From the very first minute I played Sword of the Sea at the Summer Game Fest Play Days, I understood that it resembled the video game Journey, which led below that terrific video game produced years ago to the minute when I was playing the most recent video game from Matt Nava’s video game studio, Giant Squid.
I played the start of the video game. You start as an anonymous character in the sand. You begin surfing through the sand, sort of like a snowboarder in SSX. Other than you’re not riding on a snowboard. You ride on a sword, sliding above the sand as if you were on a hoverboard.
Strangely enough, the experience of snowboarding was the motivation for Matt Nava, imaginative director on the video game and creator of Giant Squid. He informed me that he was motivated by being both a snowboarder and a web surfer and the feeling of moving quick. When you’re in that minute, he stated that these severe sports end up being meditative. It’s about being back in nature and getting in touch with it.
We’ve seen these kinds of video games in Flower, where you transform a city from gray to plant, in Journey as you move through the sand, and in other tranquil video games. There are images from The Pathless and Abzu, the business’s previous video games, in Sword of the Sea. While you wield a sword as a strange character in Sword of the Sea, you do not utilize it in violence. As that character, you are looking for something, however I didn’t discover what that remained in my brief demonstration.
The video game has gorgeous music, however you play the video game in silence. There’s no discussion. No spoken story. It’s like the computer game variation of a poem, or a quiet movie. In the video game, you move, fix puzzles, and when you do so you transform the sand to sea water. It’s an extremely gratifying experience.
I noted it was odd how Giant Squid was striking its stride with this video game, while the remainder of the market was having a hard time due to absence of financing, high expenses and altering player tastes. Nava exposed in our discussion that Giant Squid was on the verge for a while till PlayStation backed the business. It was a fascinating chat in the middle of an extremely disorderly demonstration day at the Summer Game Fest.
Here is a modified records of our interview.
GamesBeat: What are a few of the motivations for this? I feel like I see a lot of Journey here, and your very first video game.
Matt Nava: And even The Pathless, which was our video game after that. It was everything about moving truly quick and momentum. It’s all of those concepts. Actually, the motivation is simply from being a snowboarder and going surfing myself. When you’re in fact doing that things, you’re moving quick, and it’s severe, however it’s truly this sort of meditation. I’m actually thinking about the meditative, spiritual side of those severe sports. Typically when computer game depict severe sports, it’s quite about simply the surface area level of it. It’s not about the genuine factor that individuals return to browse. You wish to remain in nature. You wish to get in touch with nature. You wish to check out.
There’s this type of wonderful feeling you can get. That’s what we’re attempting to attain with this video game. Take the motion and the speed, however let you enter into that circulation state and begin to get in touch with the scene.
GamesBeat: Is all of it quiet? No one speaking, no story?
Nava: Yeah, there’s no discussion in the video game. There are certainly characters. You’ll fulfill another strange character along the method. There will be a story that plays out as you make your method through this world. There are great deals of various biomes to check out beyond the sand. You’ll see in the trailer that we simply put out at the display. There are snowy locations and other things. We’re informing the story with a sort of climatic story.
GamesBeat: Do you still require a narrative designer for that?
Nava: Oh, yeah. We’ve had an author on this video game. It’s humorous. We’re like, “Okay, do not compose any words, however please assist us.” It’s excellent. In the later variation, there are little tradition pieces you can discover and check out to find out more about the backstory of the world. You’ll have the ability to check out some little poems about the history. It’s extremely subtle, the method we do it.
GamesBeat: Is that straight linked to your previous video games at all?
Nava: All of our video games are linked in some method. What we like to do is let the gamers develop those connections. We’ll certainly provide some ideas and things to go on. We never ever spell out precisely how they link. We have images from The Pathless and from Abzu, so if you played those video games you’ll acknowledge some things. You’ll see that linking area, for sure.
GamesBeat: The animation and the environment, it looks like these are both locations where you currently understand what you’re doing. The sand and the sea. Existed something that was really familiar about doing this, or did you need to discover more?
Nava: It’s amusing. I believed, “I did a sand video game. I did a water video game. This will be simple.” Then we included this brand-new thing, which is that the surface is stimulating. It’s continuously relocating every frame. That indicated we needed to create this brand-new tech. This is a really customized piece of innovation that we made so that you can move with this wave at high speed. It recognized, however likewise a completely brand-new difficulty. It was a great deal of enjoyable.
GamesBeat: What timing do you want? Is this set up for release?
Nava: Yeah, it’s going to be out on August 19, quite quickly. We need to complete this thing. We’re nearly done.
GamesBeat: What platforms is it going to?
Nava: It’s going to be on PS5 and PC, Steam and Epic Games Store. The first day on PS5 it’s going to be on the PlayStation Plus service.
