There has been a lot of speculation whether Microsoft’s Hololens will be used for gaming applications, despite the company showing off a couple of gaming demonstrations in the past. Chris Pruett from Robot Invader believes that the tech will likely be developed for enterprise level applications rather than gaming at first.”It’s too early to tell! But I think that it’s likely to be targeted at enterprise rather than games, at least at first,” Chris said to GamingBolt in a recent interview.

Chris also shared his thoughts on the unique challenges they are facing while developing Dead Secret for PlayStation VR. “VR in general is very difficult to get right from a game play perspective. Many of the common game design patterns used for years on console and PC games simply do not apply to VR. We mentioned the HUD and user interface above, but there are many other areas that are similarly affected. Creating a comfortable motion system, for example, is very hard.”

“Our approach to locomotion is designed around the basic properties of the human vestibular system, and we did a whole lot of user testing to make sure we’d gotten it right. There are many areas like this that we take for granted when playing on a TV that must be completely rethought for VR.”

Unless you live under a rock, you must be fully aware that Microsoft are not only invested in video games, but numerous software applications and Windows which apparently has a user base of millions if not not billions. In short, gaming is only a small part of what Microsoft actually does. It would make more sense for them to actually leave the gaming sector and focus solely on the consumer level applications and business aspects, right?

No. According to Shannon Loftis, general manager of Microsoft Studios, the company treats gamers as consumers so it fits within their plans. “I think one of the best reasons for Microsoft to continue to engage in games is just because gamers are also consumers,” Loftis in an interview conducted by The Verge. “That loyalty, the passion that they bring to their gaming and entertainment experiences, the communities that they build.”

Loftis quoted the example of Kinect which has allowed users not only create applications in video games but beyond that.

“These incredible experiences,” Loftis says, “were so far beyond anything that anybody that worked in the Kinect program had ever visualized. It created a fly wheel around a creative ecosystem. That’s just good for the world. What’s good for the world is obviously good for Microsoft.”

Given Microsoft’s recent success with Xbox One and the amazing line-up they have for 2016 which has the likes of Quantum Break, Crackdown 3 and Gears of War 4, the Xbox One is definitely here to stay.

Complete Square Enix and Avalanche Softwares’ Just Cause 3, an open world action game. Players take the role of Rico Rodriguez as he returns to his homeland to end the rule of a dictator. Players must liberate provinces, take control of settlements and capture enemy outposts in an explosive and outrageous style.

Just Cause 3 is now available for PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One. The game is published by Square Enix and developed by Avalanche Studios. Check out the complete video walkthrough along with the ending of Just Cause 3. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below. For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

Welcome Home:

Time for an Upgrade:

Mario’s Rebel Drop:

A Terrible Reaction:

Friends Like These:

Conflicting Interests:

TurnCoat:

The Secret of VIS Electra:

Missile Cowboy:

Connect the Dots:

An Act of Piracy:

Three’s Company:

Bavarium on a Plan:

Bavarium Blackout:

The Shatterer of World:

Son of Medici:

Complete Minecraft Story Mode: Episode 3 – The Last Place You Look with help of this HD video walkthrough and game guide. In Episode 3, players must discover Soren, who is the final member of the Order of the Stone. Using Soren’s knowledge they can defeat the Witherstorm, but the question is…will it be enough?

Minecraft Story Mode: Episode 3 – The Last Place You Look is now available for Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, OS X ,PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms.The game is developed by Mojang and Telltale Games and published by Telltale Games.

Check out the video walkthrough of Minecraft Story Mode: Episode 3 – The Last Place below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below. For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

Complete Game of Thrones – Episode 6: The Ice Dragon with the help of this HD video walkthrough and game guide.

Game Overview:

Game of Thrones – Episode 6: The Ice Dragon is final episode of Season One and marks the first time ever that a Telltale finale is available across all platforms on the same day.  In the last episode  Forresters must give their all to save the family, as Gared knows more about the  North Grove. In the meantime Mira finds out that Cersei Lannister is behind the political games played in King’s Landing.

Game of Thrones – Episode 6: The Ice Dragon is now available for the PC, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android, Windows and MAC. The game was developed and published by Telltale Games.

Check out the video walkthrough of Game of Thrones – Episode 5: A Nest of Vipers below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

Complete Adventure Time: Finn And Jake Investigations with the help of this HD video walkthrough and game guide. In the game you play as Finn with your buddy Jake on your side. The game takes place in the Land of Ooo and has five playable chapters.

Adventure Time: Finn And Jake Investigations is now available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The game is developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by Little Orbit. Check out the video walkthrough of Adventure Time: Finn And Jake Investigations below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below. For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

What does the dev team have planned in the meantime? GamingBolt spoke to co-founder and co-creative director at Studio Wildcard Jesse Rapczak about the same, including his thoughts on upcoming technologies like virtual reality.

"I would say that our exploration is more inspired by the Legend of Zelda and games like that, where you have an actual mapped out over world with places that have names that feel like real locations. There are hidden places like caves and things to find underwater, so there is a lot to do in Ark in regards to that."

Leonid Melikhov: What would you like to say about Ark in the first place?

