hard Let It Die fans off-guard — please, look forward to it!.
GLHF: The original Let It Die had rifles and ranged weaponry, Was there a specific reason you chose to avoid bringing those over and making a “Fortnite” style game?
Shin: Deathverse is first and foremost a PvP game, and during our prototyping sessions, we did include a lot of the ranged weapons you’d expect in a battle royale game. No matter what we did, however, the ranged options were simply better than the melee options.
Against AI targets, you could get away with melee weapons, but against actual players, there was no competition — the ranged weapons won. So we decided to take most options out, severely limiting the ranged choices a player has. This had a positive effect of allowing players to focus on the action aspect of the game, as well — we think this helped us create a truly original battle royale experience.
GLHF: As a musician, you are most widely known for your haunting tracks in the Silent Hill series — but you also were the sound director for Let It Die and Killer is Dead, all of which have vastly different musical styles and themes. What do you do during planning to stay so varied from project to project?
Yamaoka: In a way, it’s kind of easy for me to start work on a new project, because with each project they already have their own themes and stories planned out. A horror game is going to need specific music, an action-comedy game is going to need something a little different. Once I have the project, it’s just a matter of expanding into it and creating what works for each title.
GLHF: In the original Let It Die, you had an ensemble collection of bands who contributed to the soundtrack — Totalfat, Survive Said the Prophet, FLiP, KIBA of AKIBA just to name a few of my personal favorites. How did you go about sourcing each band, and how did you get them to all agree to add the phrase “Let It Die” in each song?
Yamaoka: With Let It Die specifically, it was kind of the opposite of what I just said regarding themes and creating music to support the theme. We reached out to a wide variety of bands and asked them to create a song with their specific image of what the phrase “Let It Die” means to them, with the idea being that each player can find music that they enjoy.
It’s kind of like the concept of “each player is holding a different controller” — each player is going to experience the game in their own unique way. We wanted a soundtrack that had plenty of variety, but still was connected to the Let It Die world. We then met with each band, talked about the game and told them the name of it, and asked them to add the phrase “Let It Die” in.
GLHF: There’s a shift from rock, metal, and a sort of industrial sound in Let It Die to a more funky beat in Deathverse. Were there any specific musical inspirations to help you when when deciding to shift into funk?
Yamaoka: Uncle Death gave me a mission to create a funky soundtrack, so that’s what I did. The main soundtrack is funk, but not all of it is like that, so there will still be some variety.
GLHF: For Let It Die 3, what style of music would you like to shift towards next?
Yamaoka: When I play video games, I don’t really like to zero in on a specific part of the game, I just like to focus and have fun. However, I am a composer, so the sound in video games can be distracting, sometimes. There’s this concept of the “composer’s ego” that I feel gets in the way, which is something I try to avoid.
That’s why in the original Let It Die, we gave the concept of Let It Die to the bands and let them create whatever they imagined the phrase meant to the, instead of creating something around the theme of the game. That kind of design is my favorite, because it let’s the player focus on the gameplay more and lets them choose whatever genre they like the most. So if Let It Die 3 happens, we would want something similar so that we’re not in the way of the players’ enjoyment of the game.
GLHF: So I saw that y’all commissioned a VTuber model for Queen B, one of the hosts of the Death Jamboree. Where did that idea come from? Is somebody on your staff a Hololive or Nijisanji fan?
Shin: [laughs] That wasn’t a team idea, that was more marketing, I think. It seems to help promote the game!
GLHF: In Let It Die, the two shopkeepers are Kommodore Kawasaki and Suzuki, and in Deathverse, the shopkeeper is Admiral Honda. Who on your team is a motorcycle fan?
Shin: [laughs] I’m not a fan! I do ride motorbikes myself though. For Let It Die, we had these quirky names and we wanted to carry that forward into Deathverse, as a little Easter Egg for players to pick up on and enjoy. Usually people don’t mention it, so I’m really happy you caught that!
Deathverse: Let It Die is out right now on PS4 and PS5, with the PC launch coming via Steam on October 5 with cross-platform progression available.
Written by GLHF.
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