Following final month’s launch, we spoke with The Pirate Queen’s director to study extra about this Nineteenth-century journey. Learn on for our full interview:
Created by Singer Studios, The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend is a story journey sport centered on puzzle-solving and exploration. It stars Lucy Liu as Cheng Shih, chief of the South China Sea’s Purple Flag Fleet. In our current evaluation, we discovered it to have a refreshing deal with exploration and story over fight.
Throughout GDC 2024, we sat down with director Eloise Singer for a Q&A session. I am informed The Pirate Queen started as a movie, which initially was placed on maintain as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. Having beforehand mentioned creating a sport with Dr. Dave Ranyard, former studio director at PlayStation’s (quickly to be closed) London Studio, she acquired funding from the UK’s Artistic England. Later successful Finest Debut at Raindance, Meta agreed to help The Pirate Queen.
Asking how Lucy Liu acquired concerned, Singer explains she approached her group with this story after being accepted for the Tribeca Competition, speaking concerning the historic accuracy facet of this story along with her. A key purpose was to make sure gamers really feel like they’re moving into Nineteenth-century China, pointing to the sport’s ships for example.
“We initially made the ships with wood pack and steel nails. Nonetheless, our researchers informed us that China did not use steel nails again then. Our artists needed to take away the entire nails and change them with dovetail joints to make sure we have been consultant of that point.”
As for selecting VR particularly, Singer factors to the medium’s immersive potential.
“It is the one medium that may do that story in such an immersive means. There isn’t any different solution to step onto a Nineteenth-century pirate ship. For us, with the ability to expertise this via a feminine chief of the time that individuals have seemingly forgotten about is admittedly thrilling.”
Singer Studios wasn’t focusing on “highball players” with The Pirate Queen, as an alternative aiming for VR newcomers via extra “comfy” gameplay and fewer advanced interactions. Singer tells me that is why the rowing part go on-rails as an alternative of providing free motion, as a way of mitigating movement illness.
“We’re not making an attempt to reinvent the wheel in mechanics. We wished to create a sport that is not violent with out fight, as a result of we would like one thing that youngsters can play that folks are actually enthusiastic about… it is thrilling to champion one thing that new gamers can come into and really feel fairly empowered by.”
Concerning fight, Singer stated the group “actually thought of it” and considers its exclusion a “big artistic danger.” Nonetheless, this could have gone in opposition to the studio’s values, in order that they settled on a sequence close to the tip involving oblique fight by lighting cannons to create one thing cinematic.
“We do not wish to create issues the place you are killing individuals. I wish to go away a legacy the place I am creating video games that encourage individuals, so it did not really feel proper.”
It has been no secret since The Pirate Queen’s announcement that the studio is trying to champion feminine empowerment. Singer touches upon that a number of occasions, telling me she’s proud to create a sport that champions narrative and feminine characters and factors to her earlier venture, Mrs Benz. She believes getting new audiences in requires with the ability to create completely different narratives.
“If I evaluate it to movie, it is like if we simply had James Bond within the cinema each single day. In the end, 50% of players are girls, and that is not mirrored in VR but. We have to create video games in VR that replicate that with a purpose to appeal to that viewers.”
As for what’s subsequent, Singer Studios beforehand confirmed multimedia plans for a graphic novel and movie. Whereas the VR sport focuses on the night time Cheng Shih rises to energy, I am informed the graphic novel’s first quantity shall be a extra expansive story about her complete life, beginning along with her early days as a flower boat lady earlier than ultimately opening a playing den. Future volumes will deal with different pirates, whereas the movie shall be animated.
The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend is accessible now on the Meta Quest platform and SteamVR.