Jesse Rapczak: Well…the main thing about Ark is that it is a dinosaur survival game on the surface, but that’s just the surface. Survival in Ark is a key element in gameplay that’s kind of there throughout the entire game. It’s also more importantly an adventure game that you play with your friends, multiplayer and there is a lot to be had with the discovery of the island’s secrets and what’s going on with the game.

We’ve got a pretty nice back-story that can be discovered and the players are in there choosing at their own pace how they tackle that, in which way, how quickly and with what methods. The dinosaurs in the game are kind of the big draw and we’re really inspired by Pokémon on that aspect of like taming dinosaurs, taking advantage of their unique abilities to help you play the game. I would say that our exploration is more inspired by the Legend of Zelda and games like that, where you have an actual mapped out over world with places that have names that feel like real locations. There are hidden places like caves and things to find underwater, so there is a lot to do in Ark in regards to that.

The response to the game so far has been really great, it’s been better than we’ve ever could of hoped for and we’re excited to reiterate with the community of players on the game. We get feedback regularly everyday, we’re releasing patches sometimes multiple times a day, but for sure we have a big content patch every week. We collaborate directly with streamers, players and everybody else who’s engaging with us on the forums and it’s been a really great experience so far.

Leonid Melikhov: When did you guys decide in development to do VR? What’s the behind story on that? And why did you decide to use Unreal Engine 4 as opposed to something else?

Jesse Rapczak: So for us VR has been important since the beginning and the reason is that dinosaurs are so amazing and it’s almost like an easy decision of the mindset “Let’s do VR, because everybody loves dinosaurs and not many people get to see them close-up and that’s got to be something we put in our game”.

So, as soon as possible we had Oculus Rift support and it’s currently in our Early Access Steam build. If you have Oculus, you can take a look at the game. You need a pretty beefy machine/PC, 970s for mid-spec and Oculus; you definitely need that to do VR. With the new HTC Vive stuff and all that, Microsoft Windows 10 making a big push for a unified approach to VR and HoloLens, I think it’s going to become a little easier for us with this head-start to make a good VR integration for Ark.

We’ve actually started with Unreal 3, but we quickly realized that the engine wasn’t up-to par with what we wanted to do. We were initially a little concerned that Unreal 4 hadn’t been shipped on any titles yet and it looked like we would be one of the first titles to ship on Unreal 4, but we’ve decided it would be best to be on a modern engine, we’re all seasoned Unreal developers.

Picking Unreal 4 was a natural decision for us because of the native code support and the speed and the optimization of the game engine. We’ve been really enjoying having source-code access, not just to Unreal but the things we also integrate from third-parties. When we have source-code for everything we’re really able to do amazing things with the rending and the processing.

Leonid Melikhov: How do your team copes with adding new features on weekly basis and not afraid of having something to be broken again in the code or bugs? How do you guys go about that? Also, what does your team consist of and how many people are there on the team?

Jesse Rapczak: As to where people come from, all over is the answer. Our Lead Level Designer just got done working on a bunch of Borderlands stuff, our Lead Environment Artist just finished up Loadout which is a really unique game in terms of art-style and he really has impacted our art-style a lot. The teams that you can see when the game starts, we’re collaborating with some other teams that work on the game like Instinct. Working with Instinct goes way back in my early career, they’re really great developers. Our dinosaur design stuff has been done by Virtual Basement, Ashton did the original Primal Carnage, and so they’re really good about dinosaur designs and things of that nature. The group that we have working on the game is about 40 people strong across all of the different teams and everybody is really good at what they do.

"The people who have 600 series or 500 series or AMD cards that are running at 12-15 FPS – those are the people that we want to help most right now. We’ll get there. After this passive optimization in the next couple of weeks, we’ll start working on our higher end features as well and you’ll start to see some really beautiful stuff running at higher FPS."

To answer your question about adding features simultaneously with fixing bugs, we just have a lot of people, we’re not like a small indie team that you might see in some of the Early Access titles. The people that are fixing bugs and really trying to tackle that stuff are not the same people who are going through and adding more content to the game or checking bugs and content. We’ve got pretty good programmers, designers, artists, tech artists, producers and everybody is very careful.

One of our biggest goals is we don’t want to break the game so we really try to not to do things like character wipes and we’re going to add new content to the game. The community has been really good at helping us find those and point them out and we try to fix them really quick. We would never put out a patch and then wait like another week on a bad bug before we fix it. For us the answer is just rapid response, when we hear about issues from the community and when we see those things ourselves we fix it as soon as we can.

Leonid Melikhov: What do you guys think of the response when you guys first showed off the game back in May?

Jesse Rapczak: Man, well…it was overwhelming. It was more than we expected. We know people love dinosaurs and we knew from the beginning that this was a game concept that was really going to resonate with people. It was insane. We have over 700,000 units sold and you can’t say that’s hype because only 1/6 of those were sold in the first few days. Since then it’s just been people playing the game, seeing their friends playing the game, seeing streams all over twitch and it’s just been constant #1 seller on Steam. Despite the summer sale we still have been at the top and we hit 80,000 something concurrent players.

You’ll have some naysayers that are like “oh, this game was all hype and the trailers are not like the game” but it doesn’t pan out actually, people are buying and loving the game. Yes our trailer was shot on really high-end graphics card and that’s what you need if you want the graphics too look like that, but we hope optimization to bring that fidelity of graphics to the mid-range cards.

