It was just a couple weeks ago when QC Games launched Breach on Steam in its early access stage. Just before the games initial launch, I had the pleasure to testing the alpha and presenting my first impression on the game. Shortly after this impression the team reached out to invite me to play their game with them while conducting an interview, to which I gladly agreed.
If you haven’t heard about Breach yet, it is a dungeon crawler style RPG multiplayer game that allows up to four players to team up and face off against hordes of enemies. Siding with the enemies is a fifth player who takes the role of the Veil Demon. This fifth player will have their own abilities, along with taking control of any enemy that the heroes will have to face off against, and will be focused on killing the hero team before they make their way to the end and kill the boss.
During the interview with two of QC Games big dogs, Dallas Dickinson and Gabe Amatangelo, I learned a lot about the game and what there is to look forward to. The game mechanics part of the discussion can be summarized into these main points:
Balancing the class types among the four hero team members is key to winning a battle.
Character customization can amp up the gameplay and play style of any player. This means leveling up multiple classes within the same class type in order to take their powers and mixing them into one ultimate class. This can be done to make an ultimate healer, melee tank, ranged fighter, and more including the Veil Demon!
Buying gems to power up your class can aid you to victory. Remember that Red gems are Offensive focused, Blue gems are Defensive focused, and Prismatic gems are Special Move focused.
It isn’t about the players level nor the class level. A game is won or lost based purely on the individuals level of skill that drives them to a victory.
Your characters equipment is what provides the options given when your team wins an objective point in game. Customizing these options will let you guide the type of power ups you will want to earn as you progress through the various stages of each map before reaching the final boss. Note that any points earned after the fourth point is simply refusing a power up point to the opponent.
Now let’s get into the details that we would all like to know. While these questions were asked during the session and can be heard in the video below, here are the most interesting questions that were answered.
The Interview With Dallas and Gabe
What was the inspiration that got you guys to create Breach?
Gabe - “A few things. One of the big things was that there are a lot of games out there and you see fast follow a lot. We all worked at EA and working on a lot of titles and ideas of games that are already kind of out there and replicating. We wanted to do something that was crazy and new, but not so crazy and new. We wanted some familiarity to it and so we made sort of a hybrid game. So we looked at our background and how we worked on MMO’s and RPG’s, we enjoy MOBA’s, stuff like that so at its core it is an co-op Action RPG but it has influences from MOBA’s and true action games as well. That was the influence for the genre.”
Why do certain characters get lifted and others don’t [on the post-game screen]? What’s it’s purpose?
Dallas - “These are up-votes. That’s an interface we are going to work on because now it isn’t a great interface as many don’t know what it means. We know what it means, but others don’t until they figure it out. For instance, when I play Veil Demon, I don’t actually care if I win the game. I care if I get the most up-votes because that means I made the game exciting for the players.”
Gabe - “Speak for yourself Dallas, I just care about winning!” he responded before continuing the answer, “One of the things we plan on having come out soon is a challenge system, which is like an achievement system, that will give you rewards for things like that where as right now it is just recognition, if you will.”
With this game planning to be free-to-play, is there going to be paid DLC’s? If so, will these DLC’s alter or hinder the experience of a player that doesn’t have that DLC?
Dallas - “No. Our model is much like most MOBA’s out there, like League of Legends, you can play the game and unlock classes just by playing the game or you can pay to accelerate the unlock of the other classes. The main way we expect to make money on cosmetic items. So, cosmetic and convenience would be the main way. That way it is up to the player to decide if you want to earn the class or buy it.”
Are you going to add options for pets or drones of any kind that will follow the heroes and help them out?
Gabe - “If you navigate to the wardrobe you will see a ‘Coming Soon’ sign on the spot that says familiar. We’re going to have familiars that are just kind of cosmetic and follow the player around. Adding them to the battle is still To Be Determined.”
Dallas - “Yeah, the ones that would actually affect combat are built in to specific classes [like Necromancer], but these would be purely cosmetic.”
-Please excuse the bit of technical difficulty presented in the video. It was lightly edited to cut as much of the inaudible and too broken up parts.-
The very end of the interview video is where they hint into some of the details surrounding the story as well, but just having a decent game session with the developers has really helped me understand Breach so much more. I look forward to the additions they plan on bringing to the game in the future and love the direction the story is going to have as they mix mythology with reality.
Just after hosting this interview they shared their 2019 Road Map as well, which showed an awesome year ahead. It doesn’t mention all of the minor and mechanical stuff they plan to improve, but it is great to see that they will be adding so much more content while fixing the game up to its full potential.
Thanks, again, to the QC Games team for inviting me into this interviewing and providing me with the codes needed to have this game session with you. I’ll be sure to catch you guys online again sometime soon!
