Vampire’s Fall: Origins Interview – Length, Optimization, and More

A couple of years ago, Early Morning Studio launched Vampire’s Fall: Origins on mobile devices, and were immediately met with excellent reception. With the game delivering a solid, deep, and extensive RPG experience on mobile devices that could actually stand up to PC experiences in the genre, it was providing something that we don’t see a whole lot of in the industry. Earlier this year, the game was met with similarly positive reception upon its Steam launch, and now, it’s coming to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch as well. Not too long ago, we sent across some of our questions about it, its development, its console port, and more to its developers. You can read our interview with Early Morning Studio CEO Emir Kuljanin below.

"In comparison with the Steam-version, the Xbox One and Switch version will be almost identical. We had some discussions about this but ultimately our small team size restrains our capabilities, we have to put our focus elsewhere."

Vampire’s Fall: Origins started off on iOS and Android, coming to Steam later, and has been received very positively by players across all platforms. With the game now also bound for Xbox One and Switch, how has this journey been, and how gratifying has it been to see your game being received so well by players?

It’s been awesome. When we started out on mobile, we had an average score of 4.8/5.0 on Google Play. With time it settled at 4.6. That is great, but considering that we set out to create a PC-ish RPG designed for mobile phones, in a sense it was more surprising that we got such good reviews on Steam as well. I honestly though it would get butchered and we’d end up at about 70% positive but we’re currently at 84% which is super cool.

Obviously, mobile, PC, Xbox, and Switch are all very different platforms with different capabilities and features- how challenging has it been to ensure that the game is optimized for all platforms it launches on, and that it retains the core strengths of its experience across all of them?

Considering we have a relatively simple game technically, it’s been pretty smooth. As for the game design, I am especially excited about the Switch release because I feel it’s the perfect platform for our game. On mobile, some players consider our game to be too hardcore, while on PC some gamers consider it a bit too simple. Switch is the perfect middle ground I think!

Will the Xbox One and Switch versions of the game include any additional features or content not previously included in the game’s previous releases?

Unfortunately, no. In comparison with the Steam-version, it will be almost identical. We had some discussions about this but ultimately our small team size restrains our capabilities, we have to put our focus elsewhere.

Was it always the plan to eventually bring Vampire’s Fall: Origins to consoles, or was that something that only came about following the strong reception the game has enjoyed following its release on mobile devices first and then PC?

Initially we wanted to release simultaneously on PC, Switch and Xbox. But then we thought we don’t know for sure how a non-mobile audience will receive the game. Therefore, we decided to start with Steam, and if it works out well, we’ll look into consoles.

"When we started out on mobile, we had an average score of 4.8/5.0 on Google Play. With time it settled at 4.6. That is great, but considering that we set out to create a PC-ish RPG designed for mobile phones, in a sense it was more surprising that we got such good reviews on Steam as well."

Will the game have PvP on Xbox One and Switch at launch?

Unfortunately no. We simply don’t have the resources to pull this off at the moment.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Vampire’s Fall: Origins be?

Depends on your playstyle, but for the main questline and some partial sidequesting I’d say 25-50 hours. If you’re a completionist we have a lot of content outside the main questline, and even outside the side-quests as well.

Do you have any plans to launch on the PS4?

Not at the moment, but we’ll re-evaluate depending on how the Xbox release goes.

What are the docked and undocked resolution and frame rate of the Switch version?

720p 30 FPS for undocked, and 1080 30 FPS for docked.

Given that next-gen consoles are right around the corner, have you given any thought to next-gen ports for the game?

Nope, but for our next game we might.