Leonid Melikhov: Optimization…I think when I personally played it is the biggest issue. I heard people ran on Titan and had problems and back-and-forth.

Jesse Rapczak: Well we’re kind of in a weird situation right now. Most of our optimization has been for the lower end card. So when we put out an optimization patch you’ll see huge frame rate bump for low-end and mid-range cards, but the upper end cards won’t see much of an improvement a lot of times. The reason is because we’re not actually optimizing those features yet. We feel like somebody with a Titan-X or a 980 or even 970 who’s running at 30 FPS is good enough considering the game’s development. The people who have 600 series or 500 series or AMD cards that are running at 12-15 FPS – those are the people that we want to help most right now. We’ll get there. After this passive optimization in the next couple of weeks, we’ll start working on our higher end features as well and you’ll start to see some really beautiful stuff running at higher FPS

"One thing that I will say that is very interesting is that our game’s CPU is limited on rendering right now. A lot of people know that the Xbox has a stronger CPU than the PS4. That’s not too say that it runs better on the Xbox or PlayStation, but the PlayStation having a little bit more powerful GPU is a little offset by the fact that our game requires a lot of CPU to run well."

Leonid Melikhov: I know there are a ton of things that you guys are adding to Ark over the next year and obviously we can’t talk about all of them cause that would take an entire day so I am going to ask you: what feature are you personally looking for the most that you cannot wait for players to see?

Jesse Rapczak: My favorite thing that’s coming is our boss battles. They’re not just battles; they give you a lot of insight into the back-story of the game. As you get into that end-game and you’ve kind of pieced together your explorer notes which I am also excited for. By piecing together the back-story through the explorer notes and then getting too a boss battle and having those story threads connect and click in your mind about what’s really going on is kind of what I am really excited about.

I am excited to get those in the next 6 months because once we get those then it’s going to be pretty clear that the game has a deliberate story-arc and that there is more to come from Ark and it’s not just this one island and it’s not just this one game player in it. There are going to be expansions and more stuff down the road for Ark story wise.

Leonid Melikhov: For the Xbox One and PS4 are you going for 1080p/60 fps? Which platform is it easier to develop on?

Jesse Rapczak: 1080p/60 fps is always the dream goal. For us it’s going to be a balance of graphics fidelity vs. frame-rate. I will say that Ark is not Call of Duty, it’s not a game that requires 60 fps to be amazing and competitive, and it’s not that type of shooter. As a studio we would probably prioritize graphical fidelity over 60 FPS target frame-rate. We’ll see as we get into next year and what’s going to be more valuable in terms of the end goal.

Both platforms are relatively easy to develop for to be honest. The PS3 and Xbox 360 days…Xbox 360 was the clear winner there because of the tools and the architecture. PS3 was so different, required a lot of specialized expertise to create good content and good optimization for. But now the tools are really good, the platforms are really honestly very similar and some things that the Xbox is better the PlayStation is stronger in other areas.

One thing that I will say that is very interesting is that our game’s CPU is limited on rendering right now. A lot of people know that the Xbox has a stronger CPU than the PS4. That’s not too say that it runs better on the Xbox or PlayStation, but the PlayStation having a little bit more powerful GPU is a little offset by the fact that our game requires a lot of CPU to run well. It’s kind of a little bit of a balance between the two right now for different reasons.

Leonid Melikhov: Release date?

Jesse Rapczak: Next June.

"There is always this debate on consoles: do you give the players the option? If players want to play 60 FPS but turn off some of the graphics, would we put a switch in there where it can run at 60 FPS but it’s going to slightly different graphics and that typically doesn’t fly on consoles."

Leonid Melikhov: Are you guys supporting Vive? Didn’t mention that, what’s going on?

Jesse Rapczak: We do plan too, yeah. The thing about the Vive is that it’s a little scarce. It’s relatively new and Valve has to give dev kits out to developers. The faster we get a Vive dev-kit the faster we’ll have support. We do really want to have Vive integration for Ark.

Leonid Melikhov: The game will be playable on Steam Box?

Jesse Rapczak: It will be actually because of Linux support and we plan to shoot Linux out along with Mac OS at the end of this month. At the end of this month in Early Access you can buy it on PC, Mac or Linux.

Leonid Melikhov: Oculus and Vive will be easier to get running at a good resolution and good frame rate since they’re on PC. But you don’t want to play a VR game at 10 FPS and this is not an Indie game. This is running on a high-tech Unreal Engine 4 so there is a lot of things to render and on top of that you’re putting it on a console that has limited hardware and you are putting VR pressure, so how will this go?

Jesse Rapczak: Having played the game in VR and non-VR. You’d almost think of it like split-screen mode. When a game has to implement split-screen multiplayer, you’re basically rendering everything twice and so you have to turn off some features and scale-back the graphics a little bit and I think that’s acceptable in VR because everything is so life-like and real already that all those effects that we turn on to make the game look great, you almost don’t need as many of them in VR because everything has so much depth.

You’re there, you’re moving around and there is a lot of extra feedback and everything. Thinking of it like implementing split-screen multiplayer or something like that – I think you’ll see a downgrade a little bit in graphics for using VR, but it won’t be totally different. It will be something that’s acceptable and that works for the VR support. That might be true as well on PC as well in order to hit that 60 FPS because 60 FPS is really important for VR and in order to make that trade-off on platform like the console to hit 60 FPS, you’d definitely have to scale things back like view distances and some of the post-processing effects and things like that.

