After Microsoft Studios closed Lionhead and Press Play earlier this year, a few of the guys at Press Play decided to turn it into an opportunity to start their own company. Thus, Ghost Ship Games was born. The company has an intriguing motto ("Co-op First") and their first title, Deep Rock Galactic, has been pitched as "Left 4 Dead meets Minecraft." We spoke with CEO Søren Lundgaard about the game and how their studio (and motto) came to be.
Co-Optimus: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us about your upcoming game. First off, could you tell us a little about your studio, Ghost Ship Games? You all have a motto that we find very intriguing...
Søren Lundgaard: Yeah, we hoped our motto would intrigue you. Well, Ghost Ship Games was born not so long ago, more specifically in April 2016. We worked at Press Play, when Microsoft decided to close the studio along with Lionhead. It was a unique opportunity to start our own independent studio and within a week we had a game project going. Since then, progress has been lightning fast and we are quite happy about the game and our current situation.
We are six founders of Ghost Ship Games and all of us are industry veterans with a very diverse background ranging from big AAA games to small indie productions across a multitude of platforms and eras. It has been very liberating to start our own studio and finally decide on our own game and strategy. So, the motto of “Co-op First” was born in the very early days to direct our efforts. We simply looked at the premise for Deep Rock Galactic, which can be described as “co-op action in a procedurally generated world” and looked at the current games on the market. There are very few games where co-op mode is the primary game mode. There are a lot of games where co-op is a feature often found at the end of the feature list. But for us co-op is the first feature we consider when designing and developing the game. So “Co-op First” fitted that ambition perfectly.
Co-Optimus: Putting something like co-op first and foremost in a title isn’t always easy, especially when it’s online and you have to account for a whole lot more than if you just made a single-player experience. Why this emphasis on co-op gaming? What makes it worth it to you all?
Søren: Our fascination for co-op started back in the 90s when the multiplayer games like Doom, Command & Conquer, Diablo, Quake and the like appeared. First, we just played deathmatch, PvP, but then we realized that you could play co-operatively in those games. You could play together against the computer, PvE. They didn’t all support it fully, but that didn’t matter. Playing co-op was such a rewarding experience and a very social way of playing, but for the longest time, games didn’t focus on this in a pure form.
Then Left4Dead appeared and changed the perception of co-op games - it was possible to market a game with a pure co-op focus. Since then, others have followed in the footsteps of Left4Dead and we believe we have our own take on the co-op action genre. And yes, there are a lot of extra challenges compared to a single-player game, but since we assume that 4-player co-op is the optimal way of playing the game, then the design becomes quite a bit easier. Of course, we will still make the game work in single-player; that is simply required. When you play a new co-op game, you often start in single-player before you go online - you don’t want to be too much of a newbie, right?
So, designing for co-op definitely brings its own challenges, but it also brings several advantages we couldn’t do without. For instance, it is dead obvious that you cannot properly test the game yourself - that means we need to do daily play sessions together, which in turn have become a very important factor in the speed with which we can iterate. Nobody wants to submit broken stuff and everybody can easily see what works and what doesn’t. That means, we base a lot of our design on our shared experience of playing the very latest build of the game. Compared to how we did things in the old days, this is a wonderful change of pace.
Co-Optimus: Your first title, Deep Rock Galactic, is about a group of dwarves that are sent to a hostile planet to try and extract all the precious minerals they can find. You’ve described the gameplay as “Left 4 Dead meets Minecraft.” Could you expand upon that a little more? Will players have to use the materials they find to build defenses?
Søren: So, when we say “Left 4 Dead meets Minecraft”, we basically mean “co-op action in a procedurally generated world”. In Left 4 Dead, working together is crucial to your survival, the action is intense, and the special enemies force you to think and plan, it’s not just run’n’gun. Minecraft, on the other hand, gives the player a true sense of exploration and wonder - each level is unique, the world is fully destructible, and full of things to discover. Those are the qualities we aim to combine in Deep Rock Galactic. We’re focusing on the caves, because it fitted the vision of digging for gold, but also because it very handily limits our scope - the same goes for setting the game on a single planet, and not in an entire galaxy or universe. Our goal is to create the most awesome and beautiful procedurally generated caves ever. Or something close to that.
When referencing Minecraft, we often get asked about crafting. Let us be clear: Deep Rock Galactic is not a Crafting-Survival game. You will be gathering minerals, yes, but there is no conventional inventory, and no crafting mechanic. The minerals you mine will be used for upgrades and unlocks, but the exact specifcs are still up in the air. In our current build, you are simply mining Gold for the satisfaction of it, but the plan is to add a lot of different minerals and things like Alien Relics and other strange stuff you’ll find in the caves. These resources are then handed in to your employer, the space mining company Deep Rock Galactic, and exchanged for upgrades for characters and gear between missions. How exactly this economy will work is undecided.
