Blood Bowl 3: Interview with the developers of Cyanide
On the sidelines of Nacon Connect , we were able to interview the teams behind Blood Bowl 3 . Basile Bastian and Gautier Brésard, lead game designer and game producer, were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Presentation of new features, respect for the license… Here is everything you need to know about this future third part.
Introduction to Blood Bowl 3
- Delighted ! Can you introduce yourself ?
Hello and thank you for this interview! We are Basile Bastian and Gautier Brésard , respectively lead game designer and producer for Blood Bowl 3 . We are working together to bring a faithful adaptation of the new edition of the board game while improving the formula known by our community which has been created and expanded since Blood Bowl 1.
- Can you quickly introduce what Blood Bowl 3 is for people who have never played a Blood Bowl?
Gautier : Two teams of 16 players orcs, elves, dwarves or other fantastic creatures. A corruptible referee, brass knuckles, fireballs and chainsaws. Ah, and sometimes also, a ball to take to the opponent's touchdown line.
Basile : Blood Bowl 3 is a turn-based tactical game set in the fantasy world of Warhammer. In this wacky and violent fictional sport loosely taking inspiration from American football, you will be able to create your own teams, compete against opponents in single or multiplayer and create your own competitions.
Gautier : The success of most actions is subject to a dice roll. Imagine a game of chess with a risk management dimension.
- The game was announced in 2019; how long have you been working on it? When did the development start?
Gautier : Between the limits reached on the aging engine of Blood Bowl 2 , the buyout of Cyanide by Nacon, and the new range of miniatures and the new edition of the board game by GW, everyone was very keen to see the birth of a Blood Bowl 3. Pre-production started at the end of 2018, initially with a small team of half a dozen people, to rise to more than 30 people in 2019.
New features and improvements
- Is it more ambitious than the previous one and to what extent?
Basil : Blood Bowl 3 will feature more factions than its predecessors when they launch. The game required complex work in order to reduce the barriers between the different game modes: allowing players to do the single player campaign with their own teams, then register this same team in multiplayer, mix human and AI players in the same competitions ...
Gautier : We are also bringing more levers for visual customization for teams: coach, cheerleaders, equipment, jerseys, balls, dice, pitch. BB3's customization possibilities are greater than the sum of what was in BB1 and BB2.
- Compared to Blood Bowl II, what are the improvements made? Will the gameplay be more strategic?
Basil : The significant changes in the new edition provide more tactical flexibility, better differentiation of certain positions, and improvements that will appeal to Blood Bowl 2 fans. Here are a few examples:
- Dice rerolls are no longer limited to one usable reroll per turn
- New “ inducements ” are available during the pre-match phase (Star Players, Special Play Cards)
- A new phase of the game comes after the inducements in order to rebalance the meeting: the Prayers to Nuffle
- The “MVPs” of each team are no longer at risk of being chosen from players who died during the match
- The new “PA” characteristic (Passing Ability) is introduced and brings more depth by separating the efficiency to dodge and to throw the ball.
- Can we hope for a universe and humor similar to previous Blood Bowls or have you changed your tone?
Basile : We want to reassure you on this point: humor has not been forgotten! The whole team has endeavored to keep this fundamental aspect, whether in terms of player modeling, new animations, new dialogues from our commentators, well known to fans (Jim and Bob), but also by the addition of fake ads and crazy sponsors.
- We imagine that in 6 years, you must have worked on the graphics engine. What were the focuses on this one?
Details of the contentGautier : Many changes in the new edition required us to thoroughly review the source code of the game. We also decided to review the foundations of our system by starting with a new engine for the franchise (the Unreal Engine), this which will represent an improvement for the long term.
Basile : For Blood Bowl 3, one of our main goals is to make the game more understandable, more accessible, but also faster and more spectacular, for players and spectators alike.
- On the subject of content, we have 12 playable teams at launch. What are the breeds that can be coached? Can we hope for new breeds? At launch or maybe later?
Basil : Out of a total of 12 factions available, 4 of them are entirely new while the other 8 have undergone various changes in their composition. Our players will have access to these factions when the game launches in February 2022:
- Orcs
- Humans
- Dark Elves
- Dwarves
- Skaven
- Chosen of Chaos
- Elven Union
- Nurgle
- Imperial Nobility (unpublished)
- Black Orcs (unpublished)
- Old World Alliance (unpublished)
Gautier : Of course, new races, new content and new features will be added after launch, but it's still too early to go into details. Our priority is already to offer players a pleasant and quality gaming experience.
- Chaos Renegades (unpublished)
- Speaking of races, can we expect a dedicated campaign for each of them?
Basile : Blood Bowl 3 will have a single player campaign split into several chapters in the form of small competitions. You will be able to create a team from any faction to play these chapters. Once these competitions are unlocked, you will also be able to replay them with different teams.
- At the end of 2020, you announced that the game would benefit from a level of customization "never seen before". Can you explain ?
Technical detailsGautier : Each race will bring its variant of cheerleader, coach with emotes, pitch, disgust, ball, dice, and you will be free to make the mixes you want. You can customize your jerseys with all the colors of the GW paint range, change the pattern, the logo. You will also have the choice between different tiers. Your players will have access to many variants of equipment (helmets, epaulettes, breastplates, gauntlets…). We want you to be able to really mold your teams according to your wishes, emulate the possibilities offered by the miniatures game.
Basile : There are also other customization options that we can't talk about yet ...
- We know that developing a cross-gen game is not easy, but you still decided to do it. How did you manage cross-platform development? Has the health crisis had a big impact on you?
Basile : The release on multiple platforms is a goal that we set ourselves from the start. All the functionalities that we have developed have included this additional constraint, which for the long term will prove to be a benefit in terms of ease of updates.
Gautier : With the approach of the health crisis, Cyanide quickly switched to 100% teleworking. In video games, we are fortunate to have the environment and the tools to make this happen relatively smoothly. Of course, not everyone has optimal conditions to work from home, and the isolation associated with the lockdown has taken a toll on team morale. Fortunately, the team was already formed and united during the first confinement, so we were able to support each other through this unprecedented crisis.
- What can we expect from the Switch? Portable mode, Joy-Con compatibility… Do you already have details on the resolution of each console?
Gautier : the switch will benefit from the same functionalities as the other consoles. You can play in portable mode or docked mode. We will transmit the resolution and framerate details by platform in due course. We are still developing and optimizing the game to provide a quality experience tailored to each platform.
- Do you have an anecdote or story to tell about the development of Blood Bowl 3?
Gautier : In order for the whole team to be aware of the issues at stake in Blood Bowl, and the vision to be respected for Blood Bowl 3, all members were “forced” to play one game per week, on Friday afternoon, during of our own cyanid competition. Animators, programmers, graphic designers or screenwriters, gamers or not, no one has escaped it! It was a painful experience for some: two programmers complained so much about their bad luck with the dice that they decided to collect the data of all their dice rolls, and recheck, for themselves, that the random generator was indeed correct. towards them. And he was! Like what we too, sometimes we fall into the trap and have the impression that the game is unfair. But that's it too, Blood Bowl.
Basile : During the first match of this famous internal competition, I was matched against Gautier and his lizardmen. First action of the match, I throw a block against his kroxigor (sort of giant bipedal crocodile), succeed, and kill him. He never bought a kroxigor again in his Blood Bowl career.
Gautier : The kroxigors are very overrated anyway ...
- We thank Basile and Gautier for participating in this interview. As a reminder, Blood Bowl III will arrive in September 2021 in Early Access on Steam and in February 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and Switch.
