GTFO
Summary
The 2023 Game Awards ceremony was full of exciting announcement , including the reveal ofDen of Wolves , an forthcoming sci - fi heist biz from 10 Chambers . The Swedish developer was co - launch by Ulf Andersson and Simon Viklund - two of the mind behind the first two entries in thePaydayfranchise - and is best known for their punishingly hard repugnance shooterGTFO . WithGTFO ’s content updates come to a close , Viklund and Andersson are return to their heisting base .
Set in the year 2097,Den of Wolvestakes histrion to the remote island of Midway City , originally found as an unregulated zone for corporations to explore newfangled applied science . The deed of conveyance aims to go beyond the typical heists of money and valuable to larger - wager affairs , with a sci - fi slant and idea - provoking story cheer by real - world company outrage and media likeGhost in the ShellandBlade Runner . As with thePaydayfranchise , the Colorado - op panorama ofDen of Wolvesis a fundamental part of gameplay , and thespian will need to strategize for big jobs by gaining intel and tool before embarking .
After year in Early Access , GTFO win in providing a brutally unmanageable FPS co - op experience for like - minded friends and brave solo number .
Screen Rantinterviewed 10 Chambers co - founder andDen of Wolvesnarrative director Simon Viklund to discuss real - world and sci - fi inspirations , lessons learned fromGTFO , and what will surprise heist fans most about the secret plan .
Simon Viklund On Den Of Wolves
Screen Rant : Something I thought was really interesting that you refer was draw breathing in from real universe stories of corporate crime and judicature cases and stuff like that . Can you talk a little number more about that ? Are there any specifically that come to mind for you when it come toDen of Wolves ?
Simon Viklund : Yeah . Well , I watch this documentary not that long ago in Sweden about where we got the stainless steel countertop , and it ’s very in fashion in Sweden with untainted steel sort of fridges and faucets and freezers . And they started investigating , where does it all come from ? And there was a factory in the north of Sweden . But this is really what I summarized in the - I did n’t go into detail until about the documentary , but I mention that there was a factory . I ask it as an exercise , a mill in South America that news leak chemicals into the river . That was what they were doing , because somehow blade , something in the process they required this factory and that manufactory was leaking this chemical into the river .
So it ’s poppycock like that that is like , " Oh , this is such a dark , marked-up world we ’re experience in , " and I ’d like to just inject some kernel of truth . And as I say in the presentation , it becomes a comment I guess on it because you ca n’t do that without it being some variety of a commentary . But it ’s not necessarily like a statement just because it ’s a commentary , I do n’t cogitate at least . Everything ’s political , plainly . But again , we are not allowing the player to take down these bay window and it ’s not a game where you take a stand against that .
But I ’d like the idea of people being able to Google details about what happens in Den of Wolves and finding out that this is built ground on something that happened in the real world . And we can use the Coca - Cola versus Pepsi thing ; it does n’t have to be as dark . We can use that as well , but we can go for these sort of black stories too . And I ’d like to think that somehow that adds a sense of astuteness or realism and sort of a wakeless aspect of the storytelling that would n’t be there if it ’s all just made up .
Yeah , like you aver , just hold a kernel of truth in there in general , making it much more interesting . And I love true crime and documentaries and that sort of affair , so it does add -
Simon Viklund : It ’s very in fashion with true crime .
total an additional stratum of intrigue .
Simon Viklund : Yeah , exactly .
In term of lesson that you took fromGTFO- plainly it ’s a different way of game , at least to a degree .
Simon Viklund : At least in terms of difficulty , but yeah .
What are the biggest takeaways you had from your time sour onGTFOthat you ’re implement to this one ?
Simon Viklund : It ’s so many that it ’s hard to pick the big ones , but it ’s our confidence in a lot of aspect of plot developing . Again , we ’ve been make for over 20 years with game development . When we found 10 Chambers , the less than 10 founders combined had more than 100 year of experience making games . But still , you demand self-assurance and to sort of prompt yourself that whatever we ’ve done in the past was not a trematode worm . So it was very utilitarian for us to find out and get confidence in the fact that we can build a brand , we can experiment and make something that is alfresco of the convention or make something that is n’t a subsequence or an be IP . Again , like we did with Payday : The Heist , what then became the Payday franchise was being developed .
The early access affair , since that was our first early admission experience , that was really important . And that ’s something that we ’ll practice as the approach for Den of Wolves as well . There ’s a lot of little thing throughout the entire growth . Learning to kill darling when you ’re a small team , hoping of course that we do n’t have to do that as much when we have more resources that we do now . And maybe we can even pick some of those thing up that we wanted to put into GTFO that would work in the context of Den of Wolves and in reality implement those in that game .
A lore library is one of those thing . It ’s very strong to keep rail of the lore in GTFO and we require to present it in a more digestible way in Den of Wolves . It ’s one of those things that attain take up in the storytelling easier on the player .
