Knockout City Lore Is Played Fast And Loose, And It's Better For It
Velan Studios is celebrating a major moment for its arcade dodgeball game Knockout City. Not only does its sixth season launch today, June 1, it also marks the first season as a self-published and free-to-play game. A lot is changing very suddenly for the arcade sports game in the real world. However, major upheavals are commonplace within its fictional, dodgeball-obsessed city. As a live-service game building story content directly into a multiplayer environment, Velan is continuously experimenting with making space for a narrative where you maybe wouldn't expect to find it--and the results are as out-there as they are delightful.
Incorporating stories into live-service multiplayer games is not uncommon in games today, but it's still early days for such experimentation. From Fortnite to Destiny to Sea of Thieves, no two teams are really handling it the same, which is part of what makes these games so engaging. GameSpot recently caught up with Velan Studios to discuss the studio's approach to live-service storytelling--and, to more simply ask, what the heck is going on in Knockout City?
«That's Knockout City, baby.» Narrative director Eric Feurstein introduced me to this phrase early on in my conversation with the team. As he described it, the slogan began to come up within the studio long before the game came out as a way to explain the weird stuff developers were adding to it. «When you create a place like Knockout City and you make it unique in certain ways, the location starts to give you permission to do whatever you want.» It was described to me like a feedback loop: The city is weird, so weird things happen in it. As weird things happen, it invites further, farther afield weirdness.
The slogan, thus, became a
Read more on gamespot.com
