Zeno Clash is an upcoming FPS currently in production by Chile based developers ‘ACE Team‘, it’s an action fantasy hybrid set in a punk fantasy world, with an amazingly original world.

I recently sat down (metaphorically speaking) with Carlos Bordeu game designer of Zeno Clash, and caught up with the latest details.

Q. Can you give us a bit of background on Zeno Clash, what inspired it and what players can expect from the game?

We started developing the concept behind the game a few years before we actually started production. Our first inspiration came from old gaming book series of the 1980’s ‘The Crown of the Kings’ which was illustrated by John Blanche. Blanches work and other more traditional mediums like the art of Hieronymus Bosch were our starting point.

I think players can expect the game to be very unique and different compared to a lot of stuff that is out in the market today. The industry has had a tendency to become a bit homogeneous in terms of art and content and we want to break from this tendency and offer something completely fresh. Zeno Clash is not a game that can be summed as <existing title>+<new art style>. It is something new from several points of view.

Q. Can you tell us what the storyline will be about?

We have been keeping the story mostly secret because it is an important part of the game and we don’t want any spoilers. But something we can say for sure is that this is not the typical quest to save the world from monsters. The genre escapes a bit from traditional fantasy since there is no obvious good vs evil, you won’t find magical mountains, hero swords, or evil demons that have to be summoned in Zeno Clash.

The story begins when Ghat is banished from the main city in Zenozoik, but more importantly he is banished from his family. Ghat is one of Father-Mother’s dozens of children; some of Ghat’s brothers and sisters are pig-men, elephant-men, and humanoids of all kind.
Ghat was not the most loyal son and after confronting Father-Mother he has to escape as his family hunts him. But he doesn’t escape alone, even though the reason for Ghat’s rebelliousness is not clear, Ghat’s girlfriend Deadra decides to escape with him away from the city and his family.
Away from “the known world” they will meet strange characters in the woods, further away into the desert and in places no one had ever seen.

Q. All the characters in Zeno Clash look very original, has it been a hard process creating the unique characters?

Once the visual style of the game was established, the creation of characters and environments was not such a difficult process. There have been a lot of decisions of how we want things to look and feel and everyone here has a clear view of how the world of Zeno Clash is.

One of the most important aspects about art development in ACE Team is that we allow everyone to improvise a bit. Creative thinking cannot always be planned out previously, so creativity is something we encourage along the full length of the development cycle. We’re willing to take risks along the road without planning out the entire trip.

Q. How many hours of gameplay are you aiming for? And are you planning any features to encourage replayability?

In terms of gameplay hours we are aiming for the length of a Half-Life episode. We are a small new independent studio and we are unable to produce a huge project as our debut title. The game’s main feature will be the combat mechanics and I think that going through the game using more advanced techniques will be something a lot of players will be interested in doing. The melee combat is not a button masher and we have a lot of depth in it.

We’re also adding achievements, and we plan on having unlockable content with these. We have some really interesting ideas about the content we want to add, but we still have to see how everything works out before we can say more. I think that we’ll be able to include a surprise that will add up to the game’s value.

Q. How big of a role will the NPCs have in the game and will we see any of them assisting the player in combat?

The NPC’s have a very strong role in the game and yes we have a couple that will assist you during the game. Deadra (the girl behind Ghat that was recently shown in our latest screenshot release) is Ghat’s companion during a good part of the adventure. She will help out and work with the player, but not as much as Alyx does in Half-Life.

Q. In previous interviews you have stated that the game will be single-player only, has there been any rethinking of this idea or future plans to make it multiplayer? As the combat looks like it could lend itself to a great multiplayer experience.

We’ve thought about the multiplayer aspect for future episodes, but it’s not something we will be able to do for this first release. The melee combat mechanics are being built all around the NPCs, so it wouldn’t necessarily work well in multiplayer. It would require great effort to make a multiplayer variation or add cooperative. Zeno Clash is a single-player game and that is what the game is designed to be; a great single-player adventure. We don’t want to slap on an underwhelming multiplayer component that would obviously take a lot of our development time. Our focus is in creating a memorable single-player experience.

Q. The graphics and world look great, thus will all in-game cut scenes be done using the source engine or is there going to be rendered CGI cut scenes as well?

All the cinematics will be rendered in-game. Our in-game cinematics are all turning out wonderfully. There’s still a lot of polishing to do, though. We’re dedicating a lot of effort to make them fun to watch, but not only in terms of technical features, but mainly in artistic direction. The Source engine is wonderful for animations in all aspects (facial, lip sync, gestures, etc.) and I think the in-game cinematics will be very solid.

Q. Quality voice acting can be a major problem for independent games, will there be much voice acting and are you getting it professionally done?

We have a decent amount of voice acting but for obvious reasons we cannot get famous voice acting talent to do the voices. Voice acting has been a major concern for the project and we have been working on it for many, many months now. Instead of leaving audio as an afterthought and doing all the sound recording in a couple of sessions, we have been doing this work ever since the project begun. It has been an iterative process and we have discarded what doesn’t work, elaborated on what does and the experience has been great.

Many times we see games with famous names behind the characters, but the actors don’t really know the world behind the game so getting into the characters is harder. That won’t be the case with our title.

Q. Do you have any plans for a boxed/collectors release in the English speaking Countries, or are you keeping it exclusive to Steam?

We’re still in conversations with interested parties. We’d definitely like to establish a deal for retail distribution in the U.S, but we’re also very interested in retail possibilities in Europe, where the PC retail market is very strong. There’s still time for new partnerships to develop, so the game still has time to reach the U.S. in retail format.

Q. Lastly is there any update on the release date, and any information on how much it will be retailing for on Steam?

The release date is still not set and we don’t want to make promises if we are not confident we can deliver them. It will be released this year though. In regards to price: it won’t be expensive. It’s a shorter title, so we will have a very fair price, which will definitely be worth the game’s entertainment value. We want to make sure Zeno Clash reaches the broadest amount of players possible.

Best of luck with Zeno Clash and I hope you have a very successful game,
thanks again for the interview.

Thanks to you. Hope everyone enjoys the game once it is finally out!

Enjoy the Teaser

Official site

A previous Interview ThatVideoGameBlog