three days, they can have five statues a day instead. “And that, I think, really is the future of game
development, because games are just constantly getting bigger, there’s so much more content. It’s not feasible to have an art team of 200-300 people just to produce all that content. It’s something I’m very passionate about. “We have other tools in development right now, and
we’re working with artists, asking things like ‘What is it you would want? How can we make your life easier?’ That is very much the focus, it’s not fun for people to have to manually put all these pieces together. It’s about helping them.” Thanks to this procedural push, and in the absence
of Bloodlines 2, Sharkmob have found themselves in the strange position of bringing that modern triple-A shine to the IP for the first time. There’s likely a strange sort of pressure that comes with that, when working with such a beloved cult-classic IP. But it’s an approach that, according to Cortes, is one that both the IP and the free- to-play space demand. “This was important for us, we felt that we needed
the IP to be front and centre,” says Cortes. “We really believe strongly that the IP has a lot of depth, and while of course we could have made something much simpler, we kind of felt that the stars aligned. “There were several things, one being that free to play was becoming a big thing. It was once considered fringe,
and now it’s mainstream. And then there’s what people expect to get for free these days. Before it’s like, ‘okay, if it’s free, then it’s shit.’ Now it’s not, it’s free but it needs to be high quality. “Another thing that was very important for us, was
that we felt that this dark fantasy, this more mature game, wasn’t really being represented in the multiplayer space. If you want something more toony or militaristic, all of that is represented. But the free-to-play game I wanted to play didn’t exist. And with more mature games, the fidelity is expected to be higher as well. “But the end result is that it’s a game that stands out
against many of the other games. And not only because of the fidelity, but even the fantasy. It’s a civilian fantasy, anyone can become a vampire in the lore. That’s a strong fantasy, it can be anyone. Compared to say, a military thing, it can be hard to relate to that. But the vampiric fantasy is very strong, because it’s a civilian fantasy at heart. It can be anything, it can be different trends, different styles, different music…” Well, things are certainly looking good for Sharkmob’s
version of this fantasy. Bloodhunt’s early access last year was received well by fans, and from what we’ve seen there’ll surely be a lot more vampires plaguing Prague later this year. Bloodlines 2 might be some distance away, but the
hunt is on.
Sharkmob is taking a modern triple-A shine to the franchise for the very first time
“I think procedural content creation is such a huge part of the future”
March 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 51
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