One look at Albatroz is enough to grab attention, but the more you look into Among Giants’ adventure RPG, the more intriguing it looks. On top of its striking visual aesthetic, there’s plenty else about the game that turns the head, from its promise of a backpacking adventure to its promise of a layered story about self-discovery. To learn more about the game, ahead of its recent launch, we were able to send across some of our questions about it to its developers, learning plenty in the process. Below, you can read our interview with Among Giants, as well as Kyoday, the studio in charge of the game’s console ports.
NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.
"Albatroz has a unique visual style, but achieving the final look took a tremendous amount of work. Since the game is about the joy of exploration and experiencing the environment, we drew inspiration from renowned photographers like Sebastião Salgado, as well as photos from our own travels."
Albatroz instantly catches the eye with its gorgeous art style. Can you talk to us about how you landed on this look for the game?
Albatroz has a unique visual style, but achieving the final look took a tremendous amount of work. Since the game is about the joy of exploration and experiencing the environment, we drew inspiration from renowned photographers like Sebastião Salgado, as well as photos from our own travels. We aimed for a more realistic look with fine details but heightened by a fantastic and dramatic light and color palette. Our approach focused on high contrast and saturation to make the lighting and colors vivid, and we used boosted global illumination to enhance color reflections, creating a surreal, almost fantastical world.
Framing compositions also required a lot of effort to create moments of awe in real time, like when the player reaches the top of a mountain, and the frame subtly adjusts to reveal the perfect scene without them even noticing. With backgrounds in film and design, you can imagine how much time we spent fine-tuning these details—our programmers may have cursed us a bit, but we think it was worth it!
The characters presented a different challenge. We wanted them to have charm, as one of the game’s core themes is a critique of the superficial, copycat reality we live in today, where authenticity can be hard to find. We took inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which served as a primary reference for the game’s essence. For character shading, we drew from The Last Guardian, which captures a fantastical look: characters feel stylized yet respond naturally to the world’s lighting.
Making stylized characters blend seamlessly into a more realistic world was one of our hardest tasks, as they needed to absorb light without looking like eerie mannequins. When the lighting was too realistic, the characters looked strange and uncanny. So, it wasn’t just a broad approach; we refined lighting scene by scene to ensure that the stylized characters and the environment harmonized perfectly.
The different places and sights that players will see on their journey is clearly going to be one of Albatroz’s highlights. Given that, what can you tell us about your approach to designing the game’s world, and the level of variety players can expect in the locations and environments they’ll visit?
Great question.
In Albatroz, the player is free to explore, yet always finds a narrative that organically adapts to their choices. Inspired by tabletop RPGs, where a Dungeon Master guides the story while the player makes decisions, we created a system that allows events, landscapes, and even the story itself to stream around the player, keeping pace with their choices.
For instance, if the player climbs to a high vantage point, they can survey the surroundings and choose their next destination—whether a distant mountain, a desert, or snow-covered hills. From this elevated perspective, they organically plan the next step of their journey, and the world responds accordingly. Albatroz is a backpacking game, making it essential for players to choose their path thoughtfully, with every choice unfolding new events along the way.
In Albatroz, exploration isn’t about cycling back to a hub or revisiting the same places. It’s a true journey from point A to point B, a design that goes against the trend of traditional open-world games. We wanted Albatroz to take place in a vast world without relying on common open-world mechanics, so certain terms were off-limits during development—words like “side quests,” “fast travel,” and “points of interest.”
For example, in Albatroz, we don’t update the player’s position in real-time; instead, we use a checkpoint system, updating location only at specific points. This approach encourages players to learn to read maps and observe their surroundings more closely. Each part of the game has its own style of map: some are simple notes, others hand-drawn sketches, and some more technical.
Just like a real hike where there’s often a “point of no return,” we created a similar system where players never go back to previous areas. This keeps the environment, gameplay, and narrative constantly moving forward, always presenting something new.
When it comes to variety, players can expect constant changes in scenery and atmosphere. To maintain a dynamic pace, we designed the game so that players aren’t in one place for too long—just like traveling, where you pass through vastly different landscapes quickly. Players will journey across salt flats, tundras, boreal forests, mountains, beaches, and more. Many of these locations draw inspiration from our own travels through the Patagonia region and tierra Del Fuego, but we’ve also incorporated elements from other stunning places, like Chile’s Uyuni Salt Flats.
"In Albatroz, the player is free to explore, yet always finds a narrative that organically adapts to their choices. Inspired by tabletop RPGs, where a Dungeon Master guides the story while the player makes decisions, we created a system that allows events, landscapes, and even the story itself to stream around the player, keeping pace with their choices."
How extensive are Albatroz’s progression mechanics? Is depth in customization and progression mechanics something that you’re aiming for, or is the focus meant to be more on the narrative side of things?
As I mentioned, we aim to blend a strong narrative with great pacing, all while giving the player the freedom to choose their path. So you can expect both story depth and player agency. Let me explain a bit more about it
To maintain the pacing and keep players immersed, Albatroz combines different gameplay elements that all point in the same direction under one unified theme. There’s vehicle travel, where players must manage gas, car maintenance, and choose the right tires for different terrains. Then there are the trails, the core of the game, focusing on tracking and exploration mechanics.
