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Owlcat Games’ Pathfinder games were a brilliant start for the Cyprus-based developer. Now celebrating its 9th birthday and releasing its new 15-hour story DLC for its amazing Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader game, Lex Imperialis, the studio is known for its dense, choice-heavy CRPGs.
In an interview with VideoGamer for an upcoming episode of the VideoGamer Podcast, we asked executive producer Anatoly Shestov about the space that Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 has carved for the genre. While some have claimed that BG3 has created a new appetite for CRPGs, Chestov explains that Larian’s work just satiated the hunger of fans who hadn’t been served in a long time.
“Larian did a pretty immense job on their Baldur’s Gate,” Shestov explained. “They put their heart and soul into it and anyone playing it feels it. But I don’t feel like their Baldur’s Gate itself created demand for the RPGs.”
Shestov explained that “people, regular people” who grew up with games like Dune II and other deep PC experiences always had the hunger for more dense games. While AAA companies were working to make games appeal to as wide an audience as possible, these gamers were left behind, and Larian earned its huge success with Baldur’s Gate 3.
“To be nice and shiny and be polished like the mainstream games, and at the same time dive deeper… not all of them [studios] are good at this, at a combination of efforts.”
OWLCAT GAMES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Anatoly Shestov
“[Dense games are] rare at the present time,” he continued, citing earlier demand of games like Wizardy, Might and Magic and others. “But the demand for such a feeling… the demand for such an experience is always there. It’s just really hard to do, expensive to do, and you need really crazy people in your crew to actually deliver such a game.”
“That’s why Larian were building upon their approach to make such a game through all of their lives,” the Rogue Trader producer continued. “It wasn’t just ‘pop up one day’, it was a combination of that pretty decent effort for tens of years. They weren’t just making their game from scratch, it was the whole evolution of understanding how to make such a game.”
Shestov explained that Owlcat’s journey is just the same as Larian’s. The studio has now spent almost a decade creating and understanding how to create extremely deep CRPGs with Pathfinder, Rogue Trader and its upcoming Dark Heresy game. Additionally, the team is working on The Expanse: Osiris Rising, a third-person Mass Effect-style adventure with the typical gorgeous Owlcat prose and deep, character choices.
“To be nice and shiny and be polished like the mainstream games, and at the same time dive deeper… not all of them [studios] are good at this, at a combination of efforts,” he continued. “We, at Owlcat, for the Rogue Trader game, we deliberately decided that being true to ourselves, being true to trying to express this ‘heart-fun’ experience, in being true to our love for the Warhammer series, is most important.”
The Rogue Trader producer explained that “this is why the game wasn’t so polished” on launch, but the team has spent the past two years and a whole heap of money to bring the game up to the level of quality it deserved. There’s more voice acting, redone cinematics, new mechanics and years of bug fixes.
“We’ve got a pretty high level of professionalism through all of our departments,” Shestov continued. “That’s why there were lots of cutscenes being remade after release because we were trying to do a good job and, on some elements, it wasn’t what we wanted it to be.”
Less than ten years in, Owlcat has expanded massively, and that’s due to the sheer desire from gamers to play more complex games. While AAA publishers still won’t dive into the genre, gamers are continuing to support devs like Larian, Owlcat and more. While none of Owlcat’s releases have hit the sheer momentum of Baldur’s Gate 3 yet, their titles are also very successful, and there’s more on the way.
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