The survivors-like style has seen a meteoric rise, however few have achieved the size and success of Soulstone Survivors. Working a triumphant Steam Early Entry interval, developer Sport Smithing is getting ready to unleash its “energy fantasy simulator” on a complete new viewers.
On June seventeenth, Soulstone Survivors can have its full world launch, not solely on PC but additionally on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X|S for the primary time.
Described as going from stage 1 to 100 in ten minutes, the sport guarantees near-limitless energy, tons of of abilities, and battles of an insane scale. To seek out out what Xbox gamers can anticipate after they dive into the chaos, we spoke with Allan Smith, founding father of Sport Smithing and Sport Lead for Soulstone Survivors, concerning the sport’s journey, its design philosophy, and the challenges of bottling godlike energy for consoles.
Please introduce your self – what’s your function at Sport Smithing and on the creation of Soulstone Survivors?
Hello! My identify is Allan Smith, I’m the founding father of Sport Smithing and Sport Lead for Soulstone Survivors!
So promote it to us – why ought to Xbox gamers be all in favour of Soulstone Survivors?
Soulstone Survivors is actually an influence fantasy simulator. It’s like enjoying a fast-paced action-RPG, however going from stage 1 to 100 in ten minutes, and then you definitely maintain going till you’re actually godlike, whereas rapidly experimenting with totally different builds, combos and discovering that excellent synergy the place you simply disintegrate the whole lot.
With virtually 500 abilities, there’s a great probability it is going to have precisely that excellent playstyle you search.
And the way did Soulstone Survivors first come about?
I used to be all the time an enormous fan of video games like Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, Hades… and when Vampire Survivors got here alongside, we felt that there was one thing there that we may make right into a sport of our personal.
For me personally, I all the time struggled with creating dozens of “alts”, secondary characters in video games like PoE or WoW, to really feel and experiment with totally different lessons and playstyles. Spending tons of of hours to attempt to get these “alts” leveled and equipped, solely to then suppose “hmm, I don’t like this class very a lot” – Soulstone Survivors is an try at an answer for that.
There’s a ton of meta development, all shared between all of your characters, the gameplay is quick and rewarding from the get go, there’s a ton of depth and methods to play that permit for a great deal of exploration, and with each match you unlock one thing that makes you suppose “hmm, what if I attempt that?” We actually tried to create a “class sandbox” with the sport, with a great deal of freedom and issues to attempt.
You’ve had some unbelievable success from the couple of years on Steam through Early Entry. How vital has that interval been for the event of the sport and is there a particular instance of participant suggestions that led to a major change or new characteristic?
It was crucial! From the very starting, we developed the sport as near gamers as we may, gathering suggestions (there have been solely a dozen gamers in our Discord at first) and making an attempt to enhance the sport in the best course. There are soooo many examples of options that we got here up with primarily based on participant suggestions, however to offer a key one I might say the Character Ascensions.
We saved getting a number of suggestions mentioning how totally different characters within the sport didn’t really feel “totally different sufficient” from one another, regardless of every having distinctive weapons and fairly just a few distinctive abilities. So after a number of brainstorming we got here with the Ascensions – these are distinctive powers you unlock for every character that actually empowers the primary playstyles of the character in query. These can fluctuate from taming a panther to trip by means of hordes of enemies, to summoning a ghost ship that bombards enemies with highly effective cannons, and the whole lot in between, actually influencing how the moment-to-moment gameplay feels for every character.
And now you’re going for a full world multi-format launch in June – have there been any challenges bringing the sport from PC to that of console?
That is the primary time we’re bringing a sport to consoles so it has positively been a journey!
At first look, you would possibly suppose it needs to be simple – there are not any tremendous real looking graphics, ray-traced reflections or no matter happening… however along with the entire commonplace challenges of creating positive the sport conforms to all guidelines from totally different platforms, Soulstone Survivors has a fairly distinctive efficiency problem. The sport has principally no limits to participant energy, so you possibly can simply be throwing 1000’s of abilities per second whereas blowing up the whole world. Getting that to run properly on consoles has been an enormous problem!
To present a fast instance of the insanity, at one level we added a tracker to see what number of targets you might hit per second ultimately sport – and we counted over 500,000, with physics and complicated injury calculations for every of these.
So once I say the size may be insane, I imply it!
You promise 22 Void Hunters. May you discuss extra about them, how they differ and of any challenges that quantity has introduced by way of preserving the sport difficult but rewarding?
It’s humorous as a result of once we first promised the variety of characters we’d have within the sport, every character was quite a bit easier than they’re in the present day. However as I discussed in a earlier reply, there was this big demand to make characters an increasing number of distinctive, which inevitably means an increasing number of content material for every of them. So earlier than we added any new characters, we labored on the preliminary 14 that had been launched with Early Entry till they felt in a great place. Had been they attention-grabbing? Did they provide totally different playstyles? Had been they enjoyable to experiment with? We saved on including and including complexity to every of them till we bought there.
Then, we appeared ahead and thought “Man, now we have to make eight new characters with all of this new stuff, too!” I need to admit it was an enormous problem to provide you with new fantasies and playstyles that felt recent and distinctive, however I feel we bought there!
