We recently had a chat with Defiance 2050 Matt Pettit, Producer of the game, to discuss in-game purchases, character creation features, story, long-term support and much more.
SegmentNext: In the original, one of the things we wanted to see was a detailed character creation tool. It was a little on the light side on the options the first time around, how are you guys handling the character creation tool for Defiance 2050?
Matt Pettit: When you compare it to other titles in the online shooter genre, our character creation options are pretty robust. We’ve made the call to leave it unaltered in Defiance 2050, but we feel that players will still have plenty of options when creating their characters.
SegmentNext: In the original game, the story was pretty thin but it was enough to keep you going. While the story may not be the main focus of a multiplayer-centric game, can we expect the closure to some unanswered questions in Defiance 2050?
Matt Pettit: As it’s a live game that will see tons of new content in its lifetime, we will definitely be adding many story-based updates to Defiance 2050. These updates will push the story forward in a fun, exciting way!
SegmentNext: Why Defiance? Why come back to this IP while you can move to something new. Do you think this time you have something that would manage to gain traction among a large number of the audience?
Matt Pettit: Defiance’s robust sci-fi universe deftly melds human and alien technology together in the fight for a terraformed, making for some exciting gear, environments, and more possibilities that stand alone in the online shooter genre.
This world is something we are very passionate about here at Trion, and we felt that giving a new audience the chance to play in this awesome world was worth the effort. And for the 5 million unique users that have played the original Defiance since launch, the changes that we are making to the game are going to feel like an entirely new experience, and something we feel will resonate within a game universe that already has such a great core.
SegmentNext: Multiplayer games need to keep things fresh by adding new content regularly for the game to have a long life. Do you have long-term plans for Defiance with regular content updates?
Matt Pettit: Yes, we are fully supporting Defiance 2050 well into the future. There will be significantly more updates going forward. Following Defiance 2050’s launch this summer, we’ll be implementing new classes with their own storylines to incorporate them into the game’s universe, new systems that will expand on the new itemization system, and exciting new end-game content. We have a lot planned for Defiance 2050, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
SegmentNext: Loot boxes and aggressive microtransactions have become a major concern these days. But none-intrusive monetization plans don’t hurt anybody, Warframe is a great example of that. What are you offering in terms of in-game purchases, boosts, etc? Do any of that affect gameplay and may give one an edge in-game?
Matt Pettit: Having everything obtainable through normal gameplay is a huge part of the best F2P games on the market. When creating Defiance 2050, we wanted to make sure that any paid gains would only provide a slightly faster route to getting a special item, class or outfit. That philosophy drove many changes to our in-game systems in order to accommodate the completely free experience.
The days of RNG determining your fate is a thing of the past; instead of making a purchase from the store feel like a loss we’re making it feel like again. We want to make sure that if you do decide to support the game through the store that you aren’t disappointed or feel forced into it.
SegmentNext: What engine is the game being developed on? What kind of graphical fidelity we can expect from Defiance 2050.
Matt Pettit: The Defiance 2050 uses a proprietary engine created by Trion Worlds. The game is being updated to a 64-bit client, with the engine being upgraded to work with Direct3D 11. We are also upgrading to a multithreaded renderer, which will boost the capabilities of how we handle many players on screen at once. All of this will shape up to be a more stable, and better-looking Defiance experience.
Original Defiance
Defiance 2050
SegmentNext: Are there any plans for a Switch version?
Matt Pettit: Not currently planned, but with the approach they are going to be taking to F2P games, we can never rule it out!
