Lately, the RTS genre has been in a bit of a slump. There have not been any new entries in a long-time, leaving fans with no choice but to wait until the next Total War game, whenever that releases. Thankfully, PlaySide is attempting to fill that void with Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, a new RTS set in the world of the beloved novel/TV franchise. I recently had the chance to interview game director Ryan McMahon about the upcoming game and what fans can expect from the new release. We hope you enjoy this exclusive interview, and we’d like to thank PlaySide for making this coverage possible!
What about the show informed the design of each faction? Obviously design-wise, they match the show almost identically. But mechanically, how did you kind of decide, “Oh, the Starks should play like this, the Lannisters should play like this?”
Ryan McMahon (RM): So a lot of that comes down to what the faction’s motivations are, and also what they’re known for doing throughout the show. So when you think of the Starks, you think of Honor. You think of, um, you know, unyielding. You think of strong resolve. You think of the Wall. You think of Winterfell. You think of defenses. So that lends itself to us building the Starks in a way that supports that type of design. So they are more about fortifying a position, being able to hold ground, very defensible.
Whereas when you think about the Lannisters, you think of gold, wealth, power. So a lot of their faction mechanics actually revolve around that with the ability for you to go into debt. For you to be able to trade resources, uh, you can trade resources between gold and influencing. The game has two resources. Primary resources, gold is your primary resource, influence is your secondary resource. Every faction has their own unique way in which they can earn influence, outside of their influence building. So for the Starks, when you go out and claim a territory, the longer you can hold that position, it will slowly earn you more influence over time. Because they’re all about like holding the gold, holding ground, holding the wall, right?
The Lannisters, the way they can get extra influences, they can trade gold for influence. So they trade gold for power, and they can trade power for gold, so they can trade that influence back for gold as well. They’re able to interchange their resources. And then on top of that, the Lannisters are also able to go into debt. That means that things while they’re in debt do come small, but that debt mechanic plays into the Lannisters always pay their debts.
What about Game of Thrones was so appealing to you as a studio and for this framework?
RM: When we were actually building our first RTS Age of Darkness: Final Stand…When we started the development of that, it was just after Game of Thrones had finished airing. And we based the initial premise of “The Long Night” episode, where the White Walkers were attacking Winterfell and everyone was rallying as the last bastion of defense to human kind. And Age of Darkness actually revolved around that premise where you have your keep like Winterfell and you’ll have to survive from this horde of the undead and just unrelenting darkness. We were very inspired by Game of Thrones from the beginning of our RTS journey. And then towards the end of Age of Darkness, we had the opportunity to work on the IP.
Obviously you already have a lot of big fans in this studio who love the IP. And I think that when you think about RTS games and IP that resonate, Game of Thrones, is one of the very few outside of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars that can play really well in this space. You know, you know, you have this massive world, you have these really interesting characters, and when you play you have houses and factions and territories and wealth. It’s all a war and all a conflict, and strategy games is one of the best ways to capture that.
I can imagine some people by now would be like, “Why do we need a new Game of Thrones game?” It’s been X amount of years since the show ended. But we also have House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Did these new shows inspire you at all?
RM: Yeah, they have been. House of the Dragon is actually being some of the best reference when it comes to battles. Because Game of Thrones actually skips a lot of the battles. You focus more on the people and intrigue
and the politics behind the scenes. The battles happen, but then it cuts to black and you skip it. It’s only really in the later seasons where they have more budget, such as with “Battle of the Bastards” where you get to see them. Whereas House of the Dragon, they show the battles. You look at the latest season in House of the Dragon and there’s pretty awesome battles that you see in that. And that gives us a lot of guidance on what war looks like in Westeros.
So this is a game that is for both fans of the RTS genre and fans of the series. What are some elements of this game that you think would appeal to those who have played like almost every single RTS that was released for the last 10 years, for instance. Or who have never touched an RTS or who would barely touch games in general, but just really like Game of Thrones?
