{"id":38929,"date":"2023-11-16T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/steamworld-build-is-the-series-most-impressively-wild-experiment-yet\/"},"modified":"2023-11-16T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T15:00:00","slug":"steamworld-build-is-the-series-most-impressively-wild-experiment-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/steamworld-build-is-the-series-most-impressively-wild-experiment-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"SteamWorld Build Is the Series\u2019 Most Impressively Wild Experiment Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SteamWorld isn\u2019t like other series. Where most game franchises take a single core idea and iterate on it over multiple installments, the creators of SteamWorld decided early on that it could be anything<\/em>. It\u2019s been a tower defense title, a Metroidvania mining game, a 2D strategy shooter, and a card battling adventure \u2013 all set within the same universe of down-home steam-powered robots. For fans of SteamWorld, it\u2019s always a delight to see what it could be next \u2013 and now, with SteamWorld Build<\/em>, it\u2019s a brand new take on the city building genre. It\u2019s a typically unexpected leap.<\/p>\n

But, clearly never content with staying the same for too long, Build<\/em> brings another first for the series \u2013 it\u2019s the first SteamWorld game not to be built by its original creators, Image & Form (who have since merged with other studios to become Thunderful Games, and are working on future SteamWorld games). After being acquired by Thunderful, The Station have stepped in to create Build<\/em>. Oh, and for good measure, they also made it the first SteamWorld game to use a 3D perspective, and the series\u2019 first voice-acted game, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating next step for the franchise \u2013 and I caught up with Game Director Andreas Persson, Art Director Sofie Wikstr\u00f6m and head of the SteamWorld franchise Brjann Sigurgeirsson to discuss how they sent SteamWorld on what might be its biggest leap yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew The Station well,\u201d says Sigurgeirsson of how the collaboration came about. \u201cWe knew that they were very solid studio that had done a lot of work on the LittleBigPlanet franchise. We also knew that they had been working on their own things. And then when the opportunity materialised to acquire them, we sort of jumped on it. One of the one of the first things we said was, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be great if you guys could pitch us something that could fit in the SteamWorld universe?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSince this was our first SteamWorld game, we looked at a lot of what [Thunderful] had done previously,\u201d continues Persson. \u201cAnd what we settled on was that they are really good at taking something familiar, and then mixing it with something else and creating something unique\u2026 With that, we then saw that there is a real nice city builder that could be made in this universe by taking the city part and marrying it with mining gameplay. I would say it\u2019s like a city builder meets Dungeon Keeper<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a unique proposition, and one Sigurgeirsson says proves the point of using a new developer \u2013 SteamWorld is a series that never stays still, and it can grow in even less expected directions by employing whole new groups of developers, with fresh perspectives and different expertise.<\/p>\n

The Station had worked on ideas for a city builder for some time, but SteamWorld offered them a unique opportunity \u2013 to work on two layers. Above ground, you put together a Wild West-inflected railway town, piecing together housing, factories, and amenities for a growing population of Steambots. But below the sand and dirt, the action changes entirely, asking you to dig your own mines to find the resources needed above ground, with dungeon crawling and tower defense elements thrown in. The way these two layers link is the unique selling point, forcing you to manage two types of game at once, and always giving you something meaningful to achieve.<\/p>\n

It can sound daunting, but The Station has also taken another key part of SteamWorld into account \u2013 the fact that the whole series acts like a sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord of game genres, and aims to introduce its fans to new ones in accessible ways.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe then saw that there is a real nice city builder that could be made in this universe by taking the city part and marrying it with mining gameplay. I would say it\u2019s like a city builder meets Dungeon Keeper<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andreas Persson, Game Director<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019ve worked on from the very start of development,\u201d says Persson, \u201csince we knew we would get a lot of new players that were familiar with the world, but not necessarily with resource management games. So we had to think, \u2018How do we communicate information and where do we put the complexity in the game?\u2019 We deliberately decided early on to keep the city pretty streamlined. We didn\u2019t want fires to erupt in the city and destroy everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea is that there are demands on the player to build efficiently, but not major punishments if you don\u2019t. Equally, while you\u2019re mining, things will tick along above ground, reducing the need to constantly shift levels and micromanage. But, as Persson says, it\u2019s not that there\u2019s a lack of complexity:<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember we had some testers that didn\u2019t realise how complex the game was until they learned everything,\u201d Persson continues. \u201cBecause when you get to the first mine floor, there is not a ton of complexity. But as you go deeper, you learn each step, and each step builds on the previous one. So we said we want it to be \u2018complex, but not complicated.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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