In the villages, Albatroz leans more into RPG elements, where players learn about local cultures, gather information, receive items and gifts from villagers, and use the planning mode in hostels to prepare for the next trail. Each element fits together to create a cohesive experience that reflects the journey’s spirit, drawing players deeper into the world and its story.
Discovering new places, knowing new people, learning about the lore and other things will grant the player TP (travel points). So the player can use these TP points to increase each character’s stats, to evolve each character’s unique skills and to improve the car.
You can switch the party leader at any time, and only the leader consumes stats, while the other members’ stat usage is minimized. Each character excels at different challenges—whether it’s covering long distances, climbing, descending mountains, controlling the time of day, or withstanding more damage than others.
As for the car, you can upgrade its fuel capacity, increase damage resistance, and purchase specialized tires for different terrains. You can also boost speed to improve torque, making it easier to tackle steep inclines.
What can you tell us about the resource and item management systems in the game, and how they will impact players as they attempt to make their way through increasingly challenging environments?
The game’s focus is largely tactical, where your choices have lasting consequences. At hostels in villages and other rest spots, you can use “planning mode.” Here, you review everything you’ve learned about the upcoming trail, gather items given to you by villagers, discuss the trail with party members, and pack your backpack. For instance, if you know the next trail has plenty of rivers, you can skip packing water, or if it’ll be cold, you might pack extra warmers.
Each new party member expands your backpack capacity, and it’s up to you to decide the best times to rely on each character—after all, you don’t want one to collapse, leaving your party unbalanced. Every character has an active skill, similar to an “attack” in a JRPG, with a cooldown period. For example, the main character can use a sprint skill to run faster without exhausting her legs. Characters also have tactical skills, which require specific items to perform, such as recovery, camping, and fast-forwarding time.
The emphasis is always on planning ahead, rather than scrounging for items mid-trail. There are also “epic trails,” which act as boss fights—demanding real skill from the player to overcome these intense challenges.
You also have a car to assist you on your trails, which you’ll need to upgrade to tackle increasingly challenging roads and offroads as well.
Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?
For a first-time player aiming to uncover optional content, the game offers around 35 to 40 hours of gameplay, not including trophies. For those attempting a speedrun, it’s closer to 20 hours.
Do you eventually also intend to bring the game to the Switch (or perhaps the upcoming Switch successor)?
It’s been very challenging to optimize the game for PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X, and especially Xbox Series S due to memory limitations. A company called Kyoday is handling these ports, and they’ve been fantastic to work with. Right now, the focus is on these platforms, and depending on the game’s reception, we’ll consider additional platforms in the future.
"To maintain the pacing and keep players immersed, Albatroz combines different gameplay elements that all point in the same direction under one unified theme."
As a developer, what are your thoughts on the PS5 Pro? How does boost in GPU help in developing your game compared to the base PS5?
Ivaylo Koralsky (Co-Founder, Co-CEO of Kyoday): Since we received the PS5 Pro devkits late in the porting process, we didn’t have extensive time for working on PS5 Pro support. However, we managed to create a specific visual profile for the PS5 Pro, featuring enhanced draw distance and improved shadows. The PS5 Pro can also reach 4K resolution, compared to 1440p on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Additionally, while other consoles rely on basic upscaling technology like TAAU, the PS5 Pro uses TSR, which, combined with the higher resolution, results in crisper image quality. In terms of FPS, all major consoles aim for 60FPS, though framerate stability is better on the newer PS5 Pro. For about two weeks we have been experimenting with hardware-based ray tracing (RT) for reflections, ambient occlusion, and shadows. While RT would enhance visual quality, it posed three challenges. First, Albatroz unique visual style meant RT altered the tone too significantly. We communicated our results with Among Giants before making any further decisions. Second, targeting 60FPS with RT would require optimization of nearly every material in the game. Finally, time constraints limited what we could accomplish. Despite not using RT, I believe the game looks excellent on the PS5 Pro
What are your thoughts on PSSR? What kind of opportunities will this open for the game?
Koralsky: For Albatroz, we chose not to use PSSR due to time constraints, and the game already renders at a high resolution on the PS5 Pro. However, in another upcoming project with a PS5 Pro update planned, we’re using PSSR, along with ray-traced global illumination, reflections, and ambient occlusion, all while targeting 60FPS in one of the quality modes. PSSR’s superior upscaling, which surpasses FSR and TSR at lower resolutions, enables us to add modern techniques for reflections, lighting, and shadows. That project also includes Virtual Shadow Maps for significantly improved shadow quality, which isn’t available on the base PS5. In terms of quality, PSSR is closer to DLSS3 than FSR2 for example. Foliage movement and color shifting are much improved when using PSSR. As we are talking about an AI-based upscaler, its capabilities will continue to evolve and, I believe, play a significant role in the potential PS6 platform.
What resolution and frame rate will the game target on the PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and on the PS5 Pro (if supported)?
Koralsky: Each version uses upscaling technology along with dynamic resolution scaling (DRS). The PS5 Pro ranges from 1080p to 4K, while the PS5 and Xbox Series X range from 900p to 1440p, and the Xbox Series S from 540p to 900p. Both the PS5 and PS5 Pro, plus Series X target 60FPS, whereas the Series S targets 30FPS.
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