Victor Vran is bringing its unique blend of gothic-inspired action to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One early this year, having previously found great success on the PC two years ago. In anticipation of the game’s console debut, PSU had the opportunity to have a bit of a chinwag with the game’s creator, Haemimont Games, with both CEO Gabriel Dobrev and Producer Bisser Dyankov.
Find out what the duo had to say on Victor Vran’s much-hyped PS4 debut in our interview below.
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PSU: You’ve said that Victor Vran on PS4 will be rebuilt using an in-house engine; what visual improvements can we expect to see?
Gabriel Dobrev: The main thing about running on PS4, is that we wanted to have 60fps, that was the main challenge that we had. The game was running with that, and as you can imagine with PC, there’s always a PC that runs well enough and there is another one that it’s not possible to run that well, but on PS4 we really wanted to have that, and we had to optimise a lot of different cases and really make the game give its best to be able to run at 60fps at all times.
Speaking of that new engine, what improvements, if any, can PS4 Pro owners look forward to over the standard PS4 version of the game?
Because PS Pro has a better graphics card, we actually have higher resolution, so that the images will increase better on PS4 Pro.
The roadmap for Victor Vran has a fair amount of DLC on the horizon, can PS4 owners expect to get all that lovely stuff at the same time as their PC counterparts, in addition to the previously released content as well?
Yes, all of the content we released so far will be included in the PS4 version. And all of the new DLCs that are coming out will come out at the same time on PC and PS4.
Will the PS4 version of Victor Vran contain any exclusive content?
We have an exclusive outfit that’s available only to PS4, which is a very, very cool-looking Samurai outfit for the Samurai Victors out there! (laughs)
Were there any challenges in adapting Victor Vran for the DualShock 4 controller?
Ah, no, we found that working with the controller very… and playing the game felt very natural, we did support controller all along in Victor Vran, so there wasn’t a particular challenge to change the interface or anything like that. So, I would say, it was an easy ride.
Dyankov: We initially designed the interface with the controller in mind, so we started from this.
One area where Victor Vran innovates is in the level of agility that it affords the player, since Victor can jump and wall jump to name just a couple of things he can pull off. What was the thinking behind implementing such acrobatics in a genre that typically ignores them?
Well we felt that we were missing something there, and that’s the main reason we decided to make the entire game more about action, because we felt that despite their name, action-RPGs are pretty static. There isn’t that much going on, so, all of the enemy design is centered on that idea; they have a lot of area attacks, they have a lot of attacks that they telegraph in advance, so if you’re looking you will know what’s going to happen in the next second, so you can carefully avoid all of them.
Victor Vran is quite unique when it comes to how it handles player progression. Gone are the typical experience points and skill trees that other dungeon crawlers typically embrace and in its place is an ability system that depends on the gear that you use – what was the thinking behind this?
We didn’t want to force the players into choices that they either have to spend a lot of time before they can make, or that they will be stuck with them for a long time. So, we wanted for them to be able to jump into the game and enjoy it, and if they later on decide that this is not the weapon they want, they can swap it that out and that’s it. Or, if this is not the outfit that the want, or the demon power that they want, they can just swap it out for something else and you can actually try many, many different builds within a very short period of time in Victor Vran, as opposed to developing a whole new character up to the max level, just to find out that maybe the build is not working out as you expected.
How do the daily and weekly quests work when it comes to unique content – is there a decent rotation, or, will players run into the same quests time and time again?
Ah, we have levels that are generated on a daily basis, and those have their own challenges, again, which are pulled out of all the possible challenges that we have in the game. So, there is no direct rotation; you’re not going to ever see again the same level with the same challenges on it, but of course you’re going to see a particular challenge after some days, they’re not endless; there’s not an endless supply of them.
Given the amount of jokes and humour that exists in Victor Vran, something that sets it apart from its more po-faced peers, can we hope to see more of that in future DLC going forward?
For now we haven’t finalised our plans for future DLC, so we can’t really say what’s going forward, but that’s an aspect of Victor Vran that we also enjoy very much.
Out of all the innovations you’ve made with Victor Vran, which one are you the most proud of?
Well the main premise of the game was to orient towards action, which I think we largely succeeded to do, so that’s something we’re really proud of. Another really big challenge was how to combine and really make a game that is really true to Motorhead, and at the same time is true to Victor Vran, and this is another challenge I think we largely succeeded in, and a very interesting thing for the players to explore.
Dyankov: I’m most proud of the fact Victor, because of the approach we had, the action in the combat, Victor Vran the game has its own unique reason to exist. There is a reason for it to be next to very big titles, I do believe it’s giving the whole gaming world something unique.
Stay tuned to PSU for more on Victor Vran in the coming weeks.