Leonid Melikhov: You’re telling me you want to hit 60 FPS on VR, but you’re okay with 30 FPS on regular game on the console, is this how I understood it?

Jesse Rapczak: We would be yes, because in VR that difference is made up for in the fact that you’re in VR and you have that extra feedback and depth. But what you’re paying for that is you’re turning off some rendering features and stuff that you have in a single screen. There is always this debate on consoles: do you give the players the option? If players want to play 60 FPS but turn off some of the graphics, would we put a switch in there where it can run at 60 FPS but it’s going to slightly different graphics and that typically doesn’t fly on consoles. A lot of players are playing Ark right now on very low settings that don’t look very good. So they can have like 60+ fps because that’s more important to them.

"A lot of people out there are passionate about the game as we are. We’ve got fans that have started wikis, fans that have started their own websites and all of these people are really making an impact on our development."

Leonid Melikhov: I can’t do that. I like my 60 FPS and I like my glorious glorified visuals.

Jesse Rapczak: You need both [laughs].

Leonid Melikhov: How are you guys handling mounted combat? What if someone’s flying in the air, can you kill people while they’re on pterodactyls, can you shoot someone down with a gun and fall down?

Jesse Rapczak: Mounted combat…we’re still iterating on it on what we’re going to do. For sure, on larger dinosaurs we’re going to support seat locations. Maybe on a Brontosaurus 6 people can ride on them and still be able to use their weapons and stuff like that. Supporting weapons for the driver, we’re not sure about that yet. That might be something we put out and see if people like it or not. We’re definitely going to support seats for different people to ride, especially underwater it’s really useful too, like on the Megaladon to have seats where people could sit to get down to the bottom of the ocean and do some stuff and then get back up.

Leonid Melikhov: Is there anything you’d like to tell the fans about Ark?

Jesse Rapczak: As always, thanks to the fans for iterating with us and giving us feedback and you know helping us find bugs and being really passionate about the game. A lot of people out there are passionate about the game as we are. We’ve got fans that have started wikis, fans that have started their own websites and all of these people are really making an impact on our development. We’re really happy we’re doing Early Access and we look forward to more going through the next few months.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to Eidos Montreal at E3 2015 – long before the pre-order madness began – and learned a few details about the improvements, Adam Jensen’s state of mind following Human Revolution and much more.

"This time one of his catch phrases is, “you have to embrace what you’ve become.” But in order to embrace what you’ve become you have to first figure out what that is."

Leonid Melikhov: The game will use DirectX 12, how do you think this will impact the performance of the PC and Xbox One versions? Also, are the console versions running 1080p 60fps or 30fps?

We’re still far away. Obviously we’re still trying to fine tune it to make sure it meets our criteria. We’re not ready to talk about this stuff just yet. Later on it’s something we’re going to be willing to talk about for sure. Not just yet.

Leonid Melikhov: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided picks up two years after “Human Revolution” and the world is in quite the state. How does this influence Adam Jensen’s character this time around?

For “Human Revolution” one of the things we dealt with in there was that it was all about how something terrible had happened to him and he had lost choice in his life and he had to regain it. At the end of that story he regained that choice for everyone in the world and he tried to do something. He tried to save the world, but he was a little bit late because the chaos had already started. In that one the theme was “I never asked for this.” Now it’s two years later and he’s dealing with the fact that he feels that he failed. Because he feels that what he tried to do was buried by the Illuminati.

Leonid Melikhov: He feels guilty.

He feels a bit of guilt and he’s looking a bit for redemption and to find purpose again. That’s why this time one of his catch phrases is, “you have to embrace what you’ve become.” But in order to embrace what you’ve become you have to first figure out what that is. So in this one he’s kind of on a path for redemption. He knows who the bad guys were. He wants to get them. And he has to find a way to do it. Along the way he’ll learn, through his experiences, to become more than he is.

"We have worked very hard to improve the fluidity of the combat to bring new augmentations to it, and new weapon abilities and stuff that you can do on the fly as you’re going."

Leonid Melikhov: Deus Ex: Human Revolution was an excellent action adventure title, but the first person shooting felt less than solid. How has “Mankind Divided” improved upon this? Will the combat be more fluid than before or more strategy over running and gunning?

We’ve really worked to improve the combat experience because it’s true: everyone seems to think the stealth was the pillar of gameplay in the last one. We wanted to bring it up to the same level. We have worked very hard to improve the fluidity of the combat to bring new augmentations to it, and new weapon abilities and stuff that you can do on the fly as you’re going. Many of which you’ve seen in the demo. So I won’t actually go into it. We’ve also worked a lot to make it a lot visceral experience and not necessarily fully destructible environments, but you can see a lot of the chaos of the combat.

Leonid Melikhov: I liked the slow motion.

And the slow motion. That’s one of the augmentations.

Leonid Melikhov: How much bigger will the world be?

We’re not ready to give that. Next gen lets us do some great things. We’re not ready to get into scale and all that just yet.

Leonid Melikhov: Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to publishing producer Chris Thomas a E3 2015 about Battleborn and found out what sets the game apart from other shooters, how players will keep coming back and some of the cooler things you can do.

