Before we enter the Saltsea archipelago in the new narrative adventure from Die Gute Fabrik, studio lead Hannah Nicklin shows us a slide featuring the team working on the game – ranging from a writer who worked on Divinity: Original Sin to the author of an Arthur C Clarke Award-winning novella. It’s symbolic of the approach the studio is taking for its first release since 2019’s Mutazione. Though that game’s story was about a community, it was told through the eyes of one playable protagonist. “I was talking with Doug[las Wilson, studio co-founder] about it, and we were like: ‘Doesn’t the form belie the content slightly?’” Nicklin says. Saltsea Chronicles feels like an attempt to address that imbalance: just as the narrative team has expanded from Nicklin alone to a full writers’ room, this is a world you experience as an ensemble – and the cast grows as you explore.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1686816559/articles/_Zdq3_QON1686828956237/1818129289.jpg]
Or rather, we should say, the crew, since you play as a gang of misfits who must heist a ship and search for their missing captain. There’s Molpe, who reluctantly becomes the group leader when her partner Maja vanishes, and Stew, an experienced traveller who doesn’t like being referred to as ‘wily’ since it’s often interchangeable with ‘old’. Strait-laced historian Murl and sullen teenager Iris make up the initial quartet, their personalities outlined in a single interjection – “Iris has never been known to make her bed. Murl has never been known not to” – that’s indicative of the dialogue’s punch and wit. It’s the kind of game where you’ll want to view all the observational hotspots before clicking the sparkle that marks the next critical clue.
“How I pitched it at the beginning is: ‘What if you were watching Star Trek and you get to choose where they go, who is in the team, who gets beamed down, and what they say when they get there?’” Nicklin says, explaining how this plays out. There are certain fixed events, but they’re affected by the characters you choose to explore each island, leading to what Nicklin calls “the multiple middles” approach to storytelling. “It’s arrogant to think that you can change the world,” she says. “Honestly, I think, as a player fantasy, it’s not one that I’m that interested in.” But the characters and their relationships will develop, in ways that aren’t necessarily possible if you head in a different direction.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1686816559/articles/_Zdq3_QON1686828956237/1887119267.jpg]
On opening island Njarfie Roust, for instance, you choose between Iris and Stew to join Murl as they look for clues to Maja’s disappearance, snippets of information letting you compare why either might be useful. This might be Iris’s home but she’s something of an outcast, whereas Stew’s natural warmth means she’s good with the locals. The expedition will be written differently depending on your pick, meaning that half of the potential story actions will be...
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1686816559/articles/_Zdq3_QON1686828956237/1818129289.jpg]
Or rather, we should say, the crew, since you play as a gang of misfits who must heist a ship and search for their missing captain. There’s Molpe, who reluctantly becomes the group leader when her partner Maja vanishes, and Stew, an experienced traveller who doesn’t like being referred to as ‘wily’ since it’s often interchangeable with ‘old’. Strait-laced historian Murl and sullen teenager Iris make up the initial quartet, their personalities outlined in a single interjection – “Iris has never been known to make her bed. Murl has never been known not to” – that’s indicative of the dialogue’s punch and wit. It’s the kind of game where you’ll want to view all the observational hotspots before clicking the sparkle that marks the next critical clue.
“How I pitched it at the beginning is: ‘What if you were watching Star Trek and you get to choose where they go, who is in the team, who gets beamed down, and what they say when they get there?’” Nicklin says, explaining how this plays out. There are certain fixed events, but they’re affected by the characters you choose to explore each island, leading to what Nicklin calls “the multiple middles” approach to storytelling. “It’s arrogant to think that you can change the world,” she says. “Honestly, I think, as a player fantasy, it’s not one that I’m that interested in.” But the characters and their relationships will develop, in ways that aren’t necessarily possible if you head in a different direction.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1686816559/articles/_Zdq3_QON1686828956237/1887119267.jpg]
On opening island Njarfie Roust, for instance, you choose between Iris and Stew to join Murl as they look for clues to Maja’s disappearance, snippets of information letting you compare why either might be useful. This might be Iris’s home but she’s something of an outcast, whereas Stew’s natural warmth means she’s good with the locals. The expedition will be written differently depending on your pick, meaning that half of the potential story actions will be...
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Edge Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2023