Dune Awakening may be coming out on PC first, but it’s “designed with a controller in mind”

Porting a sport from PC to console is difficult, particularly if the sport in query is from a style historically one native to the PC. It may be tough to make the transition throughout platforms with out shedding one thing alongside the best way, however within the case of Dune Awakening, the sport has been “designed with a controller in thoughts”.

All this, with none phrase on when a console model is popping out. In reality, the sport’s launch on PC (which we all know will probably be coming first) can be a thriller. To assist determine what concerns have been taken with this inevitable multi-platform launch, I sat down and spoke to Nils Ryborg. Ryborg is a producer on Dune Awakening, however previous to his time at Funcom he labored on the console port of Pillars of Eternity at Paradox, and so might present some distinctive perception on the method.

“The battle there, I bear in mind Pillars of Eternity (laughs) we spent quite a lot of time making an attempt to determine the UX in it, and introduced in a bit of little bit of influences from motion RPGs, particularly with how you progress.” Ryborg acknowledged. “It is primarily a really tactical sport, and clearly you are very restricted if you use a controller. So we created AI architects you could possibly work with, so you could possibly make your NPCs make higher selections, and direct them a bit of bit.”

He continues, “We made it simpler so that you can transfer your character round and make fast selections, and do real-time fight a bit extra successfully. However we additionally left within the mechanics that allowed you to pause and pull off extra difficult methods. All this alongside primary UX issues like discovering methods to cycle totally different buttons and what not. However the driver there was shifting issues to extra of a ARPG whereas conserving as a lot tactical stuff as we might”

So that is what the Paradox staff needed to do, what about Funcom? Was its method the identical, or have been concerns taken to make the transition rather less trouble?

“So from the beginning, it is the better method of constructing a sport, going console-first. Lots of that transitions simply again on the PC, whereas in case you make a pure PC sport the place you employ a mouse and keyboard to manage, it is actually troublesome to port over. So it has been designed with a controller in thoughts from the get-go.”

“Clearly, we’re releasing on PC first, proper? In order that’s the place we’ll have a very good setup, however the console UX-wise, I am not tremendous involved. Clearly it is all of the basic tech stuff, y’know, the place they’re a bit of extra restricted in sure {hardware} issues. So it must carry out nicely and different tech stuff. It should not be overly difficult.”

So, whereas these anticipating Dune Awakening on console are nonetheless going to must bunker down for some time, ready for more information, they need to at the very least be pleased understanding that the model they get will not be drastically totally different from their friends on PC.