"There are three big swords, really. You just need to get up close to people and you’re hacking and slashing and you’re using his big, crazy abilities. He can turn into this big whirlwind of blades. A character like that, you don’t have to be a twitch shooter, skill based player."

Leonid Melikhov: Chris, we really like the new trend of shooters offering up a bunch of different playable characters. What can you tell us about the different characters and their different abilities in Battleborn?

Chris Thomas: You’ve seen this game has a huge cast of characters. There are 25 that are playable. Each one of them has their own unique ability, their own play styles, their own personalities which are all hilarious and totally varied. They all have their own weapons and abilities. One of the interesting things about the story and about the characters is they are all part of different factions. They all have their own philosophies and ideologies. They’ve broken into those factions and they’re essentially at war with each other because in the story there is this last star they’re trying to protect.

It’s the last star in the entire universe. So they’re fighting over the resources in that system and that’s part of the motivation of the competitive multiplayer: having all these characters fighting against each other. The 25 that you see in the game, they’ve broken away from their factions and allied themselves with each other to try and combat this enemy that’s going around and destroying the universe; destroying all the stars. Each one of them– there’s everything from: fantasy characters to sci-fi characters. There are crazy combos, like a character in a mech suit. And that also goes into their play styles as well. Play styles are, like, you have tanks, war characters, healers, DPS, melee, magic users. It’s crazy.

Leonid Melikhov: Do each of the characters have a strong background story?

Chris Thomas: Absolutely. In this universe, since all of these surviving civilizations have gathered around the last star– they all have come from somewhere. Most of them have been displaced because they were in their own systems and they had their own stars; and once those stars were destroyed they had to find a way to survive. Each one of them definitely has a cool back-story.

Leonid Melikhov: How do you plan to resolve the issue of veteran players literally beating the hell out of new comers in a game such as Battleborn?

Chris Thomas: There’s a couple different ways. One is having a huge variety of play styles and characters. I’ve been talking to a bunch of people the last couple of days and some people were, like, “I’m not a shooter player. I’m not good at aiming. I just don’t aim very well.” There are characters for that person. You have characters like Wrath, where aiming isn’t that big of a deal because he’s got two big swords.

There are three big swords, really. You just need to get up close to people and you’re hacking and slashing and you’re using his big, crazy abilities. He can turn into this big whirlwind of blades. A character like that, you don’t have to be a twitch shooter, skill based player. Or you can play a support character. While support characters can still do damage, and can still kill other players, they will do a lot of healing and buffing of characters. You can run around supporting your team. The other thing is how we’ve set of the progression system in the game.

We have this healing system that allows to level from level one to 10 within a single match. So whether you’re in story mode or you’re in competitive multiplayer, you’re going to see the character’s complete progression through that one match. And that puts everybody on even playing field.

You’re never going to be in a situation where you picked up the game and you fire it up, and you’re like a total noob, and you’re playing against these people that have been playing for a long time and they’re super good. And they’re already level 50; they’ve already put in the time and unlocked all that stuff. You’re always going to have that even playing field within that match. There are multiple levels of that progression system.

"What makes it really fun and crazy is that each time you play that, it feels different depending on which character you’re playing. So if you’re playing a support character versus high DPS character versus, like, Montana with this crazy, big tank, you’re going to do different things within the map."

Even though you can only level up from one to 10 within the match on the Helix, the more you play a character, the more it will rank up as well. You unlock different skins for those characters. You unlock new augmentations for your Helix. So you can further customize how you play that character, as well as how you rank up with those characters. There’s also a command rank. There are, like, multiple layers. All the experience that you gain will also level up your player rank and that will unlock all kinds of other stuff.

Leonid Melikhov: What can you tell us about Incursion mode? Do you think fans need to worry about it?

Chris Thomas: I don’t think so. I think that all the multiplayer modes definitely feel like you’re playing a first person shooter. With the exception of the fact that you have all these weird abilities and you’re doing stuff that you normally wouldn’t do in any other shooter, really. That move was definitely inspired by MOBAs. It’s a lot of fun. You have the minions in the map that I controlled. So they’re running around helping you trying to get down to the enemies base to destroy the base. That part will feel familiar. But there are other multiplayer modes that are more traditional. We have one called Devastation which is a capture and hold objective based mode. That one is going to feel very familiar to people. People are going to be able to hop right in and be, like, “oh yeah! I’ve done this. I get this.”

What makes it really fun and crazy is that each time you play that, it feels different depending on which character you’re playing. So if you’re playing a support character versus high DPS character versus, like, Montana with this crazy, big tank, you’re going to do different things within the map. And you’re going to be playing a different style. It’s really cool. There’s also Meltdown. Meltdown also has the A.I. controlled minions, but the idea there is they’re trying to cross the map, trying to get to certain points on the map where they get incinerated and your team will gain points for that. You have to juggle multiple things. You have to escort your minions, destroy the enemies before they get where they’re going. And battle the other heroes all at the same time.

Leonid Melikhov: Sounds pretty hectic.

Chris Thomas: It’s gets insane.

Leonid Melikhov: How big are the maps?

Chris Thomas: They’re definitely pretty big and complex. The map from the story mission that we are showing is huge. And the story missions are obviously going to be broader than the multiplayer maps. Multiplayer maps are going to be, by default, more encapsulated. The story mode is going to have big, massive maps and environments to travel through.

