Nicolas Guérin of Thunder Lotus, greatest recognized for 2020’s Spiritfarer, likes viewing issues in another way.
“Possibly it’s my contrarian nature, however Spiritfarer was meant to be type of a counterpoint to what loss of life is normally perceived as, which is gloomy, darkish, horrible,” he advised Polygon lately over video name. “However there’s a silver lining. There may be some technique to speak about loss of life with positivity.”
Guérin was the artistic director for Spiritfarer, the administration sim a few younger lady who shepherds spirits to the afterlife. He assumes the identical position for At Destiny’s Finish, the studio’s lately revealed 2026 title. At Destiny’s Finish will forged gamers as Shan, a princess who should duel her estranged siblings with each her sword and her phrases. The event crew is taking what it discovered from Spiritfarer and making use of it to At Destiny’s Finish whereas once more difficult preconceived notions — this time, these surrounding households.
“For At Destiny’s Finish, it’s type of the reverse,” Guérin mentioned, mentioning how households are “fantastic” and sometimes portrayed that method in artwork and leisure. He as a substitute desires to discover the darker, judgemental, conflicted aspect of households in At Destiny’s Finish. “I’m not there to say household is horrible, however my notion is that basically in most of artwork I are inclined to understand that household is all the time seen as constructive, which it’s,” Guérin mentioned.
The aristocratic nature of the household on the core of At Destiny’s Finish will certainly assist highlight the extraordinary complexities of its dynamic. The characters belong to “a ruling class household,” which “comes with issues and duties and ambitions and aspirations that contradict each other [and] are in battle with each other.”
Picture: Thunder Lotus Video games
Guérin and his crew at Thunder Lotus intend to make you “really feel like these characters belong to your loved ones” and to have you ever construct an emotional reference to them, which was additionally a part of the draw of Spiritfarer and its life-like characters that felt like actual folks. “For us, [we have] the identical feeling [of] ‘that character we’ve on display reminds [us] of somebody we knew’ as a result of that somebody we knew is definitely part of that character!” Guérin mentioned, explaining how the crew infused private tales from the builders with the sport’s characters.
“Additionally, you will get to evaluate them,” Guérin mentioned of the household central to At Destiny’s Finish. He desires gamers to query themselves and marvel: “Do I even have empathy for what that particular person lived or do I even have antipathy or judgment in direction of the consequence of what he or she did due to her upbringing?”
The crew is drawing inspiration from historic aristocratic households for At Destiny’s Finish’s central characters. “There isn’t a historical past that’s extra fucked up than aristocratic transitions and inheritance. It’s horrible. It’s horrible,” Guérin mentioned. He’s initially from France, and famous the parallels between “what’s occurring on this planet, and particularly for us in western nations” and the way nations used to deal with energy within the 1800s and earlier. “I’m tremendous involved in the way in which the world was formed and the nations had been formed.”
Picture: Thunder Lotus Video games
Like actual world historic aristocratic households, drama abounds in At Destiny’s Finish. Shan begins estranged from her household, having not seen them for a pair years. As a result of occasions of the start of the sport, which we gained’t spoil right here, Shan turns into Princess of Swords. She not solely has to reconnect together with her siblings — but additionally take their swords.
“That custom is every era has to have one of many siblings, who all inherited particular powers in particular swords, that one has to persuade all of the others mainly to take again their swords from them, personal them, and grow to be the following ruler of that era.” Fairly the tall activity for Shan as she has to inform her relations, whom she hasn’t seen in a while, “‘Yeah, I imply, I’ve to take your sword from you.’” Guérin succinctly described it as “a little bit of a merciless ritual.”
When requested if any of Shan’s siblings ranked as essentially the most enjoyable to create, Guérin mentioned, “I like all of them, they’re all my kids.” However love doesn’t forestall the artistic director from being sincere about them. “They’re all fucked up in a method. All of them signify a failure of their very own making, however […] all of them have that a part of them that you simply nonetheless like, they’re all lovable, they’re all horrible.” The sport acknowledges their faults, however may even push gamers to “truly develop empathy for them.”
