Arkane Studios interview at Warcry

[Saint_Proverbius]

Warcry has posted an interview with Arkane Studios, the guys behind Arx Fatalis. Here's a teaser:

Ultima Underworld is generally regarding as a pinnacle of computer gaming, one of the finest RPGs ever produced. So here's a simple one: given that Underworld came out ten years ago, why the hell did it take so long for someone to make a decent follow-up?

That's an interesting question. There was Underworld, then underworld 2.. Both of them were commercial successes. But then.. no UW3. It is still a mystery for me too. I can only witness that there is some kind of a gap between early 90's RPGs and nowadays RPGs: When you think of game as Ultima 7 or Underworld you think about massive interaction.

It seems that what people now call RPGs are games that have evolved toward some kind of hack and slash experiences featuring lots of stats, fake multi-choiced dialogues where the main part of the gameplay consist in leveling up and in running from one dungeon to another, doing "Fed Ex" quests...

And maybe, the Underworld style is more evolving toward more action / adventure games such as Deus Ex and Thief, which have the same "immersive" feeling than Underworld without having the "heavy" (and sometimes confusing) RPG elements in.
Now, for the question: why did it take 10 years for a team to decide to make a game like UW, I'm not sure I have the right answer but now that we've done it, I can tell you that it's been very hard and maybe the amount of work and effort without being sure that new wave of players would like it, is a good reason enough to stay away from the genre.

Yup, too much damned hack and slash these days, and not enough attribute based dialogue choices and paths.

Spotted this at RPGDot