There will be SOME building, however - we want you to be able to build defenses and such using resources you gather during the missions, using the tools you brought. As an example, the Engineer can build a Gun Turret, but he can only assemble a limited number of them using his initial payload. By spending the minerals, you find (currently Gold), you can call in a Resupply Pod and your payload is refilled as if you just started the mission. So, it’s not crafting, but there is a sense of resource management. It’s important to emphasize that this resource system is not developed very far though, and things might change a lot in the coming months.
Co-Optimus: You’ve also talked about how there are four “meta-classes”: Digger, Gunner, Engineer, and Navigator. How do each of these classes work? Are all four classes required in a four player game?
Søren: For the 4-player game, we recommend using one of each, but it is not something we strictly enforce if you want to change it up. Every Dwarf comes with a basic set of weapons and tools, including a handy pick-axe for digging anywhere. So, no matter your class, you are never stuck for long, and if you want to try a mission with 4 Drillers, then go right ahead! But, if you’re in a team where all 4 classes are represented, then no obstacle is insurmountable. Our classes are more akin to what you see in, say, Team Fortress 2 than Left 4 Dead when it comes to variety. We refer to them as meta-classes, because we aim for a meta-game where the player can customize the toolset of each, creating his own specialized versions of them - a bit like you’d see in Diablo or an MMO. Again, this is something very much in development and extremely subject to change! It’s also something which might not be super deep in the very early version of the game, but expanded as we update with new versions during Early Access. We’ll see.
So how do the classes work? Some of them are pretty straight forward, like the Gunner. He is basically a huge gun on legs, and he is there primarily to protect the group. He has access to heavy weapons like the Gatling Gun, that shoots high caliber rounds that chew up the terrain around him and tears through monsters like paper. But if you want to dig holes, you should pick the Driller - he comes equipped with a twin set of enormous drills that chews through rock like butter, and can very quickly make tunnels for the entire team to use. The Drill can also be used in close combat, and since he also equipped with a close-range flame-thrower, he is the go-to melee specialist.
Søren: The Navigator and Engineer, on the other hand, are a bit more complex. The caves are generally pitch black, and all the Dwarves are equipped with short-lived flares. But when you really want to light up the caves, the Navigator is your guy. He has a dedicated Flare Gun that shoots long-lasting and longer-ranging plasma-flares that sticks to ceilings and walls. He quickly becomes the central point of the group as everybody is relying on his ability to light up the caves and find the way. He also has a fancy Grappling Hook, so he can zip around and find the next exit or gold vein.
Finally, there is the Engineer. As mentioned before, he can place Gun Turrets which are very effective against lots of small enemies. For exploration, he can place Zip-lines across chasms and he also has something called a Platform Gun, which can place - well you guess it - platforms! Very handy for creating your own jump puzzles. Of course, the platforms are part of the terrain and can be dug into just like everything else.
Co-Optimus: Is there any set end goal for the game, or is it just open-ended to let players go along as they can?
Søren: Right now, we have no overall end-goal to the game. Each mission will have a specific goal, like gather X gold or find some alien artefacts or a lost mining operation. Some of the mission will be on timers, some will be endurance tests, like: how deep can you go? The end of the game will probably more be linked to you upgrading the various classes and exploring the content. Of course, we plan to continuously release new content, so in some sense it’s a game- as-a- service experience. We want the game to be a playground where players will stay for a long time and return to for years to come.
That said, we do have plans for narrative, but unlike something like Mass Effect, it will not be a story focused on the players. It’s more background and environmental storytelling. The setting the game takes place in, the history of the planet you’re on, and the longer-reaching objectives of the mining corporation Deep Rock Galactic that you work for. Why are Deep Rock Galactic mining this forsaken place? What is down there, in the deep? What ARE those alien artifacts? And what killed the previous mining operations?
Co-Optimus: Aside from Left 4 Dead and Minecraft, have there been any other co-op games you all have been enjoying or served as an inspiration?
Søren: Absolutely. We’re paying very close attention to other modern co-op action games, like Killing Floor, Payday, Vermintide, Warframe, Borderlands and Helldivers. All of those are excellent examples of well-designed co-op games with high production values, and they’re all serving as valuable reference in our design discussions. Lately, Helldivers has come up a lot when we discuss our approach to match-making and the meta-game where you customize loadout. Also, their simple approach to using drop-pods for new resources and join-in- progress has been an inspiration. But we are also taking cues from Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch, even though they are PvP focused.
Games should not be created in a vacuum, in our opinion. If it was not for the games from our past, we could never have come up with Deep Rock Galactic. It’s with both pride and reverence we stand on their shoulders. We aim to continue what they started, and to be the next link in that continuing evolution.
We'd like to once again thank Søren and everyone at Ghost Ship Games for taking the time to talk with us and answer our questions. You can sign up to try and participate in the closed alpha testing of Deep Rock Galactic over at Ghost Ship's website.