Picture: Thunder Lotus Video games
Their swords, similar to Shan’s God Sword Aesus, will play a big position within the narrative. Thunder Lotus and Guérin are taking a look at Gaul and Celtic mythology to assist craft these swords, which include the facility of gods and are characters in their very own rights. However their energy doesn’t come and not using a price.
“[A] god sword’s wielder has needed to make a sacrifice of a physique half to host the sword. The thought is that the sword itself is type of fused with the wielder.” Shan’s sacrifice? Her throat, “which disadvantaged her from her voice. So mainly every time Shan speaks, she mentalizes ideas which are then expressed as a voice by the sword itself.”
As the sport revolves round an aristocratic household, themes of lineage, inheritance, and freedom of alternative will play giant components in At Destiny’s Finish. Shan’s household lineage is represented within the talent tree, which Guérin famous appears like a household tree. “[At Fate’s End is] about mainly persevering with or questioning your legacy. […] What’s the extent of my very own contribution to my lineage? Am I simply me or am I the results of a really lengthy line that occurred to finish up with me?” Guérin mentioned. Lineage is tied to the swords as nicely. “The sword has been passing down by generations. You’re the Nth knight that had this sword for the reason that creation of it.”
The characters and swords tie into development and gameplay as nicely, not simply At Destiny’s Finish’s narrative. “Making the sword progress will make you perceive extra of the characters” who wielded the sword earlier than Shan. “The sport is a lightweight RPG through which you get one thing that can be seen as expertise factors that you simply make investments into abilities. However these abilities are development, like an archeology of the earlier wielders of the sword,” Guérin mentioned.
Picture: Thunder Lotus Video games
Future can be at play in At Destiny’s Finish, and Guérin likened participant alternative within the narrative — “mainly you have got a good quantity of management” — to tarot (the medium of card studying, not the cardboard recreation). “Tarot is attention-grabbing as a result of it’s a kind of traditions that may make the reader learn one thing that’s truly written in future,” Guérin mentioned. “But it surely contradicts the concept of free will as a result of if the whole lot is written upfront, why trouble?”
He mentioned how the positions of various drawn playing cards have completely different meanings in tarot, like “loss of life upright means change, however loss of life reverse means no change.” That is the place participant alternative comes into play, with Guérin saying, “you’ll encounter many [kinds of] tarot by the course of the sport” and that Shan’s sword interprets the world by tarot, that means you’ll be capable to reverse playing cards and have some management over destiny.
Picture: Thunder Lotus Video games
Her cool sword gained’t be only for tarot and participant alternative, although. At Destiny’s Finish could be very a lot an motion recreation, one thing the studio is intimately conversant in. Although Thunder Lotus rose to prominence with Spiritfarer, its different video games — Jotun, Sundered, and 33 Immortals, which one other crew is at present engaged on — all have fight as core components of their experiences, and At Destiny’s Finish can be no completely different.
Guérin cited his love for animation and the attractive work of the artwork crew as causes for injecting motion into At Destiny’s Finish. “Whenever you play as a personality, the primary reflex that you’ve as a designer, I say, ‘Oh, I need to have that little avatar there to take action many issues as a result of [controlling the character is] so nice, it’s so good,’” Guérin mentioned. “The great thing about the animation, the way it flows, the way it feels — it’s actually the second of pure marvel that it’s virtually like a visceral reflex and a visceral intestine feeling. I actually need to have the character transfer on display. So it tends to make us have mainly a platformer or action-oriented gameplay.”
These on-screen actions should wait a bit, nonetheless, as At Destiny’s Destiny isn’t due out till someday in 2026. It’s been introduced for PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X, and the crew would “like to make” At Destiny’s Finish for Nintendo Change 2 as soon as it will possibly get its fingers on a devkit. (OG Change homeowners shouldn’t maintain out hope, although — “We in all probability gained’t be capable to have the sport working on [Nintendo] Change as it’s,” Guérin mentioned.)
When At Destiny’s Finish does arrive, count on the sport to emotionally problem you, simply as Spiritfarer did. It’ll be stuffed with siblings that you simply’ll decide similar to you do your individual flesh and blood, besides this time you’ll even be wielding a God Sword in battle.
