So we have to work out a balance between sources and other evidence that we can find.”
With Bà Triệu for example, there’s not a lot of documentation of her and in a lot of cases what is there is impossible stuff like her being nine feet tall and going into battle bare-breasted. “For some other characters, it might be something like the costuming that’s difficult. “When we added Kupe and the Maori in an earlier expansion, there was this very involved research process in determining how we can represent him in a way that’s appropriate to the culture,” Strenger said. Many of the figures that represent the less expansionist cultures throughout history also tend to be less well understood within history. From a development perspective it also means, at times, that actually researching up the character can be a challenge, particularly when the development team is so focused on being respectful and appropriate to the culture, Strenger added. Mechanically this results in civilisations that can earn victory without being entirely focused on expansion. She became famous in history because she fought back against imperialist forces in her country.”
Someone like Bà Triệu in Vietnam is a good example of this. “One of the ways that we try and ask these questions is not only including the expected figures from history, but also intentionally picking civilisations that we on the other side of those conflicts. We understand that some game mechanics lend themselves to that, but we very intentionally try and play against that, and we do that through our civilisation choices,” Strenger said.
“We don’t want to have just this western Whig history view of what civilisations are, that they go on and into the new world and conquer everyone and that’s progress. The most obvious element that has been added has been the new leaders and civilisations, and Firaxis did get creative with some of the decisions they made as to who would be added to the roster. It’s not just the new gameplay modules that the New Frontier pass has added to Civilization VI. “With traditional expansions and DLC the time frame that we could implement feedback was longer than we liked, while with the season pass we were able to get this rolling process going where fans could play the parts that we’ve released, and we still had the ability to update every part of the game as we’ve gone along.”īuilding games for those that love history “We already knew that our community is so valuable for us with feedback, but this season pass experience really cemented that,” Schultz said. “It was the first season pass that the studio has ever done, so it has been really exciting for us to be able to lead that expedition. “We’ve been very happy with how the New Frontier pass has gone,” Kevin Schultz, associate producer, added. For example, if the zombies are affecting a game system, and another module is also on and affecting the same gameplay system in a way that is incompatible with the zombies, that would have been bad… but having the modules complement each other in a way that causes interesting gameplay is really fun. “We also need to be careful that they were modular. “We want the scenarios to enhance a particular type of gameplay role, make sense and not feel like they were just bolted on,” Strenger said.
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In an industry that often uses season passes as a way to extracting additional cash from players for things that really should be either free or, at best, sold as conventional DLC, this New Frontier Pass really should be held up as an example of the model done right. Even without the new civilisations, leaders, and units, the New Frontier Pass has done more to add to the base game than any other season pass that I’ve experienced. It’s difficult to describe just how significantly all these optional additional game modes change up the basic game of Civilization VI.