Interview of Dejan “Styg” Radisic regarding indie RPG UnderRail (2020)
About indie RPG UnderRail
UnderRail (released in 2015), developed by Serbian game studio Stygian Software, is probably the most hardcore indie RPG game born in the 2010s. Many gamers have labelled UnderRail as a spiritual successor to Fallout, Arcanum, or have called it “Metro 2033 with top-down perspective”.
To be fair and to describe the game in a more neutral way: UnderRail is a isometric role-playing game that focuses on exploration and combat. Stygian Software has created a huge, immersive post-apocalyptic underground world for players to explore and survive in. With a rich character development system, a dedicated crafting system, and an unforgiving combat system, it’s addictingly easy for CRPG lovers to spend a hundred and more hours struggling in UnderRail’s underground wasteland.
I interviewed the lead developer of UnderRail, Dejan “Styg” Radisic, earlier this year as a part of a longer article introducing and reviewing the game for Chinese game media Chuapp.com.
This is the original interview of Styg in English. I tried to ask some questions not asked in previous interviews:
1. Hi Styg, if I was correct, Underrail currently only has English version. How do gamers in Serbia think about this. Do they not feel a bit unfair since it is a game made in Serbia, have you heard any complaints and moans :) ?
Styg: That is correct. The game is not that popular or well known in Serbia and the small percent of the gamers that enjoy this type of games are fairly literate in English, as is the general populace, so no I don’t get many complaints on that account from them. I do get a lot of complaints from Russians and Chinese though. ;)
— — — —
2. Do you have any plans to have the game translated to other languages? .
Styg: No plans at the moment. I’d like to eventually provide the tools for the communities to create their own translations, but, being the the sole programmer in our team, I’m already stretched way too thin by all the different features of the upcoming game.
— — — —
3. Have you considered modifying the engine of Underrail to make other types of games upon it? For example a party-based tactical RPG, or a game with real-time combat, or even an adventure-RPG hybrid game like Disco Elysium?
Styg: God willing, I’m going to write a new RPG engine at some point, there’s just so much stuff I’d like to handle differently now, but I’m probably going to stick to the single-character single-player experience when it comes to RPGs.
I’d like to do other things in the future, besides RPGs though, such as turn-based strategy /RPG / adventure game hybrid; we have a certain concept that we’ve been tossing around the studio for years now, but it’s going to have to wait a long while, I’m afraid.
— — — —
4. Have any gaming industry syndicates tried to lay their evil hands on Underrail? Does you have plans to make more commercial games rather than staying self-sufficient in the future?
Styg: No attempts yet and I don’t think there’s anything, at least in my current situation, that they could really offer me that I’d be interested in.
I’d like to think we do make “commercial games” already since we’re selling our games and turning a profit. ;)
— — — —
5. Though only limited screenshots have been released, UnderRail: Infusion looks really promising. Would you consider it an Underrail 2 or Underrail 1.5 ? Can you tell any estimated hours of gaming provided by Infusion?
Styg: I think of it as Underrail 1.5. We’re going to update the game in terms of world design and graphics significantly, but mechanically it’s going to remain mostly the same, especially when it comes to combat mechanics.
It’s way too early to talk about the game’s length, but it’s going to be shorter than the current game, which is way too long. We’re going for something more replay-able in terms of content.
— — — —
6. Going back to 2008 when you first started to plan the game. It was the time when many good indie games starting to pop up, and they somehow changed the impression of “good games must come from big companies”. I want to ask if the new wave of indie games around 2008 had affected your decision on creating Underrail? Have any of those indie games given you any inspiration, be it technical-wise or artistic-wise?
Styg: I started the development before the indie renaissance, and I remember back then I was thinking that if I couldn’t get the game sold in the end, I would just release it for free. But, fortunately, the said renaissance started just around that time, which did give me additional motivation.
When the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter put old-school RPGs in the mainstream view again, we rode that wave as well. So we were blessed by many fortunate events and circumstances when it comes to UnderRail’s commercial success.
As for game design/development itself, I didn’t really look towards anything being made in that period, as far as I remember. That’s not to say that that stuff wasn’t good, it’s just that I already had a clear idea of what I wanted to do.
— — — —
7. What do you think about CRPG in general in this coming new decade? There are some promising big RPG titles coming to us this year and next year, any new games you really want to play?
Styg: I don’t have great expectations. I don’t think I’m going to be served with the kind of RPG that I personally prefer (though I’d love to be proven wrong), at least in the near future, but I do think we’re going to see some majorly successful AAA titles.
The games I’m looking forward to playing in the future have mostly been out for years already and I just haven’t had the time to visit them.
Thank you Styg!
Poppel Yang
2020–03
