With the recent release of Seven Knights 2 on PC and mobile platforms, we’ve been chasing after Rudy and building an epic team of heroes. While we were waiting on the latest release, and the end of the Daybreak mercenaries story, we took some time to chat to Seven Knights 2’s Producer/Game Director Cho Sungu, about the creation of the Daybreak Mercenaries and how the team behind this new generation built on previous legends.
I feel the most obvious place to start is to ask why build a new team of heroes for Seven Knights 2?
Seven Knights 2 tells the story of 20 years after the Day of Advent, which is a key event and turning point of the original Seven Knights.
During the 20 years, heroes of Seven Knights will have made many interactions and gone through many events, and the heroes of Seven Knights 2 are created through these relationships.
Through the game scenario of Seven Knights 2, we wanted to give a new experience to users by explaining why these characters have appeared and who they are, as well as what happened over the past 20 years.
Many of the new Daybreak heroes, the central characters for this story, are associated with the characters from Seven Knights. Why not break entirely from the original series?
The answer is similar to the last question. The main characters of Seven Knights 2, the Daybreak Mercenaries are the daughters, apprentices, and allies of the heroes of Seven Knights. We wanted to create a story where the acquaintances made by the heroes over the last 20 years gather together and go on a new adventure.
Turning that question around, why not bring back the original Seven Knights.
If we are referring to the heroes of the original Seven Knights, they appear in the game. As 20 years have passed, they each have aged 20 years. If you are talking about the appearance of Seven Knights, they appear through flash-back scenarios in-game, and they also appear as heroes.
Were you worried that new characters might have been something of a risk, possibly alienating existing fans?
Any concerns we had were more related to the change in graphic style from casual to life-like, not due to the introduction of new characters.
On the contrary, the new characters are related to the original heroes by being daughters, apprentices, allies or ill-fated relationships, and the scenario expands on these stories. Original heroes also appear, which will be one of the fun-factors of the game.
Lene is probably the first Daybreak Mercenary that players encounter up Seven Knights 2. We quickly Learn that Lene is Eileene’s daughter but what was the inspiration behind Lene?
It is the world 20 years later. So we thought over 20 years, the young heroes may have wed those they had affections for, had children, or raised apprentices.
Eileene was an attractive character in Seven Knights, and we began with the thought that, what if Eileene fell in love with another hero and raised a child?
From a narrative perspective, does that complicate things writing for a protege and a mother-daughter relationship?
A: The scenario was changed many times. Because we worked hard on making sure the story was probable, we revamped the original scenario, remade heroes, changed some heroes from ally to enemy – there were many trial and errors. However, by spending more time, we made sure the heroes’ stories and concepts were clear. Once we organized the initial story, there were no complications in the following scenarios.
Lene, in particular, continues to use a spear, similar to Eileene, how did you balance differentiating the two characters so they do not play like carbon copies of each other?
First, Lene learned to use the spear from Eileene, so Eileene is her mother and master. They both use electricity-based skills and similar spear combat. However, Eileene’s spear combat methods and skills are her own complete technique, Lene did not learn or develop the skills on her own, but learned from her mother, Eileene, so she did not make it completely her style.
We expressed this through how the skills are shown and also through dialogue. For example, Eileen says “Take this! Force of lightning!”, showing her confidence in her skills, but Lene says, “That’ll teach you!”, which shows an incomplete technique.
From then on Lene evolves to create her own skills to develop.
The Daybreak Mercenaries’ combat roles and visual flair are very obviously linked to their master, but did this leave more room to develop their personalities as distinct and different from the Seven Knights?
To be specific, the only one of the Daybreak Mercenaries to have a Seven Knights master is Lene. Lukey is Joker’s apprentice, Chaeng Chen is Lee, and Kade was a soldier of Loyal Guardians of Terra Kingdom led by Rook.
Therefore, Lukey takes on the concept of using cards like Joker, and Chaeng Chen uses martial arts like Lee.
Kade is a half-beastkin, half-human so his concept is that he is not accepted by both humans and beastkin.
How do you design a new character stepping into this world. What comes first? Is it the combat, the story, the look?
Seven Knights 2 focuses on IP. One of the biggest factors that users anticipated was character, and in turn, character was very important to us, which is why we focused most on making the characters attractive.
Combat system and story are very important, but since the core content is battle, we established characters according to the combat concept, and then the visuals.
Afterward, we made sure the background of each character was well established so that users would empathize with each character.
Visually how did you move on from Seven Knights?
Seven Knights 2 is a scenario game. It shows off Motion captured, full 3D graphics and increased expression of character allowed us to accentuate reality, and more effectively display scenario’s cinematic aspects through cut scenes.
How critical was the Unreal 4 engine in the character design? The models and decoration feel far intricately realized this time around?
It was critical in making 3D characters and accentuating cinematic aspects of Seven Knights 2.
For anybody looking to find out the fate of the original Seven Knights and try out this impressive looking new mobile adventure from Netmarble, head over to the official Seven Knight 2 website for more now.
