It shouldn’t come as a shock to the many people who are quite excited about Scalebound that the real protagonist and star of the show is the Dragon, Thuban. What makes this such a interesting twist is that you don’t have complete control over Thuban and in fact must ask him to do things and hope he actually obeys. The players do have control over his human companion and it is through this character that you will try and get Thuban to help accomplish the main goals.
Game director Hideki Kamiya sat down for an interview with Dualshockers at the Tokyo Fan Fest and said he believes that a great deal of the fun of the game comes from trying to figure out just what Thuban is going to do in one scene or another. Kamiya also explained that “there are a lot of games that have large fields, dungeons and the player fighting against enemies, but when you throw an autonomous dragon into the mix, who has his own priorities, thoughts and feelings, that makes you rethink everything, even beyond the AI, and that was one of the challenges the team faced.”
It’s interesting that this is the second game likely hitting store shelves that features a massive beast that plays a big role in the game, and has AI built so it can actually be stubborn and less than helpful. The Last Guardian has same kind of model for it’s companion, right down to not being able to control it as much as asking it and cajoling it into doing the things players want it to do. Scalebound is due to release exclusively on the Xbox One sometime in 2016.
