Hey, I’m Stephan Logier, Inventive Director right here at Thunder Lotus Video games. It’s an honor to fulfill you all to current our new sport, 33 Immortals, a co-op action-roguelike for 33 gamers!
I joined Thunder Lotus a couple of years in the past to move up a brand-new staff constructing the studio’s very first on-line multiplayer title. Our objective: to create an modern multiplayer co-op expertise set in our signature immersive, hand-drawn artwork and animation type.
It’s been an extended journey to achieve that objective, and I can actually say that we’re very pleased with what we’re revealing at this time. However let’s take it from the highest!
At first… the one factor we knew was that we wished Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to be the muse for our sport world. To the uninitiated, “The Divine Comedy” is a 14th century Italian poem, a bonafide literary traditional, and a private favourite of our studio founder and plenty of members of our staff. We had settled on our inspirational supply, however nearly every little thing else concerning the sport was a clean slate.
![33 Immortals Screenshot](https://i0.wp.com/news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/02_Coop-9738ebe8bbb6bc00b00e.jpg?resize=1920%2C1080&ssl=1)
The staff and I started by deeply exploring the historic context, non secular symbolism, and mythology of “The Divine Comedy”, to tease out what we might convey into the universe of our sport. As epic as the story of Dante’s journey by means of the afterlife could also be, in an actual sense the important thing story in a multiplayer sport is the one gamers are creating in-game, on the fly. We would have liked to take the literary setting as a basis, upon which we’d create a world stuffed with unbelievable creatures and epic surroundings during which it will make sense to have many gamers preventing collectively.
Finally, we settled on our key concepts: what if gamers had been souls within the afterlife, condemned to everlasting punishment in Inferno? What in the event that they had been to insurgent towards their destiny, risking the Wrath of God within the course of? What if all the nice characters of “The Divine Comedy” had been serving to them on their journey?
![33 Immortals Screenshot](https://i0.wp.com/news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/03_Dante-5226f8a984ebb5423d65.jpg?resize=1920%2C1080&ssl=1)
With the essential setting squared away, we obtained all the way down to the specifics of gameplay. I’ve all the time been fascinated by the big scale of raids and epic multiplayer missions present in MMOs. However the barrier to entry into raids – the mandatory time funding, the preparation and apply – as a participant, I discovered these items to be a flip off. This raised the query: what if we made a sport that permit gamers leap into epic, social, and cooperative raid experiences immediately? We concentrated our efforts on making the leap into every run as fast and seamless as attainable – to make this a “decide up and raid” expertise for… what number of gamers?
Admittedly, we didn’t determine on 33 right away. We started to prototype our sport with the concept of many gamers getting into a world, grouping organically to face the difficulties, and progressively becoming a member of collectively to struggle a huge boss. And as we had been beginning to think about constructing the sport round 32 gamers, I wished to pick out a novel quantity to hold our fantasy and world. “The Divine Comedy” has 100 chapters and is split into three main sections: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, every with 33 chapters! It was settled: 33 Immortals was born!
![33 Immortals Screenshot](https://i0.wp.com/news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/04_Battle-8d69aef12f46dc7b3c60.jpg?resize=1920%2C1080&ssl=1)
So, we tie all of it collectively: in 33 Immortals, you’re a renegade within the insurrection of souls, a soldier in a struggle to your everlasting life. Runs are fast, punchy, and really difficult – loss of life can and can occur usually (as can occur while you defy the Almighty). However gamers can optimize their builds to match their playstyle, mixing and matching weapons, perks, and chronic upgrades to steadily enhance their insurrection’s odds of success.
Every sport session ends with a large raid-like Boss encounter, difficult the rebels to cooperate to counter lethal assaults and defeat their gigantic opponent. Above all, 33 Immortals actively encourages gamers to collaborate all through the runs, to make sure that the biggest and strongest group attainable survives by means of to the boss fights.
![33 Immortals Screenshot](https://i0.wp.com/news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/05_Lucifer-0599b4fba9a9fe26d604.jpg?resize=1920%2C1080&ssl=1)
There’s a lot extra to inform – however we’ve a highway forward of us too! 33 Immortals will launch on Xbox Sequence X|S, Home windows PC, and with Xbox Recreation Go and PC Recreation Go in 2024. Till then, we’re inviting you to return assist us make the sport as epic as attainable, by collaborating within the 33 Immortals Beta later this 12 months.
Head to www.33immortals.com to study extra. We hope to see you there!