Salvete amici mei,
The (urgently needed) holiday on Monday and my class today have almost thrown us off our weekly Dev-Blog routine. Don't worry! I have things to tell you and I want to get them off of my chest now: This week I want to talk about how we deal with "history" and maybe give you a little taste of what we can expect from Lost Legions.
First of all, let me emphasize that our mission at Tarock Interactive is to develop games based on actual historical events or episodes. This means that we want to immerse our players in game worlds where history comes alive. We believe that there are fresh perspectives that we want to implement in games. Our titles should put you in the shoes of ordinary people who have to experience a historical timeline, unable to change the course of events, but still having the task of dealing with the circumstances to try to make the best of it or simply stay alive.
Lost Legions is Tarock's first game, but it is by no means the first one developed by our team. However, since we have just started with the new studio, Lost Legions takes a special position in many ways.
Regarding this week's topic: Lost Legions will not be our most historically accurate game, as we will take many creative liberties to bring the "exaggerated" game world to life and tell the adventure we have come up with. On the other hand, the factual basis and starting point of the game as well as its presentation should be as historically correct as possible.
I'm trying not to reveal anything about the game's mysterious story, but I want you to feel confident that the "creative liberties" are supported by established literature. I'm telling you this because I feel that it's time to manage some expectations about our game. From the way the game is being discussed online, I understand that some people want to see a super realistic "life simulator about the Roman army". Although I also find this concept very fascinating, Lost Legions was never intended to be such a game.
By the way the entire team is working on this game, I am absolutely convinced that we will stay true to the theme and deliver a worthy adventure in ancient Rome that satisfies both fans of the gameplay genre and history enthusiasts. We simply have to achieve that, because our commitment to this production should lead to a successful release of the game and enable us to grow our company to a size where we can afford to have full-time historical advisors on the team. (No Pressure, Go Team!)
This, in turn, ensures that future games are created with the active support and consultation of professional historians. This allows us to recreate and simulate history like never before using modern real-time technology. The foundation for this collaboration has already been laid through close cooperation with the Humboldt University of Berlin, where our research is supported by the Department of Ancient Archaeology.
I hope this sheds some light on our approach to developing historical games.
Feel free to continue the discussion here and on our Discord. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best regards,
Jens