Cloud-based streaming for video games is a relatively new concept, and no doubt has had its biggest thrust into the mainstream thanks to the tech conglomerate Google. The company has its fingers in many pies, from running the world's largest search engine to providing a free email service, but it did not truly step into the gaming industry's spotlight until announcing Google Stadia at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. For Stadia's announcement the name of the game was accessibility: it was a platform supposedly able to support 4K, 60 FPS games on any screen compatible with Google Chrome.
As incredible as the concept sounds, cloud-service gaming has experienced growing pains. A stable Internet connection is not always guaranteed, and Stadia's competitor Nvidia GeForce NOW has shown that neither are game libraries. However, Google has acquired its own AAA developer in Typhoon Studios and has announced a number of titles which will be timed exclusives such as Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die! 3. Game Rant spoke with Robot Entertainment Design Director Jerome K. Jones about the developer's decision to initially keep its upcoming game as a timed exclusive for Stadia.
Jones said Robot Entertainment was invited to see Stadia and potentially pitch game ideas well before the platform was unveiled. The team had no plans to create a sequel to the tower defense/action game hybrid Orcs Must Die! going into that meeting but found members of the Stadia team were fans of the nearly 10-year-old series. From there, ideas for how to handle a next-generation Orcs title were discussed and "things just evolved into a cool partnership."
The major idea that seemed to get the process rolling on Orcs Must Die! 3 was its War Scenarios and War Machines, which provide players the opportunity to take on "well over 1,000 [enemies]" in a single scenario on giant maps that are completely covered in trap grid. Players can build devices like a gigantic Flip Trap or the operable Mega Boom Barrel Launcher to help keep armies at bay. Jones said one of the "awesome" things about Stadia is it allows the developers to create the same experience of encountering a War Scenario, no matter the size, for everyone "regardless of their machine."
"When you think about that, that's pretty cool because if you have a crappy machine and we release this game, you won't be able to have all the cool things a War Scenario can offer you. You'd have to turn off your effects and live with the best-case scenario ... And then probably have crappy frame rate. With Stadia, everybody gets the same experience."
Jones does recognize that there is "controversy" around Stadia, and that Orcs Must Die! 3 will suffer for those with the "slowest Internet on the planet," but says that would be the same problem for every game and has nothing to do with Orcs itself. In fact, he goes on to applaud the programming department at Robot Entertainment for doing a "friggin' awesome" job creating a game with an "impressive" performance given the amount of enemies that players can encounter on-screen at the same time.
Stadia's universal cloud service is another great thing about the platform according to Jones, and one of the reasons Robot Entertainment decided to partner with Google. He said the ability to pick up a controller, a keyboard and mouse, or whatever set-up the player prefers and use them on any given screen makes the technology something to behold. He believes that more people "are just going to have to give it a shot" because Stadia feels like a "first step" in the direction of creating a platform-less world in the future. As far as moving to other consoles, Jones said the team is focusing completely on Stadia for now because "we want to make the best game we can given those boundaries," however he said one can surmise they might want to do "something more" based on how the game performs.
While Orcs Must Die! 3 evolves the series' traditional gameplay mechanics in-part thanks to Stadia, the story surrounding those mechanics is similarly being built-up as an evolution of what came to pass in the first and second games — though not its most recent spin-off entry Orcs Must Die! Unchained. This game will begin "approximately" 23 years after Orcs Must Die! 2, with previous protagonists Gabby the Sorceress and Max the War Mage now attempting to rebuild the fallen Order by taking on apprentices.
Jones said he does not want to give much away about how the story develops, but hints that the narrative team at Robot Entertainment tries "very hard to think forward or backwards as far as story" goes. The devs often talk about "hopes and dreams" for what an Orcs Must Die! 4 or an Orcs Must Die! 10 would look like.
"With the gaming industry, you never know. I think Orcs is strong though, it has a very strong fan following, which is good because it's kind of funny and lighthearted. It seems to strike a nerve with a lot of people."
Ultimately, the story and game mechanics will boil down to one central conceit if the announcement trailer from Gamescom 2019 is any indication: "Heroes gotta hero, and orcs must die." According to Jones, heroes will be able to hero however they want — to an extent. Orcs Must Die! 3 will not gate its story progression to anyone who would prefer to play at lower difficulties or chooses not to re-play scenarios until they achieve its highest rating, five skulls.
He thinks it's a "very friendly" system for newcomers and veterans alike, and one that encourages replayability even if it makes the overall experience more complicated to design. "There's a lot of room in there. It's almost like a difficulty within a difficulty, the skull system," he said. "We allow you to move through content either way, it's just about getting more skulls to get more upgrades and things in your spellbook."
This replayability will be facilitated by post-game content, endless variants of the 18 scenarios that make up the story campaign, and further support on Stadia for the entire run of its timed exclusivity. Jones also said there is the potential for future DLC, such as new scenarios to encounter, but that it "has not been completely worked out." Either way, Orcs Must Die! 3 will have "more hours" than either of its predecessors.
During the initial reveal of Stadia at Google's 2019 Game Developers Conference keynote it said the platform can support 1,000-player battle royale matches, which seemed farfetched considering the standard set by games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite is 100. Orcs Must Die! 3 is not a perfect analog given most of the entities on-screen will be run by AI, but the potential of seeing hundreds of enemies appear in a single wave of a War Scenario might just help developers see what Stadia is capable of. Jones said "we want to make sure we keep giving [our fans] more of what they want, which sometimes the answer to that question is 'more.' More levels, more traps, more enemies. We try very hard to fulfill those wishes."
Orcs Must Die! 3 will be available on Google Stadia in Spring 2020.