Raphaël Colantonio, a French video game designer, founded Arkane Studios and served as its president for 18 years. In June 2017, he left the company, where he had developed Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Prey, and the best-selling Dishonored franchise, to spend more time with his son and focus on his goals for the future.
Two years later, he launched WolfEye Studios which is developing Weird West, a top-down action role-playing game set in an alternate version of the Old West. Bearing elements of other immersive sim games, Weird West has been conceived to present a broader perspective, rather than a single-player view. In an interview with PC Gamer, Colantonio says that despite the change, “the values are very similar to immersive sims the way we’ve always done them."
Colantonio adds that gameplay in the new game, which will be published by Devolver Digital, will be very action-oriented, similar to “an action-resolved version of something like Fallout meets Ultima 7,” but the underlying systems and simulations will deepen the experience, something he describes as “a space of possibilities where no two players have the same playthrough exactly.” In the game, players will have the option to form a posse or to forge their own path.
Despite being the players’ bird’s-eye view, it is still an immersive sim with choices and consequences that lead to unexpected outcomes. He recognizes that some players may be more comfortable with a more controlled experience, yet Colantonio wants to expand the concept of what an immersive sim can be.
He recalls developing Dishonored and being worried that the player experience might feel too complicated, but that by affording accessibility, regardless of the depth, players will respond positively. Colantonio admits to being an old-school gamer, where the depth is revealed slowly, a quality all good immersive sims should have.
Given that WolfEye is independent, Colantonio can afford to be more experimental than larger studios since the stakes are lower. By not being consumed by the bottom line, he has been able to take more risks, allowing Weird West to feel more like a game and less like a product.
His decision to leave Arkane carried both a sense of accomplishment as well as anxiety. Wanting to take a break, he felt leaving after 18 years was liberating. Now, he wants to focus on creativity, not budgets. In that respect, he says Weird West values content over “assets and technology.” Colantonio, who has surrounded himself with close friends like Julien Roby, Etienne Aubert, Manu Petit, Christophe Carrier, and Borut Pfiefer, believes that “as long as we have all that passion, we’ll keep going."
Source: PC Gamer
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