Hi there guys, welcome to the Sage gaming
news
the world of darkness is a roleplaying setting
which was massively popular in the '90s and
still gets played a hell of a lot.
It's a pen-and-paper system, basically and
it is known for three different games: Werewolf,
Vampire and Mage.
And... the last time a video game was released
based on the World of Darkness setting it
was Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines back
in 2004, which was a really good game, and,
despite a lot of bugs, kind of reached cult
status, so it's really exciting to see there's
a new game coming out from this system, which
will be Werewolf: the Apocalypse.
It'll be published by Focus and programmed
by Cyanide and at the Focus Press event, I
had the chance to talk to Martin Ericsson,
the lead storyteller from White Wolf, and
he told me a little bit about where they think
the game is going, so go ahead and have a
look.
I'm Martin Ericsson and I'm the lead storyteller
for White Wolf the reformed white wolf.
For years we were over at CCP, working on
the MMO World of Darkness, I worked as senior
contact on that and it completely broke my
heart of course went that boat went down.
We left with a treasure ... of  ideas but now
we're OK.
We have been financed by the Paradox group,
we are not owned by Paradox per se, but the
money comes from the same place.
We were very clear that we need to be our
own thing, to bring our mature and complex
stories about monsters hidden among us that
we need to do.
So how much do you know about White Wolf and
the World of Darkness?
Not that much and fairly much?
OK, so are you familiar with Vampire: the
Masquerade?
Yeah, so this started in 1991 as a pen-and-paper
thing, roleplaying game which became the second-most-selling
roleplaying game in the 1990s, after Dungeons
and Dragons; of course a game that pulled
in a lot of women, a lot of goths, a lot of
lifestyle gamers.
That would be Vampire.
This is the Vampire game in '91, so and it's
one integrated universe of monsters hidden
among us, manipulating politics and being
affected by us.
It's our world, but under the surface the
Nightmares are born.
So, now we're 25 years later, and we're updating
the full universe for end times, continuing
the same stories that began in the '90s, we're
now in the age of apocalypse, we're in the end age.
The central question of our Werewolves is "when
will you rage?", when have you had enough.
Our Werewolves are nature's revenge.
So they're born werewolves, they come from
a tribal society that stretches back.
They were set on the earth by Gaia, the living
planet, they're the immune system of the ecosystem,
so for thousands of years they hunted us and
made sure that we stayed in small family groups,
or nomadic packs, but they are both man and wolf.
So they were culling the herd?
Yeah, they were culling the herd, making sure
that we didn't fuck up.
But they showed us mercy, they kind of fell
in love with us, they are humans as well as
wolves.
Ok, let's give the monkeys a shot, let them
have their time and see what they can build.
Now, many thousand years later, they're severely
regretting that.
So the 13 tribes of the werewolves are now at the cusp of
renewing the culling of humans.
They want to go to war against the humans
again, because we now know that we have endangered
Gaia so much.
There's going to be a second purging? The discussion is of course between the red talons and the
children of Gaia about where should the purging start.?
So this game is about the balance between
wisdom and rage, it's about saving the world
but also what's the price of changing the
world with violent activist actions.
It's clearly a game that reflects a lot of
huge questions that are here, now, that's
always fun stuff.
The vampires explore the temptations of power, the temptations of violation, being a predator
of other human beings, you can call them the
1% if you want.
And of course the werewolves struggle with the problem of wild activism.
When is enough enough?
And when will you rage?
When have you had enough ...
So our werewolves are deeply spiritual, they
smell and feel and talk to nature in ways
that humans can only dream of.
For them the city is repulsive unless they've
lived there for their whole lives.
Many werewolves actually grow up among humans,
right?
Unless they are from the glass walker tribe,
or from the bone gnawer tribe, they'll often
move out of the city, to compounds or separate
activist compounds outside, living in tree
houses the way that some activists do.
They're hippies.
They are quite dangerous hippies.
If hippies were three meters tall, had huge claws,
and no moral qualms about killing humans.
But yes, not all werewolves think that the
best way forward is war against the humans.
There's the glass walkers who believe that technology potential is   a way out.
They would be highly supportive of Elon Musk
and Tesla and so on.
They have the idea that we can change the
path of, but all these different concepts
that these tribes represent, they compete
with each other, but also with us.
So this game will be set in North America;
it's of course a place of great turmoil, and
great ecological devastation.
One part of the continent we have fracking,
reservations being infringed upon, new pipelines
makes for exciting conflicts.
To what extent should we see this game as a political statement?
It's a question to us. That's how I see it.
It's playing with the big question "what is
the price of saving the world?" so I think
they're monsters, but at the same time they're
kind of right.
