The next Sword Art Online game from Bandai Namco is Hollow Realization, a brand new original story set in the world of the popular anime by creator Reki Kawahara.
Sword Art Online: Lost Song Producer Yosuke Futami returns to bring Hollow Realization to PS4 and tell a story about the interaction between humans and artificial intelligence while bringing new battle mechanics to fans of the series.
Yosuke Futami spoke to iDigitalTimes through a translator to talk about Hollow Realization’s story, the changes made from Lost Song and how much time you can spend playing this game.
Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity.
iDigitalTimes: What makes Hollow Realization different from Lost Song ?
Futami: “In this game, the players cannot fly in the sky [laughs]. The biggest difference is this title has many players. Over 300 NPCs can become your teammates, while in Lost Song you can only bring in characters from the anime. There are over 200 skills and players can raise their characters to play various roles.”
Is it difficult to master all those characters and skills?
“Yea, for one player it takes a long time. If there are 300 characters and it takes about 30 hours to clear the game, then theoretically it will be about 9000 hours to clear the game with everyone [laughs]. Those features will be difficult to complete for the players.”
How was it to create a story within the Sword Art Online?
“We had Kawahara-sensei, the creator of Sword Art Online, and the animation team so they had some hands in the creation of the story. We would like to let the players enjoy the different experience of Hollow Realization and to dive into the game, which is different from the anime and novels.”
How does the party/team system work?
“Players can create up to four players in your party. And you can go out on the battlefield and if the party wins the battle the party will increase in level. Players can evaluate their party member’s behavior, how they act or how they communicate with the player.
“For example, if you praise your party member the member will tend to take the action you praised. There is an emulation, like an icon that pops up that asks ‘is this good?’ and you can tell the AI character what actions to take and if you do that enough, that is how they will play without you having to command them. For example, if you have a healer who heals and you praise their actions, they will continue to heal and become specialized.
“It’s more focused on what kind of party you want to form. If you have a party of four and if you want to make the party play in a certain kind of style, you can. When we say, ‘how you strengthen your team’ we mean how do players want to build their team to do certain tasks.”
Can you talk about the weapons and equipment?
“Players can strengthen equipment and other weapons in themselves and their party. Equipment and weapons have different abilities, but what’s different from Lost Song is that you can find your own Blacksmith to strengthen your weapons and equipment. And the enhancements change depending on the Blacksmith you visit.
“The appearance of the sword and the ability can change and enhanced as well.
“Also, there are so many strong monsters in this game, and if you defeat them strong items can be found. And in order to strengthen equipment and weapons you will need material to do so and take them to a blacksmith.
“There are 30 blacksmiths in the game. Players can even raise their blacksmiths. Players can figure out their favorite blacksmith in the game and raise their blacksmiths.”
Does each blacksmith specialize in something?
“Each blacksmith has their own individual skill. Each blacksmith has a low level in the beginning of the game, but if you can raise their level those blacksmiths will become specialized. You will find different ones around the world and each will have their own uniqueness.
And even though they may look not that good, they have potential if you train them and have them practice, they can become really good. That’s one of the many things you can do in Hollow Realization.”
You have to let the Blacksmiths join your party to raise levels?
“You can recruit them but that level up is different. But if you want to raise their blacksmith level, you will have to ask them to enhance your weapons and equipment, and the more you do that the higher their levels will become.”
When you were coming up with the story what was your favorite part? A new character or the story itself?
“If we talk about the original story and the way of creating stories, for myself, I enjoy creating stories and characters. Especially for Hollow Realization where the story is the relationship between human and AI.
“What happens if an AI is raised by a good person or if an AI is raised by a bad person, will they become bad? That kind of stuff I had to think about.
“Where should the AI show up in the story and where should I put the human character and how they interact with the AI character and what kind of person the AI character will become. And what happens with the AI character and how they interact. So once I considered all those things I was really excited to create and put each character in the story. I really enjoy making both. And I believe the players will enjoy this kind of storyline where they figure out how and why the AI interacts with certain characters and why they show up in certain parts of the story.”
Can you describe Premiere’s role in the story?
“She is the blank slate in the story and she has a very important role. In the story she finds out why she exists in Hollow Realization . She figures out what her role is in this world and it’s hard for her because when she meets Kirito and she finds out what emotions are and what they are about. Then she finds out that her real role in the world has changed.
“So she will have to come to terms with her original role in the world being changed and the players will find out why it is hard for her and at the same time they will find out how she will overcome the hardships.
“If she is not communicating with humans then she kept herself innocent, pure without emotion, but she would have never figured out her true role. But since she met with Kirito she learned a lot and it helps her understand her role and what she wants to do. That’s a keypoint in this storyline.“
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization releases Nov. 8.