RM: So starting with Game of Thrones. So Game of Thrones, I think the initial premise of rewrite the fate of the realm is what draws people in. Everyone loved the show, everyone’s watched it, and everyone has their own fan theories about how things could have ended and how the story could have been told. And in this game, you will be able to create your own pathways and your own stories around the series. That’s why the game doesn’t actually fall within any particular timeline within the show. That’s why you see Robb Stark, that’s why you see
Jon Snow, that’s why you see Tywin, that’s why you see Jamie. Because you can construct your own pathway in our sandbox campaign.
And as an RTS fan, RTS fans haven’t got a lot over the last 10 – 15 years. They’ve had Age of Empires 4 which is fantastic, Tempest Rising recently, which is fantastic. But overall, it’s not like they have a lot of games to choose from. And a lot of these games all do different things, which is great. But what we bring to the table is more of this squad-based, tactile gameplay in an really well-established IP. And that feeling and that responsiveness that you get out of the gameplay and then that fast-paced nature should really appeal to a bunch of different types of strategy players, because you have your combat gameplay, you have your tactical nature of the units, and being responsive.
You have your base building, for people that like basebuilding components in a strategy game. And then you’ve got your campaign, for people that want a campaign and sandbox experience. And then you’ve also got multiplayer. And it’s kind of hitting a lot of layers to RTS that ultimately, it’s really hard to support that many layers in RTS, which is why you see so many RTS games kind of pick one. This should appeal to a lot of players who can jump into different components of the game.
RM: We will also reveal that we’re going to have The Mountain and Arya Stark in the game. We’re going to be slowly revealing more heroes over time that’re going to be in the game. Each faction has quite some heroes that they can recruit. The Mountain is a part Lannister faction. He’s their heavy brute hero, his size and strength can strike fear into his enemies. Then, we have Arya, the Master Assassin for House Stark. When she was trained on under the Faceless Men, she can assassinate enemy heroes and steal their faces and use their powers for a limited amount of time. They join the growing roster of heroes; so far, we’ve got Robb Stark, Jon Snow, The Ghost and Grey Wind, Jamie Lannister, Tywin Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and the White King. And now, in addition, we’ve also got The Mountain and Arya Stark.
You mentioned right at the beginning of this, that there isn’t really a set timeline that this belongs to. Does that mean that all bets are off, essentially, in terms of heroes that you can add in from other Game of Thrones shows?
RM: Yeah, to answer that, we’re specifically in the HBO Game of Thrones, television series. But, you know, we’ve got a lot of ideas and plans for how we can expand with our roster and heroes beyond launch.
You mentioned creating the feeling of armies colliding with each other. Something I noticed in the trailer was the sound design. What kind of went into that, making sure the sound design was as good as possible and kind of like how that may have enhanced the gameplay even more?
RM: By having a really good sound design team! (laughs) We’ve got the audio design team that worked on Age of Darkness has been carried over to this project, and they’ve taken a lot of their learnings from that. I’m not going to go into too many of the details cause I might butcher it, but they’ve essentially built a lot of systems in the game that recognize army scale, impact moments, like certain events that can fire off. And all of that goes into playing a certain sound design moment or like a note.
That also then pairs into the music, so we’ve got our own composed music that pairs into the weight of what’s happening on the screen at the time, the size of the army, how much you progress through the tech tree, whether you’re winning or losing. The sound design system essentially accounts for all these layers and then plays certain sounds and music over the top to emphasize a feeling of that moment, the same way the show did. So for example, if you’re playing as the Lannisters and you’re winning, you’ll start to hear the faint sounds of the Rains of Castamere. Yeah. If you are playing as the Starks and you’re losing to the Lannisters, you might also hear the Rains of Castamere in the background. So all those little things really go a long way in evoking certain emotional moments.
Last question: did you happen to get any of the original actors reprise their roles?
RM: Nope. We had Charles Danse come in and he’s actually done the VO for the trailer. So that’s actually Charles Dance doing it. In the game though, none of the original actors are doing the VO.
Good to know! Thank you so much for your time today, and I look forward to seeing the full game!
RM: Pleasure to meet you, thank you!