Equally, what concerning the 350 Abilities and 100 totally different weapons? We’d love to listen to extra about these, but additionally of any that missed the mark and bought reduce…
Arising with the just about 500 abilities the sport has (now that we’re getting nearer to launch) has additionally been one other big problem. We all the time attempt to make it possible for abilities have one thing distinctive, that they match totally different holes in several synergies and might all the time be used no less than in just a few builds, however it’s an attention-grabbing design problem as a result of you need to contemplate the constraints of the sport, such because the sheer scale.
Every talent is perhaps launched tons of of instances per second, would possibly cowl the whole display screen, and is launched routinely with out direct enter from the participant… and then you definitely nonetheless should make every of them attention-grabbing on their very own.
We even ran just a few ‘talent suggestion challenges’ in our Discord, the place we bought gamers to recommend abilities they want to see within the sport and vote for them, and people actually helped us quite a bit not solely with cool concepts, however with seeing the kind of factor gamers would wish to see within the sport to tell our future selections.
So once more, I can safely say it has solely been attainable to get right here because of the assistance of our group!
The Summoning mechanic feels like a core a part of the expertise. Are you able to elaborate on the design behind it and the way it all helps escalate the insanity?
Ah sure, it’s positively one of many favorite playstyles among the many group.
By now, there are dozens of abilities that summon minions to battle from you, from skeletons to golems to mooses, haha! And when you are positively NOT pressured to choose summons, they’re often one of many first playstyles new gamers are inclined to gravitate to as a result of the summons can tank hits for you, distract enemies, they will give attention to bosses to take them out rapidly with out your management… plus it’s simply cool taking a look at tons of of tigers, boars, snakes, moose and extra simply mowing down enemies! It’s superior to see there are extra minions preventing for you than towards you, and so they inherit all of your energy ups, stats and the whole lot, to allow them to scale insanely into the late sport as properly!
“Unleash Chaos. Grow to be a God”, is your tagline. How does the gameplay and development empower gamers to achieve that godlike state?
I’ve touched on this a bit of in my earlier solutions, however the important thing means wherein we obtain that is with fast and extra importantly significant development whereas in a match, with energy ups that every one actually make a distinction to your energy stage a method or one other, whereas having this big exterior layer of meta-progression with Character Talent Timber and over 100 runes to decide on that actually focus your gameplay on sure builds.
It’s a two-pronged strategy the place you possibly can really feel happy enjoying a single match, however there’s all the time one thing new unlocked, some new talent or rune or character or weapon that you could attempt, that retains you going ahead within the sport, and it’s actually superior to see how the participant’s curiosity drives them ahead within the sport in a pure method.
Out of the blue they discover themselves extra educated about what’s within the sport, how issues work, and identical to that they provide you with a construct that makes the whole lot that they had achieved to this point really feel weak and so they get that tremendous feeling of “I simply broke the sport.”
Wanting past the June launch, what are your ambitions for Soulstone Survivors on PC and consoles? Are there any plans for post-launch content material or updates that we will look ahead to?
Completely, we have already got a few content material updates deliberate for the months instantly after the total launch.
We haven’t talked a lot about these but however we are going to increase on the techniques already within the sport, such because the newly added sport mode Titan Hunt, with new bosses, maps and challenges.
However extra importantly we’re additionally preserving a watch at what the group is asking and can maintain adjusting our plan primarily based on that.
Rogue Soulstone is in pre-production. Whereas it might be early, are you able to give any hints as to the way it would possibly construct upon or differ from the Soulstone Survivors expertise?
I feel the simplest option to describe it’s that Rogue Soulstone feels nearer to video games like Danger of Rain 2 than Soulstone Survivors.
It’s nonetheless veeeery early, however we’re tremendous excited as a result of it’s a utterly totally different gameplay expertise, that borrows from the identical universe and the place you will note just a few acquainted faces, nonetheless with fast-paced gameplay, difficult bosses and what not. However since abilities are in your direct management and the sport is in precise three dimensions, it actually adjustments the whole lot.
It can nonetheless take a short time earlier than we’re able to share extra particulars, however it’s coming, and we will’t wait to indicate reasonably than inform!
And at last, Soulstone Survivors lets gamers wield unbelievable powers. If you happen to may have one talent or capacity from Soulstone Survivors in actual life for twenty-four hours, which one would you select, and what’s essentially the most mundane or most outrageous factor you’d do with it? 😉
Hahah, I feel I might say Shadow Step – it’s an Murderer talent and possibly one of many extra distinctive ones within the sport, the place you create two portals (one near you and one additional away) and while you work together with one, you teleport to the opposite dealing injury in an space, kind of like a brief distance teleport… you recognize, the kind of stuff you should use to cross the road, teleport upstairs to keep away from you recognize… going up the steps…
Man, this reply makes me suppose I’m lazier than I assumed!
The journey of Soulstone Survivors is a testomony to Sport Smithing’s dedication. Allan Smith’s insights reveal a group obsessed with creating the final word energy fantasy; a sport the place participant curiosity and creativity are the primary drivers of enjoyable.
With post-launch content material already deliberate and with Rogue Soulstone on the horizon, the long run seems vibrant and chaotic. For now, gamers received’t have to attend lengthy to forge their very own godlike hero – or simply discover a extra environment friendly option to keep away from taking the steps.
Our because of Allan Smith for his time. Soulstone Survivors launches on Xbox Sequence X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC on June seventeenth 2025. A free demo is accessible to obtain now on all platforms, together with on Xbox by means of the Xbox Retailer.
We’ll observe with a launch article to let you recognize as soon as Soulstone Survivors is accessible to play in full. And keep tuned for a evaluation from us too.