'I've spent my entire career trying to recreate the feeling I had when I played D&D for the first time,' says immersive sim godfather Warren Spector, with new game Thick as Thieves going multiplayer because 'you don't play D&D alone'
As part of a larger interview and preview of OtherSide Entertainment's upcoming multiplayer sneaker Thick as Thieves with PC Gamer strategic director Evan Lahti, company co-founder and immersive sim OG Warren Spector explained some of the studio's reasoning for splicing the classically single-player genre into a live service PvPvE multiplayer game.
«For years, I've been thinking the next logical step [for immersive sims] was multiplayer,» Spector said. «I've said this before: I've spent my entire career trying to recreate the feeling I had when I played D&D for the first time. Though there are solo adventures, typically, you don't play D&D alone.»
«Tabletop role playing games are a group of friends telling stories with each other, telling stories together. So multiplayer was logical then, we had to do it. We've been kind of building towards that for a while.»
I gotta say, as a crusty single player guy who doesn't usually go for live service, I find that angle pretty compelling. Spector also had further words for the live service-skeptical, speaking as one himself. «I initially resisted that—I'm a story guy, I like games that you finish and move on to something else,» he said. «But one of my designers said something that completely turned me around. He said, 'Warren, you know, this is just the D&D model.'
»So the other logical step is, let's make it even more like a tabletop game, and have an ongoing game that has a life beyond its initial release."
And we've seen a recent demonstration of how much of an appetite there is for multiplayer with immersive sim characteristics in Baldur's Gate 3. Though primarily a CRPG, BG3 had all of the open-ended, systemic, surprising interactions you'd expect of an immersive sim, leading to its neverending bounty of «did that really just happen?» moments like the Owlbear from the top rope. Even after decades of videogames' evolution as a medium, it feels like the dream of «tabletop roleplaying freedom and malleability with the
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