Descent: Going Deeper Underground

Descent is a series with heritage. For those playing on console and PC back in the mid-90s, the series dazzled with its six degrees of freedom, with players blasting their way through cavernous levels, colourful lasers flashing through underground environments stocked with mechanical enemies. It made for a unique experience in a world still getting to grips with the possibilities of the first-person shooter genre.

We certainly have fond memories of spinning our craft in tightly confined places, blasting enemies and squirming out of harm's way, and thus when we heard that the series was set to return with successor Descent: Underground, it immediately had our attention. And so we reached out to the team rebooting the series - Descendant Studios - and asked them a few questions about their Kickstarted project. This is what Descendant's Keith McCormic had to tell us about the resurgence of the shooter series.

Gamereactor: Descent is one of those games that a lot of people remember playing many years ago - what was the challenge in trying to bring the concept to modern gamers while remaining true to the original?

Keith McCormic: Probably the biggest challenge is that Descent means different things to different people. For some players, it means wild multiplayer matches, for others it means suspenseful single-player missions. Some people focus on one-on-one duelling, others like cooperative mission solving. It's a diverse community that we are working to keep happy at the same time as we add new features and designs that modernise the game and bring it to a new audience.

How would you describe the journey with Descendent Studios thus far - from concept, to getting the license, and onwards?

It's been a wild ride! We started out with just this seed of an idea to do a game like Descent and suddenly we found ourselves in discussions to do a licensed Descent title! I mean, we got the official go-ahead like the day before the Kickstarter! That was a real boost to our morale and it's helped propel us forward to today.

How significant would you say it's been getting access to the license?

Being a legit Descent game is pretty darn cool. We're pumped! Could we have made a Descent-like game and been this successful? Probably, but having the name certainly gets attention and helps to open doors. It helps get media attention, for sure!

"Six degrees of freedom" is something you've used extensively promoting the game - without getting into the technicalities - what is it you feel you can do in Descent: Underground you may not be able to elsewhere?

The big difference between Descent: Underground and most other games is you aren't "on rails". In a typical first-person shooter, you're bound by gravity to move parallel to the ground. You might be able to jump up for a second, but then you come back down.

In Descent: Underground, when you "jump" up, you STAY up until you move down. Your ship is moving in microgravity. It's a spaceship. It can turn any direction and move any direction. So can your enemies!

We're also different from most space games because you're not locked into a forward flight path. A lot of space games treat your spaceship like a World War II fighter plane. It might be able to slide up and down or sideways but the majority of your movement is straight ahead.

In Descent: Underground, your ship is built to move inside caverns. It is very nimble and moves similarly in all directions. Some ships are faster or can turn quicker than others, but all of them are in the same ballpark as far as maneuverability.

Some might say it would be easy enough to focus on multiplayer and skip out on a single-player component with a game like Descent. Why do you feel it still has a role to fill and what does it add to the experience in your opinion?

Multiplayer is easier to do first when you are making a game with the community. If we're making ships and weapons anyway, why not try them out with our fans? They backed the game, they should get to play as soon as we have something fun to play. Plus, bringing the community in early lets us test things like balance and fun sooner. We think that leads to a better overall game than the traditional "only QA sees it" method of testing.

It also means that we can test aspects of the game individually and in combination without spoiling the story for players. By building and testing all the assets and features needed for multiplayer and single-player BEFORE we release the singleplayer missions, it means that our players are getting a more polished first experience when they jump into the campaign. We've got a really crazy story arc in mind and we don't want silly game problems to take away from that!

What kind of scope are you aiming for in terms of the multiplayer beyond the three maps and ships currently in Early Access?

That really depends on when you mean. We want to keep adding to the game as long as people want to play it!

For our retail release though, we are planning to have nine ship classes plus some variants, customization options, and maybe a few surprises! We're still adding weapons, tools, and gadgets. We have lots of those left to go. We want to have a lot more maps plus variants for a bunch of them. Our fans who've been following along with our Wingman's Hangar show have probably seen some of the different ideas we've been kicking around for the Rama arena, for instance. Is our release map count 3,000 maps? No, but we plan to have a lot more than we have now!

We're also planning to support modding and player-made maps as we go forward. As a first step, we've just released a "map kit" for Unreal Engine 4 to our community. It's a collection of simple map pieces that people can use to design maps that they can submit back to the community for review. The best ones will get fleshed out and rolled into the official game.

Having just barely succeeded getting funding via Kickstarter in April - what did the funding afford you and what was the experience like?

Well, it certainly hasn't let us move the office to the Bahamas! We're very careful with money. Almost all of our desks, chairs, monitors, and such are secondhand stuff we got for free. We're plugging away at the game, working long hours. It would be great to hire some more people and we'd all love to make industry-standard salaries again but this is a passion project. It might take a bit longer than we'd like, but we'll get there. Bringing Descent back from the basement of forgotten classics is worth it!

What has it been like using Unreal Engine 4 for this project?

For the most part, Unreal Engine 4 has been a dream compared to some of the other engines we've used! Sure, we'd love to have more documentation and there are little quirks and oddities that we're hoping get fixed soon, but it's a great tool.

You will support Oculus Rift and Vive with Descent: Underground. The game seems a natural fit with VR. What has your experience with VR been like and what has the support been like from the Oculus and Valve?

Virtual Reality was pretty much MADE for a full-freedom game like Descent: Underground! It is just mind-blowing how immersive the game looks and feels now that VR headsets can handle AAA graphics!

We can't really get into details about any work we've done with those guys, but we're psyched to be working with them and looking forward to really showing off what VR can do!

You launched the game in Early Access back in October. What has that experience been like?

As with this whole adventure, it's been a learning experience. Valve's built this cool platform for players to get involved with Early Access games and it always feels like there's more to learn and discover. It's a bit like Descent: Underground that way!

One of the toughest aspects has been keeping track of multiple community hubs and trying to make sure that news and ideas are passing back and forth smoothly. For instance, we might get reports of the same issue in both places and if we find a workaround we have to remember to post it both on our forums and on Steam. We've been able to link accounts across communities for players that want that, but not everyone does.

That also means that we have to build things like our in-game chat and leaderboards so that both communities can play seamlessly alongside each other. The plus side of that is that if we roll out to other communities like GOG or some of the consoles, we'll be able to bring them all together as well!

We'll be offering our own hands-on impressions of the game in the coming days, so stay tuned for that..