Leonid Melikhov: How do the NPCs affect the matches?

Chris Thomas: The multiplayer matches, or the story mode, or both?

Leonid Melikhov: Both.

Chris Thomas: In PVP there are only the minions that you’re going to have to deal with. And they definitely affect how the match plays out. Because you’re gaining experience from those and they’re also doing damage. They definitely will affect things. In story mode we aren’t really going in to what the other NPCs are going to be yet, and how they’re going to affect the story. There will be plenty of NPCs.

"Gearbox is known for making these really cool art styles that stands out and really pops. One of the inspirations for it was they really wanted to create an art style that really made all these crazy characters feel like they could cohesively live in the same universe."

Leonid Melikhov: We are pretty confident that the game will run in 1080p on the PS4. But what about the Xbox One?

Chris Thomas: Yep.

Leonid Melikhov: Finally a good answer, not dodging bullets. Moving on, some people say that the art style, they aren’t too crazy about it in the game. Maybe it’s a byproduct of only seeing the trailer. I, personally think the in-game art works. What do you guys think about that? What was the thought behind the art style?

Chris Thomas: Gearbox is known for making these really cool art styles that stands out and really pops. One of the inspirations for it was they really wanted to create an art style that really made all these crazy characters feel like they could cohesively live in the same universe. That can be difficult when you start talking about all these different genres of fantasy and sci-fi and more realistic stuff.

They took a while to figure out what that is. Just like on Borderlands 2, there’s a creative process there that you try a bunch of things. You try a bunch of things to trying and figure out what actually works. Once we got to this, everyone was like, “oh, that’s it. That works.” These characters suddenly mesh together and you can believe that they’re from the same universe. That was the main inspiration for it.

Leonid Melikhov: What do you guys think of  Oculus, and HoloLens? 

Chris Thomas: I think that all of us are pretty excited about it. I’m personally excited about it. We don’t have anything right now that we’re working on. But it’s really cool. I’m really excited to see where it goes in the future and how people start adapting and start adopting it. I would like to have one in my house, personally. As always, we are in the business of making great games. If all of those VR style units start exploding, and people really love it, and the tools are there to make great games, sure.

Leonid Melikhov: I know Valve started sending out dev kits. Have you guys received them?

Chris Thomas: I’m not sure.

"[On Borderland 3] Yeah. It’s going to be super ambitious. With the new generation of consoles there’s still a lot to learn. I’m looking forward to it when they finally do get everything kicked off. It’s not quite there yet. Not quite in development."

Leonid Melikhov: Borderlands 3 was, kind of, technically announced at PAX. In January, I think. Around six months ago. But the game was not in development. They were recruiting a team or something like that. Have you guys started developing or conceptualizing– is anything going on right now with development?

Chris Thomas: There’s lots of recruiting still coming up for sure. Gearbox is trying to build that team right now. I’m sure there have been discussions on the game and what the game will be. As far as actual development, it hasn’t gotten started yet. The team has to solidify first. They need a ton of great people to make that game.

Leonid Melikhov: Sounds like it may take another two or three years?

Chris Thomas: I don’t know.

Leonid Melikhov: Is it going to be an ambitious project?

Chris Thomas: Yeah. It’s going to be super ambitious. With the new generation of consoles there’s still a lot to learn. I’m looking forward to it when they finally do get everything kicked off. It’s not quite there yet. Not quite in development.

Leonid Melikhov: So with that being said, when is the game coming out? Is it coming out this year?

Chris Thomas: It’s going to come out this winter.

Leonid Melikhov: This winter. So is that, like, December, or January?

Chris Thomas: Just this winter. Winter is coming. It’ll be on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Leonid Melikhov: Are you guys doing Windows 10, Xbox One cross play?

Chris Thomas: I’m actually not sure yet. I don’t think that we have really gotten there yet.

Leonid Melikhov: You don’t want to have a segregated community.

Chris Thomas: Right. Right now there’s just no solution to that.

"We love eSports. eSports is great. I always talk to people about– especially when we’re talking about Battleborn– I always believed the community creates eSports. The game has to be great. If the game is great and the community is there and they really love it, then they’re going to turn it into an eSport."

Leonid Melikhov: Makes sense from a development standpoint.

Chris Thomas: So if that’s something the fans want, please let Microsoft and Sony know.

Leonid Melikhov: If they can collaborate on that. Makes sense. Awesome. Is there anything else you’d like to say about the game?

Chris Thomas: Just that we’re super excited about it. We’re excited about everyone here being able to get their hands on it. Everyone we’ve talked to so far has been really excited. They really like it. It’s been in development for a while now and it’s just awesome to see people play it.

Leonid Melikhov: What’s the one feature you’re mostly super excited about in the game?

Chris Thomas: Right now it’s story mode. The story mode is so bad ass right now. Like, the humors there, and it’s great to be able to jump in and play with any of these characters. That’s another thing I love about Gearbox games, they always find these really great voice actors and they’re always hilarious.

Leonid Melikhov: How long will the single player be?

Chris Thomas: We’re still in development so we don’t know exactly how long it’s going to be yet. It’s going to be a pretty, big, epic game.

