14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at The Chinese Room announces that it is removing the limit of one hour of exploration for its upcoming Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, which is due to be one of the first major indie releases on the PlayStation 4.
Dan Pinchbeck, a leading developer working on the project, tells Eurogamer that the company initially was very interested in creating a Groundhog Day experience, as detailed in the demo that was offered during the Gamescom 2013 event.
Since then, the studio has explored the idea more and decided that it needed to be eliminated to make gameplay more engaging and to make sure that frustration never set in.
The developer explains that, “It’s an artificial conceit that doesn’t necessarily produce a good player experience. The idea is probably more suited to an arcade-style game, but not really good for a non-linear story-driven drama.”
The one-hour exploration time might have been eliminated from Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, but the company still wants to make sure that players feel the pressure of time as they engage with the world The Chinese Room creates.
Pinchbeck adds, “there are things you can do in terms of how the narrative is structured and how the player relates to the structure of that narrative and how time relates to all of that, that you can’t do in another medium. That’s something that’s pure games.”
The experience that Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture will offer cannot be replicated by any other medium and will deliver real drama, challenging players to deal with a range of emotions.
The title is set to be launched on the PlayStation 4 in 2014, one of the major indie titles that will show Sony’s commitment to the genre.
The studio is best known for the work it has done on Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.