GamesBeat: Do you find out much about the primary character, or does he stay mystical?
Nava: He’s extremely strange. You do discover more about him through the tradition that you check out in the video game, these little pieces. He’s type of this empty fit of armor in the start. You see that bead struck him and make him come to life. He’s sort of this empty animal. He’s looking for something.
GamesBeat: How would you compare the advancement to previous tasks? Has it moved quicker?
Nava: Every video game that I make takes about 3 or 4 years. This one has to do with 4 years of work up until now. We began it throughout the pandemic, best after The Pathless delivered. It was the very first video game we began from another location as a group. We needed to figure that all out. The group came together. It’s quite fantastic what they’ve managed.
GamesBeat: How lots of individuals are on the group now?
Nava: We have 16 or 17 individuals. A medium-sized group.
GamesBeat: And that’s deliberate?
Nava: That’s our identity. We like to keep it little. We’re a close group of good friends, generally, making strange, out-there video games.
GamesBeat: There’s a sword, however usually your video games have actually been non-violent. Do you need to utilize the sword?
Nava: It’s amusing. The very first video game I made with a sword, we’re refraining from doing fight or anything. There are things that you cut. You saw the little– what I call ocean seeds, where he connects and slashes it and the water comes out. In the future there’s going to be a sort of villain you satisfy. There are scripted minutes. Yeah, there’s no minute to minute battle in the video game. It’s truly about the motion. The sword becomes part of the tradition.
GamesBeat: Do you consider this something that any person should have the ability to determine? Is it a failure if somebody does not understand what to do next?
Nava: Among our huge difficulties when we developed the video game was to make it so that you can truly simply play and find how to play without requiring to look anything up. Simply self-guided. We covertly teach you things as you go. In the start we reveal a little text that informs you how you leap etc. We do secret things like– if a gamer currently leaps before we reveal them that text, we simply do not reveal the text. We comprehend that you currently understand how to leap. We do not require to inform you. We’re attempting to leave your method and let you remain in the video game, not advise you that you’re playing a video game.
GamesBeat: Is it your own engine?
Nava: It’s Unreal Engine 5, however our group is distinct because although we’re rather little, we do rather a great deal of customized making. It does not appear like all the other Unreal Engine video games. It has an extremely distinct visual design, which’s actually since of the custom-made tech that we placed on top of Unreal.
GamesBeat: What’s challenging about getting that done?
Nava: The greatest difficulty is getting that character motion to feel simply. We’ve been dealing with how it feels to go off the dives and engage with the motion of the waves. We do some things like– you go quicker on the sand. You go even quicker on the water. You go slower on tile. Without having any sort of speed control for the gamer, you simply immediately address the speed that feels best all over. Simply ensuring that everything feels completely excellent when you’re moving is the important things we’ve kept dealing with for 4 years.
Later on in the video game you’re going to find environments that have snow and lava. Some extremely surreal environments. We’re taking these landscapes that you’ve seen before. You’ve seen a desert landscape. You’ve seen the water. Not like this. You’ve never ever seen a mountain of water. You’ve never ever seen the surface moving like that. There’s going to be locations that you do not anticipate to see in a video game like this at all.
That was among the greatest difficulties when I was pitching this video game. I ‘d create a piece of principle art. “Imagine this animated. Envision these waves moving.” “You’re simply revealing me a photo of the desert.” You need to see it in movement to comprehend it. When you do, when you feel it, then everyone states, “Okay, I get it.”
GamesBeat: How did you fund this video game?
Nava: We’re partnered with Sony. Sony’s been our monetary backer. They’ve been fantastic partners. They comprehended the video game early and thought in us, thought in the group. We’ve had a close collaboration with them in the past. We dealt with them to deliver Abzu as a console unique in the past on the PS4. They’ve constantly been buddies of the studio. They have a terrific group at PlayStation Indies.
GamesBeat: Have you stated how well your previous video games have done so far?
Nava: I do not have those numbers on hand, however the advantage is that it’s adequate for us to keep going. They’ve succeeded. We still require to get financing from huge business, however each of our video games has actually discovered its fanbase. We put out our trailer and we have our Discord. Everybody was going bananas. It’s truly enjoyable to see. They’re doing brand-new fan art currently, which is a huge spirits increase for the group.
GamesBeat: It appears like you’re striking a stride here, even while the remainder of the market has actually had a hard time.
Nava: It’s been a difficult time with numerous studios closing. We were on the edge for a while. In 2015 was truly rough. We stood firm and battled hard. Sony actually can be found in and assisted us. They made it so we might continue and end up the video game. We’re grateful to them for assisting us make it through an actually difficult time.