Leonid Melikhov: So it’s not just a multiplayer game with a story tacked on? Or vice versa? It’s a full package.

Chris Thomas: It’s a full package. We can’t even try to say how long it’s going to be yet.

Leonid Melikhov: Last question. What do you guys think of eSports?

Chris Thomas: We love eSports. eSports is great. I always talk to people about– especially when we’re talking about Battleborn– I always believed the community creates eSports. The game has to be great. If the game is great and the community is there and they really love it, then they’re going to turn it into an eSport. They’re going to create the eSport. If the developer and the publisher are good, they’re going to help the community, they’re going to create the tools to support the community and that’s really how those things are born.

Leonid Melikhov: If people want Battleborn in eSports, you guys would be full on support it?

Chris Thomas: We’re always happy to be excited about that sort of thing. If the demand is there we are going to do everything we can to support the product.

Leonid Melikhov: Sounds really good. Thank you so much for your time.

Chris Thomas: Thanks.

Speaking to GamingBolt at E3 2015, executive producer Geoff Smith talked about the game’s micro-transactions and how they’ll ultimately pan out (there’s no pay to win, so relax) along with his views on VR, cross play with Windows 10 and much more.

"We wanted to put Fable Legends onto Windows because as you know Fable Legends is a Free-to-Play title so it makes a lot of sense for us to put it on the PC."

Leonid Melikhov: How is Fable Legends come along since last year? What have you guys changed, and what is new?

Geoff Smith: So, there has been a lot that has happened since E3 last year. The obvious things we’ve done, we’ve added more heroes. So we’ve got Evienne, Celeste and Malice, so currently we’re building up a full roster of heroes to get up-to 14 for later in the year. I think we’re up to 11 now, where’s at E3 last year we had 6. We’ve build a heap of more quests and lot more creatures.

We’ve got Imps, which are little buzz-y things that fly around and then we’ve the Bark Skins and the Servants which are tree things. So, that’s all new content and we will continue to always make new content. I think that the key thing that’s probably different this year is that we’re playing on Windows 10 as well as Xbox One.

Leonid Melikhov: How do you guys feel about Xbox One and PC cross-play and streaming?

Geoff Smith: It’s great. We wanted to put Fable Legends onto Windows because as you know Fable Legends is a Free-to-Play title so it makes a lot of sense for us to put it on the PC. Fable has often been on PC, Fable 2 was on the PC, just had our Fable Anniversary on the PC for Fable 1.

Windows 10 coming up made it quite easy just because of the share-tech and Xbox Live becoming part of Windows 10 and basically the two technologies are merging together. It just made it a perfect scenario for Cross-platform Play. Now, as well as playing against or with on Windows 10 or Xbox One it’s got a shared profile, so anything you buy or earn on Xbox One or progress that you make in the game will be there if you play it on Windows 10 too.

Leonid Melikhov: Is the Gamerscore shared or is it separate?

Geoff Smith: The Gamerscore is also shared.

Leonid Melikhov: Doesn’t matter what you play it on, you can go earn on whatever?

Geoff Smith: Yeah.

Leonid Melikhov: I know for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition they told me it’s actually separate even though its cross-play, it’s still separate. But this is one platform for both?

Geoff Smith: Yeah, it is. It gives us a lot of freedom. It’s great fun to be able to play on either, right? I am sure there will be lots of people who play on PC and will own an Xbox One.

"I have done previous HoloLens demos such as Minecraft and it’s a fantastic tech and I can’t wait for it to get out in the mainstream and grow and have applications for gamers."

Leonid Melikhov: How do you guys feel about using mouse and keyboard on the PC? Wouldn’t it be a little easier to do things with a mouse than do things with a controller for obvious reasons. How does that going to go down?

Geoff Smith: Yeah, sure. We’re hoping to make the experience as consistence as possible across all platforms. You are right about the most obvious area outside of maybe shooter controls. The Villain player is quite suited to be strategic to mouse/keyboard. We’ve actually spent so much with controller with the Villain, but right now it’s still better on that. We’re just going to work and try to make sure that it is as consistent and no side gets an upper hand.

Leonid Melikhov: Were you at the Microsoft’s conference?

Geoff Smith: The keynote? Yes I was.

Leonid Melikhov: I really enjoyed the stuff they showed. I think gamers win and what do you guys think of HoloLens?

Geoff Smith: Well, HoloLens is amazing.

Leonid Melikhov: Have you done the Halo 5 experience?

Geoff Smith: I have not done the Halo 5 one, if there was more time I’d queue up and get in there. But I have done previous HoloLens demos such as Minecraft and it’s a fantastic tech and I can’t wait for it to get out in the mainstream and grow and have applications for gamers. It’s not my area of expertise, but I do like it.

Leonid Melikhov: Have you guys like ever thought of about maybe implementing this in your far future projects? Or any concept ideas? Because it has a lot of potential for innovative ideas and I know Lionhead is known for Black and White. I think that would be one of the perfect examples of HoloLens.

Geoff Smith: You can never say never. Potentially we’re all part of Microsoft so that’s the great thing about working with Microsoft, when this tech comes around I am sure in the future there will be opportunities. But, right now we’re consumed with making Fable Legends. Vast majority of Lionhead is on Fable Legends and we’re totally committed to making that a success.

