Wccftech’s first engagement at Gamescom 2024 was with Yellow Brick Games, a Canadian studio preparing to launch its debut game, the fantasy action/adventure Eternal Strands. The developer was founded in late 2020 by Mike Laidlaw, former Dragon Age franchise director at BioWare. After showing a new trailer at the Xbox Showcase, there’s a new gameplay video released today.
Most importantly, the embargo for the Gamescom 2024 hands-on is now over. You can read our enthusiastic preview here here; this article, on the other hand, is dedicated to our chat with the game’s director, Frederic St-Laurent, who confirmed the game’s estimated length and talked about the emphasis on physics designed into the title and much more.
Eternal Strands is scheduled to launch in early 2025 computer, PlayStation 5and Xbox Series S|X.
Can you introduce the main character?
Frederick St-Laurent: You play as Brynn, the outpost scout for a band of magic wielders called Weavers. This is your base camp, where all of your companions are located, the blacksmith, the enchanter, and the lorekeeper.
At this point in the story, you’ve just made your way through the Enclave, a magical place that’s been closed off for 50 years. You’re the first one to enter since then, and when you enter, everything is kind of destroyed and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on here.
Your goal here is to defeat a big epic monster to collect some magic threads and equip yourself to become more powerful.
You mentioned the big monster. Was Shadow of the Colossus a big inspiration for Eternal Strands?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We’re all big fans of that. A mix of that, Dragon’s Dogma and of course Zelda has been another inspiration because of the bright colors.
You also have an emphasis on physics, right?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, our character is driven by physics. All of our climbing is physically constrained. We have powers using telekinesis that make things move. We completely simulate heat and cold in every pocket of air, like every cell of air in the environment, every two meters is simulated with temperature. If you heat up a rock, it becomes your energy ball, basically, and if it falls on the grass, the grass will ignite and so on.
This also looks a lot like Zelda.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, but we talked to them as well and went a little bit further, because they have good chemistry in terms of element to element, but they don’t have the air being simulated per se.
The Nintendo Switch probably wasn’t powerful enough to do that.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yeah, maybe that’s true. So like I said, Brynn is the scout. She’s the one who goes out while the others wait at base camp. She’s a sort of Warrior, so she can use the sword and shield. You can cycle between the three weapons you have, which also include the bow and the two-handed greatsword. Each weapon has a base attack and then an alternate attack. If you attack like this and can hold it, you can cycle and cycle again for a more powerful attack.
Are there combos or anything like that in Eternal Strands?
Frederick St-Laurent: There are combos, but our philosophy is more like… It’s sword and magic, but magic is the most powerful, so the weapons are complementary. All the weapons have some magic as well. If you hold this one, you can see that it creates these ice spikes. If you go with this one, it has a telekinesis bubble that attracts things. You also have the fire spells. Be careful not to stand in the fire.
Frederic St-Laurent: Does your own fire also harm you?
Frederick St-Laurent: Oh yeah, it’s fire. You have some resistance while you’re casting it, but after that, fire is fire, and you can see that it’s going to spread and burn.
I see that the breath of fire melts the ice.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, exactly. Oh, I forgot about that one. It’s a kind of magic tube. You can put an object in there or throw yourself in there as well, or throw Molten Barrage in there. We emphasize synergies.
Is there crafting in Eternal Strands?
Frederick St-Laurent: We’ve made crafting part of the system, so it’s not like you have a piece of armor and you need these ingredients. There are many types of fabrics, and the way it works is what you loot, each piece, like, say, the ones you just picked up, those are good for cold resistance and not so good for heat resistance.
As you input them into your recipe, it will display stats. Some armor pieces have a preset step at the beginning, so, okay, this will be the best against heat, and then you can increase it or change it or make it more versatile, but this really goes through a more systematic approach. It also changes the appearance, like changing the color of the armor piece.
What is the structure of the world like? I mean, are there basically several zones that you pass through?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, exactly. Eternal Strands isn’t an open world, but there are a number of large maps that you can roam and explore, and they all connect to each other.
We also have physics-based environmental challenges that reward you with some new recipes. In this case, you just unlocked the frost two-hander, which is the opposite version of the big sword of fire you had. You’ll need to return to base camp to craft something, since you can’t craft in the field.
Everything is fully destructible, everything will start burning. Another thing I really like with crafting and looting is, let’s say you burn a tree. So the tree will drop something in the end, but you can get better wood from it, because it’s a charwood.
If you freeze an enemy with that much force, they will become brittle and destroy all of their metal-related loot tables. If you burn an enemy, all of their woven resources will burn as well, so as a player, you have control over the loot table by playing directly with them.
