Selvom det blev afsløret under The Game Awards Opening Act for en måned siden, blev Bradley the Badger straks et fanfavorit-indslag ved showet, hvor spillets karakteristiske humor både nikkede til gamere og udviklere. Hos Gamereactor ville vi gerne lære mere om spillet umiddelbart efter showet, men med julen lige om hjørnet blev det først i denne uge, at vi endelig fik chancen - og fornøjelsen - af at tale med spillets to co-instruktører fra studiet Day 4 Night.
"It's a love story to the industry itself", forklarer Christian Cantamessa om spillets setting i vores video-interview herunder. "To the creative process, to what it means to create something and put it out there, what it does to you... It's also a little bit, if you will, autobiographical of the things that have happened to me and Davide [Soliani] in our 20+ year career".
"I would say that whatever your hurdles are, sometimes they become very good memories", tilføjer Soliani derefter om det mere personlige, selvbiografiske aspekt.
"We are basically creating this game as the love letter from us, both to the games that we love playing and the genres that we think are big, and important, and meaningful in the industry, but also the people that make the games"
I afsløringstraileren så vi Bradley derhjemme (se hvordan det tilsyneladende bliver titel-/hovedmenuen i de nye screenshots herunder), og hvordan hans Dreamwoods-verden - som også lægger navn til den fiktive in-game-udvikler - derefter forvandles til Badgerborne (et nik til Bloodborne), Cyberborne (Cyberpunk 2077) og The Last Badger (The Last of Us). Det fik os til at spekulere på, om det er en tidlig version af en verden, der ikke er helt færdig, og som spillerne skal fikse.
"Well, clearly we don't want to tell you too much about the lore at this point in time", forklarer Cantamessa, "and we really want the players to discover the story themselves, but you're not far off from what's happening here. Yes, there is certainly a collision of a few different unfinished game worlds here, and I promise that everything will make sense once people are playing the game".
Abilities i Bradley the Badger er inspireret af dev tools, er systemiske og ikke bundet til specifikke levels
Vi ville også gerne høre mere om de friske, spilændrende mekanikker, der blev vist i traileren, og om de er knyttet til de forskellige spilverdenener, som refereres til gennem eventyret.
"All the mechanics that we invented, we want them balanced", påpeger Soliani. "And we want to make sure that the players are enjoying them in whatever scenario they are. But it's very hard to tell you right now in which way we are going to progressively give those mechanics in the end to the player. What is important to say is that the game we have in mind is completely systemic, so once the players have the power, they will be able to use it with full agency, and it's not like, oh, now you have to do that little bit of level design and then you don't use it anymore".
"All the powers are inspired by things that game developers can do", tilføjer Cantamessa som en teaser. "They're really fun. Obviously, we didn't pick the most boring, you know, 'sign an NDA'; we picked things that we thought would also really be fun in a sort of sandboxy, freeform game".
Til sidst ville begge co-instruktører understrege, at de - trods den første afsløring - er mere inspireret af genrer end af specifikke spil eller serier.
"So we are inspired by medieval places. We are inspired by zombie apocalypse", oplister Soliani. "And there will be even more that players will have to discover, for sure. But it's mostly the genre that we want to depict, because in the end, the world is full of beautiful video games".
Hvis du vil høre, hvordan projektet opstod ud af en sjov fødselsdagsjoke, eller hvordan udviklerne oplevede live-reaktionerne på afsløringen i december - sammen med andre små guldkorn - kan du se hele interviewet ovenfor, som er fuldt underteksteret til dit lokale sprog.
Bradley the Badger er indtil videre annonceret til PC med et TBA-udgivelsesvindue. Om Day 4 Night-studiet fortæller Cantamessa, at "we're 25 people today, with plans to grow a little more while staying small, agile, and focused".
Bradley the Badger - officielle screenshots
