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Edward McMillen is best known as the co-creator of Super Meat Boy and one of the minds behind The Binding of Isaac. He’s currently working on console builds of his latest game, a challenging platformer called The End is Nigh, which is based on ‘stress’, the ‘dark side of games development’ and ‘personal struggles’ associated with making games. In an in-depth interview with Gamasutra, McMillen and co-creator, Tyler Glaiel, expanded on the thought process behind The End is Nigh and McMillen’s return to challenging platformers.
McMillen says that he puts a lot of himself into his games. The Binding of Isaac was an allegorical take on religious conflict within his own family, he says that, ‘The End is Nigh is my most personal game — it explores a lot of themes I wasn’t comfortable enough to write about when I was more concerned with profits and peoples’ opinions of my work and myself’.
Originally, says McMillen, ‘The End is Nigh started as an exploration of personal hardship’, but over time it began to take its story from his ‘struggle with game development’ and how it affected his family.
The End is Nigh is another ludicrously challenging platformer, focusing on the inevitability of death it’s aiming to explore the pressures of stress and pass that onto the player through the design of its game world. Glaiel reiterates this intention in the interview, stating that, ‘we wanted mechanics that would induce panic or stress in the player. Hence all the things like jumping off of falling buildings or the toxic water and clouds that you could only stay in for a very short period of time’.
In The End is Nigh player takes control over a character called Ash, who is one of the few ‘things’ that has survived ‘the end of the world’. With over 600 levels, 12 chapters and plenty of hidden extras, The End is Nigh is a game that intends to create stress and tension for its players.
The End is Nigh is out now on PC, a release date is yet to be announced for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