"We’re working through the different possibilities right in terms of monetization. Basically, anything that you can buy in the game you can earn in the game. So you could earn with Silver rather than with our Gold currency."

Leonid Melikhov: How do you guys feel about VR?

Geoff Smith: Yeah, interesting. Personally though, it’s not quite for me, but I can understand that lots of people love it

Leonid Melikhov: Any new features you’ve added to Fable Legends? I know you’ve mentioned new heroes and quests.

Geoff Smith: Back in the studio we’re adding the Hero leveling system. The heroes will be able to earn XP as we go through quests, right? So they kill creatures, they gain XP and then you can level up. You go through a talent tree and eventually you’ll be able to unlock a 4th ability, cause you only have 3 currently.

We’re also putting in costumes and outfits so you can customize your heroes and they’ll come with different stats.

Leonid Melikhov: The cosmetic stuff, is that going to be micro-transactions? What’s going on with that?

Geoff Smith: We’re working through the different possibilities in terms of monetization. Basically, anything that you can buy in the game you can earn in the game. So you could earn with Silver rather than with our Gold currency. There is no pay to win or anything like that, you can go through, you can earn enough XP, you can then go earn silver from defeating creatures and winning quests and then you can get new outfits and so on.

Leonid Melikhov: The outfits have no effect on the gameplay?

Geoff Smith: Some do. There are some premiums that don’t, but you can buy those separately. We just don’t want people to purchase power anywhere from this game.

Leonid Melikhov: Right, that’s what I am afraid of, because sometimes you can pay $5 and get the best armor in the game.

Geoff Smith:Yeah, it’s not going to be like that.

"One thing we’ve been doing in the closed beta is listening to the community of players and if they give us feedback we try to change things in future iterations and tweak things. If they tell us, we try to do it and we’ll grow the game accordingly."

Leonid Melikhov: Can you give me an example of what a premium armor is?

Geoff Smith: They’ll just be a premium costume which will just relate to a theme. It’s not actually an armor that has stats, pure vanity item.

Leonid Melikhov: Ah, okay. So it’s purely cosmetic? 

Geoff Smith: Yeah.

Leonid Melikhov: Is the world getting better? Have you guys added any new areas in the last year?

Geoff Smith: There are lots of different quests, all of which are different areas/levels and then there is Brightlodge, which is the Hub Town. That’s growing quite nicely and it’s available in the closed beta. In there, there are lots of shops, lots of villages, you can go about and do your Fable-style things. You can do all the emotes that you could do in Fable 2; you can sing and dance for the villagers. Although, Brightlodge itself could expand and build and grow and grow…

Leonid Melikhov: In future expansions?

Geoff Smith: That’s right. There is no rush right now and we’ll see if players love it. One thing we’ve been doing in the closed beta is listening to the community of players and if they give us feedback we try to change things in future iterations and tweak things. If they tell us, we try to do it and we’ll grow the game accordingly.

Leonid Melikhov: We have about 6 months left till end of the year, when are you guys releasing the game?

Geoff Smith: The big questions, eh?

Leonid Melikhov: Yeah, I mean the PC version has been announced. You guys got the cross-play thing going. I’ve played the game already twice, last E3 and this E3, so I am just like okay, when is this game coming out?

Geoff Smith: So, we’re targeting by the end of the year. We’re not setting a specific date, but we’re getting this out there by the end of this year.

"Right now, the whole of the company is focused on Fable Legends. The vast majority of them are working on Fable Legends, but there is another title."

Leonid Melikhov: Sounds like holiday to me.

Geoff Smith: And then we’ll continue to develop it right? It’s Free-to-Play and we’ll expand it.

Leonid Melikhov: If you don’t mind me asking, how many teams you have at Lionhead?

Geoff Smith: We have a couple of teams.

Leonid Melikhov: Are they all working on different things?

Geoff Smith: The vast majority of them are working on Fable Legends, but there is another title.

Leonid Melikhov: Ahhh, I like that.

Geoff Smith: Ahaha, we’re not talking about that today.

Leonid Melikhov: Most fans have been hoping for a full-fledged true Fable RPG experience with a single-player story. You guys decided to go the free-to-play route and social experience. Will we ever see anything again related to single-player in the future for Fable?

Geoff Smith: Right now, the whole of the company is focused on Fable Legends. But you know what, in the future never say never so who knows?

Leonid Melikhov: I would really like a new Black and White. I don’t know what’s happening with that because I know Peter is not there, but I think you guys can do it without Peter.

Geoff Smith: That’s right, that’s right we can, we’re really good.

"Whatever we do next, we’ll put everything into it and hopefully it’ll be fun."

Leonid Melikhov: Who owns the IP?

Geoff Smith: I am not sure, but maybe EA potentially owned it, but I am not sure.

Leonid Melikhov: How long have you been at the studio?

Geoff Smith: I’ve been in the studio for nearly 11 years. I’ve joined when they were making Black and White 2, just finished Fable 1 and I joined on The Movies.

Leonid Melikhov: I am looking forward to your next title after this. I am really curios too see what are you guys going to do next just because of different things happening.

Geoff Smith: Sure. Whatever we do next, we’ll put everything into it and hopefully it’ll be fun.

Leonid Melikhov: Thanks for your time.

Geoff Smith: It was great talking to you. Thank you.