And I think it's... games have a unique position
to ask questions rather than
give a very long statement.
It's more than a statement, it's slower, these questions.
Our Garou, our werewolves, they're sure they're
on the side of finding a solution, absolutely, but ...
And it's also about their relationship to
the spirit world, because they're a shamanistic
culture that sees everything as alive, they
talk to the spirits of extinct species to
ally with them and   gain bodily gains.
Badger spirts would give you power  to lock their
jaws forcefully
oak tree spirits to armor   their hide
so they do that verbal negotiation
with that.
This also comes at a price, right?
Yes.
Spirits often demand something in return?
Oh yes.
Maybe the blood of a logger that has been
cutting down the oak forest.
That is, spirits, they're not nice.
The werewolves are nature's tooth and claw.
They're not cuddly, like, furry captain planet heroes,
they are also monsters, so where is the border
between being a fighter for the ecology and being
a ... That is, it's not easy and with the
It is not easy. World of Darkness, it's never been easy.
That's kind of the point?
Yeah, that's kind of the point.
It's not the world of slight dimness.
We play with serious questions and a lot of
the IPs where there have been werewolves,
vampires over the last years, they've been
team oriented, they've been very safe, they've
been nice, this is not that.
We think that... 20+ is our audience
not only because werewolves
rip private security forces to pieces, and
limbs are flying, but because the questions
are so serious, and we don't want to give
easy answers.
The nightmare is forces of the Wyrm, and they
are disgusting.
How do you fight them, and what is the best
way of doing that?
You mentioned the Wyrm in the initial press
release.
Is there a role for the Weaver as well?
Weaver is the force of order, technology and
the way of law versus creative chaos of nature,
so some werewolves are hedging their bets
that the weaver could help.
Other werewolves say that the weaver, technology,
civilization, that is the cause of why the
world is unsafe.
This is the root force, this technology.
So there are different opinions on that, and
some werewolves they rely on this, they talk
to the weaver spirits, they are technology
spirits, they speak to the spirits of the web.
They're friends with google, for instance.
I don't know if google is typically where
they would be found, but yes they are progressives
that are working with individual engineers.
And can the player also play as Garou in different
tribes?
You have to realize it's been about three
weeks since we started this
so it's a bit too early to say that.
But the core set of the game is the wilderness
that is being encroached upon.
Maybe  there will be missions that take you to
the city and so on
but in essence it's a game about the wild.
The wild in you, and the wild you defend.
So that gives us possibilities for violent
landscapes
projecting into the spiritual shadow, the Umbra.
It will give us the opportunity to have wild,
trippy visuals and so on
so it can be a rich game, in a way that horror games can be drab,
this can go all the way.
In how you imagine this game, do you think
going into the Umbra
is something you can do at will?
I think it's the phase thing today, that is
was in the '90s, I think we'll also want to
root this in the whole genre's traditions.
If I want to project into the Umbra as a werewolf,
I would maybe suspend myself with hooks
and do it a sundance, eat mushrooms, or like,
use shamanistic methods
to project into the Umbra. It will be possible.
The stepping in and out quickly during combat
and so on, that is not w hat the Umbra is about.
In combat the shapeshifting is the key.
Building up rage to shift into primal, and
then maybe regret
the consequences of doing that, rather like setting off a nuclear bomb.
To what extent would you like this to be a
combat game?
Werewolf is a game about savage horror, and
it has visceral combat as a core.
Sure there is lots of tribal politics, there's
lots of big political and philosophical questions,
and that needs to be there in the dialogue,
but the combat has to be kick-ass and action-RPG
focused, so I have a hard time seeing this as turn-based.
I have a hard time seeing this is like 3rd person, from
above. We want being there, very close, and
feeling the popping of bones; shifting and tearing of flesh, which makes it... it's the most
combat-centric game of the World of Darkness
and that's how it should be.
In werewolf one of the scariest things is
going into a rage and then losing control.
Yes.
And a big part of what makes that so scary, is
that usually you're within a group of allies.
Would you say that that's also factored in,
where you will have a pack with you, a lot of the time?
There will be other very high agency characters ....
How much of this will be like, how much of this will be roaming, going out on your own
and how
much are you a pack, I think that will depend
a little bit on the development decisions
we take, but the control, between losing control
with rage, that to me is at the core, because
the core question is
"what is the price to pay for our environment".
When do you rage?
That needs... that really needs a path to
the core.
So I think that old fans of werewolf will
be very familiar, but have a more mature,
let's say more believable take than before.
The question of, like, what would you do to
stop the end of the world.
Thanks so much.
Thank you very much for your time.
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