Do you also emphasize crossing?
Frederick St-Laurent: Lightweight. You can climb anything you want. Also, if you want to manually grab onto something, it’s the Y button.
I think you can climb big monsters.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, and they will try to shake you, so just like in Shadow of the Colossus, you need to hold on tight to avoid getting shaken.
Do you have difficulty settings in the game?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, but it’s a minor change. It only increases Brynn’s health. If you play on easy mode, we’ll just add more health to you. We’re an indie, so we’re not changing enemy spawns or behaviors.
Do you have a release window?
Frederick St-Laurent: Early 2025. We’ll also take a look at everything else that’s coming out in that timeframe. By the way, the basic loop in Eternal Strands is nuanced by the fact that you have quests. In this demo, we don’t emphasize that, but you’ll interact with companions, so they’ll ask you to do something for them, and there’s dialogue. The game is fully voiced in French and English.
This is perhaps where Mike Laidlaw’s influence is most felt.
Frederick St-Laurent: Exactly. While I’m more interested in all the systems, crafting and loot, Mike’s background is more about bringing the story to life, so we balance each other out.
But it’s not like Dragon Age, where you can make choices, right?
Frederick St-Laurent: No, no, the focus is still more on action and adventure. Stories play a fair role in this, though. You have some dialogue choices, but they won’t change the outcome of the story.
Okay, so it’s just to learn more about the story or get more information.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, and it will also influence your relationship with your peers.
Do you have an estimate of the length?
Frederick St-Laurent: It’s between 25 and 35 hours.
So is there any side content?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes. The last playthrough I did, I took my time and everything, but I ended up with 40 hours doing every mission in the game. I expect players to go a little faster than that, but still, the main bath alone takes 25 hours.
Have you decided on the price yet?
Frederick St-Laurent: To be confirmed. Not yet defined.
Who is the editor of Eternal Strands?
Frederick St-Laurent: We are self-publishing.
You live in Canada, right?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, Quebec province. We are in Quebec City, but we have a satellite studio in Montreal as well.
How big is the studio currently?
Frederick St-Laurent: We are 70 years old.
Do you consider yourself AA+?
Frederick St-Laurent: I would say we’re an independent studio. That’s what I would say. After that, it’s not a one-man game because we’re still 70, but we’re not trying to be AAA in any sense.
I saw that there is also item rarity in the game, right?
Frederick St-Laurent: Exactly. By the way, when you die, your companion can recover some of the crafting resources you gathered, but not all of them. You can select.
What was it like developing in Unreal Engine 5?
Frederick St-Laurent: It was great. There are so many features. The Chaos Engine for physics was quite new, so we were lucky to have good contacts with them and I have to say I’m kind of happy that they’re impressed with what we’ve been doing with their very new Chaos Engine.
That’s the only thing they’ve improved, right? But few games have used it so far.
Frederick St-Laurent: Yes, exactly. So they probably like to add more serious test cases.
Also, there doesn’t seem to be any shader stuttering. A lot of UE games have been stuttering a lot lately, especially on PC, but this one seems to be running very smoothly.
Frederick St-Laurent: Thanks.
Do you have a kind of talent tree?
Frederick St-Laurent: No, it’s really gear-focused rather than having RPG-like skill trees. You gather magical powers by defeating these big monsters and you loot stuff and gear yourself up. Simple as that.
How did you ensure that the boss fights would be varied? When you have a game focused primarily on large monsters, maybe the problem is how do you make them different from each other, right?
Frederick St-Laurent: Yeah, exactly. We tried to create different archetypes. This one is more of a Mage type, so he doesn’t move around as much. If you stay away, he’ll hurt you more than if you get close. He has less to do when you get close than another one we would have where they’d be constantly attacking you, and so you’re trying to stay away.
We’re trying to create action verbs, say, come closer, avoid the mouth. That’s how we create the rest of their skills.
Can you do the same thing over and over again? Like, freeze it over and over again. Because in some games, they build resistance, and you have to change things up a little bit.
Frederick St-Laurent: No, we don’t feel the need to do that.
Do enemies change with the time of day?
Frederick St-Laurent: Not for the night. However, since the Enclave is a kind of magical and disorganized place, sometimes it can get like drought, super intense heat and sometimes, for example, cold. And yes, the enemy will change. You will have more cold-related enemies than normal ones.
It looks like a game that YouTubers could use to create really cool shorts.
Frederick St-Laurent: Oh yeah, yeah, I’m wishing for that. By the way, you can upgrade every power in the full game.
That was a really cool demo.
Frederico Street–Lawrence: Thank you very much.
Thank you for your time.