And something I call back was really interesting also is that you are crafting this humans of in - game brands that will have recognisable aesthetics , and you could pick up on these case-by-case backstories of corp . You tell there were over 400 ?
Simon Viklund : Yeah , so far . There ’s going to be more .
That ’s crazy .
Simon Viklund : Yeah , it ’s harebrained .
Do you have any favourite 1 or 1 that you think that are sort of the most challenging ?
Simon Viklund : We look at low-spirited chip society of the real world and take what they do . And mayhap you just have to expect at the Wikipedia page of some companies like , " Oh , we can take some of their dirty whatever they ’ve been caught doing . "
Yes , the contestation section .
Simon Viklund : And we reckon at that and puff inspiration from that . We have what we call the - oh , what ’s the Good Book ? I ’m the narrative theater director and I forgot the name we have for the 12 establish party that created and sort of bankrolled Midway City . [ Laughs ] Intercom , the Intercom Confederation .
Those 12 companies manifestly are going to be very important to the backstory . And even though the plot line in the biz are kick the bucket to be separate report of your liaison with certain competition between different corporations , they ’re going to be self-governing storylines . And the manner we sort of weave something outside of that is independent of whatever you do in the plot line ; it ’s going to be by people finding out about the backstory of Midway City and about those Intercom Federation companies and the secrets of them . And then maybe in the future tense we ’ll sort of get going weaving them into the storytelling a picayune bit more , but there ’s run to be a destiny of confederacy and things .
So those companionship in specific I ’d mentioned . But yeah , there ’s no head in mention the name calling of any companies because your readers would n’t know what that means anyway . But our elaborated library of companies becomes a library also for storytelling , which is really cool .
You talked a hatful about the different kind of influences you ’ve taken from everything fromBlade Runnerto De Niro inHeat . I ’m rummy the elements of those influences you describe that you ’re taking the most from .
Simon Viklund : Yeah , that ’s a in effect question because it ’s obviously not everything , it ’s often like this construct or this aspect of it for inception . It ’s certainly not that everything looks the same , because we ’re creating a metropolis that looks very different from present-day cities , but we are taking brainchild from that pic and from Strange Days that you’re able to sort of let things look present-day when you want them to . And not everything has to be like , " Oh , this is a futuristic lamp post , it demand to loom or whatever . " [ Laughs ] You do n’t have to go that far for every single matter and let it to be closer to contemporary where it can be and just go for sci - fi where it dish out a purpose .
And as I mentioned in the presentation , the purpose could be that it just looks cool , but for the most part it ’s to serve the gameplay ; that ’s the most authoritative affair . So it feel really honorable to not have an IP where it ’s like - we worked on a Terminator game 15 long time ago and that was a dream come truthful . Terminator is such a cool movie , at least the first two . [ Laughs ] And it felt like a dream come true to be able to mold on that IP . But then you make , " Okay , we need to grow this into gameplay . We ask to take what ’s in the movie world and work that into fun gameplay . "
Now that we ’re creating our own IP , we have the power to just say , " What ’s fun gameplay ? " Let ’s put the things into it with eccentric of enemy and whatever weapons there might be , technology that subsist in the human beings that is conducive to a fun gameplay experience , and then create a earthly concern where the backstory and the lore and the world edifice supports that and explains why those things exist in the mankind . So we ’re going from inside out rather than from an outdoor IP and trying to put that into a game , and that ’s really a strength to have that creative freedom .
For players who are intimate with heist game in the style ofPaydayand that sort of thing where it is sort of focused on the forcible good that you were talking about , what do you think about Den of Wolves will surprise heist lover the most ?
Simon Viklund : The psyche f***ery , the sci - fi construct I think . That allows us to - it ’s not just for the storytelling , but for the gameplay as well , and continue that interesting and allowing it to go beyond the sort of brick and mortar location of Midway City , which is where all of the game really take position . But these sort of Matrix - y idea grant us to throw the players into unlike placement and different scenarios , proceed it fresh for the player , but also interesting for us as developers to not just have to contrive Midway City , but we can make these variety of snack size experiences where it ’s like you ’re confab someplace else .
But we ca n’t go into contingent of how that all works . But the temper video recording we looked at explains a little bit of it , how it ’s like neuronic internet and biological store rather than digital storage . And that variety of neuro - engineering affair has created something that allows us to go in like Philip K. Dick way , where it ’s messing with memories and human consciousness and stuff like that . And you ’ll be stealing money and baseball field I guess , too . But this allows us to go in different directions where we desire to and open it up and make interesting heist conceptually .
Source:10 Chambers / YouTube
Den of Wolvescurrently has no hardened handout date . Screen Rantattended a special helping hand - on event for the design of this coverage .
