Note: This interview is from an old website under a different name.
Here we are with an interview with Przemysław Szczepaniak, a member of Destructive Creations who handles the marketing and business development for all games DC. With this interview we’ll be talking about the studio’s upcoming game Hatred, and you’ll most likely want to know what answers there are for the game if you’re interested. On with the interview!
What’s your studios history on how it came to be in relation to Hatred?
Most of us have been working together in The Farm 51 studio for the past years. After a while Jarosław Zieliński (our founder) left The Farm 51 studio and decided to start his own company. We just met and decided to start making our own games. There was a common understanding on how we want to do it. We had experience, ideas, and we were tired of current situation on the gaming market. Hatred in its early stage was only a concept and prototype, but after a while, when we Destructive Creations was formed, we started the development for real.
What are you hoping for when people start playing and experiencing your game?
People will play a game that gives tons of fun. The atmosphere and dynamic gameplay brings a lot of excitement, and many questions about the plot, and the main character. While playing Hatred, you will have a total freedom of movement on each level, you can destroy practically everything and sometimes use the environment to make the destruction bigger. The game tactics (for its genre) is quite unique. The quality of gameplay, design and features are far better than in many similar titles.
Looking at the trailers, the game is obviously ‘impressive’ with the ways you can kill people. Can you talk about how you perform these executions and why do you do them, is there a benefit?
All weapons have their own execution and they are generated randomly (they also depend on the position the target is lying at). Executions are triggered with one key and you can perform them only when the target is close to death. There is around 50 execution types. They are important for the gameplay, because this is the only way to heal yourself when you are hurt.
The antagonist / main character is for some reason fueled with rage and disgust when looking at or thinking about the world, will we know the reason behind his ‘hatred’ while playing the game?
No, each player can figure out the answer on his own.
So where did the idea of Hatred come from? Is it just the desire to make something almost nobody wants to make in high game quality?
Hatred has few inspirations. The biggest influence came from the first Postal game. Jarosław always wanted to make his own version of the first Postal, but more dark and disturbing. The other thing was the industry and current state of games. We just decided to do something opposite to what we were used to by the industry trends.
Is there a general story to the game? If there is, mind talking a bit about it?
There is no story behind Antagonists’ hatred towards humanity, and you will not find that in the game. Although there is a kind of a story that develops as you move forward through the game.
What kind of content can we expect? Aside from mindlessly shooting people, will there be different objectives you have to complete? Also, much content are we going to see in the game?
You may be surprised sometimes with the behavior of NPCs, it’s not always just a mindless shooting at them. Each level will have some side objectives, and as you move further in each level, it gets harder, and you need to think tactical. Sometimes you will need to run or hide, especially when the law enforcement or army arrives.
There is 7 open, free-roam levels, so you can finish them in the order you will choose (you don’t need to do all of them though).
We didn’t plan any customization to the character or anything like that in the first Hatred version. You will use around 10 types of weapons + armed vehicles.
As far as we know, Hatred is a single-player game, but can we expect some sort of multiplayer mode on launch or later down the line?
There will be a single player mode on the launch only. As for the multi/coop mode, we will think about that a bit later. It will strongly depend on sales results.
You’re making Hatred that’s going above what we expect from games in terms of the idea and its play style, so are we going to see more games that go against the norm after Hatred is released?
Hatred is the opposite to what you are used to in current gaming, we really didn’t reinvented the wheel. As for next projects, we will see, can’t tell much now, but it will be different from Hatred.
There are some responses from you guys out there but will ask anyway, what is your response to the ‘hatred’ that’s been directed towards your game and your studio from a good amount of gamers, developers, and journalists?
We don’t really worry much about it. It’s normal when you create something that is called “controversial”. The bad press and the good press brought us a lot of free marketing and we are happy with that. Almost everyone heard about the game Hatred thanks to the hatred towards us. So in our case, there is no such thing as bad PR. Developers are also divided into two groups, but it doesn’t have any bad influence on our work so far.
Lastly, what kind of support we’ll get after Hatred finally launches?
We will support the game with bug fixes, patches, etc. Mods should be available a bit after the release. But, for the DLC, we need to see how the game manages on the market. If it sells well, then we will start production of DLC.
And that’s the end of the interview!
So what did we learn about Hatred? Every level is open for us to play in from the begging, and the levels are non-linear with free-roam movement. A lot of love went into environmental destruction. There are 10 weapons to use with each one having their own execution, and depending on the position of the person that you want to execute when he / she is almost dead, you’ll have a different kind of execution, bringing it all to around 50 ways of executing people. It’s also the only way to regain health, and let’s not forget about playable armed vehicles which will be fun to use hopefully.
It’s not just mindless as there are objectives and side missions to complete, and the higher you progress in the game the more harder it gets with police and swat teams coming in, so at that point you would have to think in a more tactical way and try to hide and take cover, and use the environmental destruction to your advantage.
There’s no general story aside from the main character who hates the world, although there sort of a story that develops as you progress through the game, but we don’t know if it connects with antagonist’s history. Each player will have to speculate on reasons as to why anything is happening in the game and the main character.
Lastly, it’s a singleplayer game, but if the game does well in sales, there will be DLC and a possible mutliplayer / coop mode in the future. Mod support will come soon after the game’s launch.
Looking at the all the info we got and the game’s price point, it’s looking good, and if the game is actually good and fun to play, then let’s hope it sells well so we get a nice online coop mode. Thanks again to Destructive Creations / Przemysław Szczepaniak for talking with us and having this interview. For more info about the game and the studio creating it, check out its website here.
