We're not going to be constrained by anything except for money."Īs development on the first S hadowrun Returns project began to wrap in 2013, Gitelman and Harebrained founder Jordan Weisman began soliciting pitches with that one constraint in mind. "The rule here is, we do whatever the fuck we want, and that's that. "We call ourselves 'Harebrained' for a reason," Gitelman told Ars earlier in our studio visit. So why is a company with a mouse-driven, strategy-RPG pedigree ( Shadowrun Returns, Battletech) and tabletop expertise ( Golem Arcana) dipping its toes into something like a procedurally generated online slasher? When you play this game with friends, your most dangerous obstacles will be the very people you're counting on to survive. The multiplayer shines for many reasons, but Gitelman is correct: the biggest one might be the one that looked worst on paper. Folks, a roguelike take on Dark Souls exists-and its must-buy potential hinges entirely on its stellar multiplayer mode, which Harebrained was kind enough to premiere first and exclusively to Ars Technica.
I thought to myself, maybe I'd write the game up soon, but certainly not during my busy E3 schedule.īy the end, I found myself clearing my figurative table and running behind on other deadlines, just for Necropolis. The single-player demo I'd played at a press event in Santa Monica a few weeks prior was fine enough, and I asked for a studio visit and a little more gameplay, having not been entirely sold by my first session. An hour earlier, Gitelman had sat me down with my second-ever demo of Necropolis, a Dark Souls-inspired dungeon crawler, and I went into that playtest with raised eyebrows and low expectations. You're stopping the elevator for that question? Actually, what sounded like a generic, nerdily phrased exclamation was pretty important in this case. " Now do you see why we left permadeath in our multiplayer mode?" Studio co-founder Mitch Gitelman was running in my direction, the way someone might dash if a visitor left a wallet or set of keys behind, but it wasn't that. KIRKLAND, Wash.-As I made my way out of Harebrained Studios' modest, Seattle-area office on a gray June afternoon, I heard a shout: "Hold that elevator!"
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