Talking Spacelords (Part 1) With MercurySteam Co-Owner & Game Director Enric Álvarez

Chatting to Enric Álvarez - cross-platform, pay to win or pay to progress - and more

Recently it was announced that Raiders of the Broken Planet is about to undergo a huge change into what will be known as Spacelords. Last month I got to visit the Headquarters of developers MercurySteam in Madrid. You can read about the sweeping changes of Raiders as it moves into Spacelords in my initial piece from that visit.

To begin with, I had the opportunity to talk to co-owner of MercurySteam and Game Director of Raiders of the Broken Planet - soon to be known as Spacelords. We spoke about Spacelords and the move from Raiders, as well as a number of varying topics - even to a potential move to Switch.

Chris Wray: What exactly is going to happen with Raiders of the Broken Planet and the changes you're planning?

Enric Álvarez: So on August the 23rd, Raiders of the Broken Planet is reborn into Spacelords - a new free to play beginning for our online shooter.

This is about what players want from us. As far as we've learned during the eleven months since we released the original Raiders campaign September last year. People want two things from any online game and specifically our game. They want us to consistently take care of the game and consistently improve the game, make new additions and add new stuff. Second, they want a huge community around the game. The Raiders veterans know we delivered in the first point but are still learning on the second one.

Chris: What's the driving force behind these changes?

Enric: Back in September we hoped the low price point of 9.99 per campaign, which was the original model, was going to be very attractive to people. Quite cheap compared to the standards, especially for a game of this quality. We expected this would open the game for more players but, in all honesty, it didn't work.

When we realized this, maybe between the first and second campaign, we weren't happy. We had two options at that point. Option one was to keep developing the campaigns we promised, take up the offer of a publisher to put all of the campaigns in a box and sell it as a premium product. The second option was the opposite, to go for a free to play model that keeps us in touch with and grow the game alongside the community. This is the option we chose and the free to play model we're going to follow next month.

Chris: Since you've known you wanted to make a change since then, why wait so long?

Enric: This has two answers. The first is we had to deliver on our promise of making four campaigns. It was also a commitment to platform holders. Only one had been released and three more were in progress. This was one of the reasons we decided to keep moving forward.

What was probably the most powerful reason was that we felt we had so much to learn, so we would be better learning it through the process of creating the campaigns - improving each and every one of them, all while we learn. Especially from a free to play point of view, we had a lot to learn about engaging, retaining and converting people. We also had a lot to learn about in-game monetisation.

That's why we decided to wait before switching to free to play. Possibly the next question will be most asked. Which is, "why are you rebranding?"

Chris: I think I know the answer to that. A rebranding is effectively a relaunch. It's a new title for somebody to introduce themselves to, a way to get eyes to the game.

Enric: You got it, exactly. You've said my answer. The amount of changes, in philosophy, in model, gameplay, polish, everything. It's so massive between what we launched last September and this thing. The best way to communicate that this is something new is to put it in a new box.

We had the option of either telling people that this is raiders but this is a list of all the changes. The shortest way to tell people to have a look at this, this is new, is to rebrand it. We feel that this is going to be controversial, so we want to openly explain it and not hide from it.

Chris: So what exactly is Spacelords?

Enric: As a title, Raiders of the Broken Planet felt a little short to cover everything that goes on from a narrative perspective. This is a game about one simple thing. Are you familiar with Dune and the spice?

Chris: Yeah

Enric: So Arrakis is the planet where the spice is, and spice is the most powerful substance in the Dune universe. It's the same thing here but instead of Arrakis we have the broken planet and instead of Spice we have Aleph. Aleph is a substance that can only be found on the broken planet and everybody wants.

So there is a war going on between the raiders, the antagonist and a number of human invading factions there to take control of the planet. All of them want one single thing, to dominate the broken planet and have total control of the Aleph. They want to become Spacelords. The new brand now covers them all under the same umbrella instead of just Raiders of the Broken Planet which may not have totally represented the antagonists.

Chris: But how is it different to Raiders?

Enric: One of the big things is that people will see is an entirely new campaign, the fourth one. But let's say you install the game on the 23rd of August and you play. You'll be welcomed and start playing the first level of any campaign. You don't choose it, it's chosen for you. Once you beat the first mission, you're entitled to play the next one and so on.

Once you've completed a campaign, you can choose your next campaign. From the second campaign onwards, we will require you to have a certain level as well. Each campaign has an independent storyline so it all makes sense. But we will not fragment the community by letting people join up to play any campaign with each other.

One thing is that every 24 hours we reset the rewards of each mission. We also have special rewards attached to the specific mission but only for 24 hours. The next 24 hours, that will change. We also have what we call a training - solo - mode. You can play the levels you unlock in solo mode for you to try the mission, a new character or weapon but not under the pressure of co-op. You acquire this by getting stars. Each time you play a mission in co-op, you get a star. When you get five stars, that mission is yours. This has different intensities, light, medium, intense and insane, each one of them with different rewards.

Chris: You've got an original community of course, will this impact them in any way?

Enric: The quick answer is that nothing bad will happen. We're going to keep everything, so if you're playing and you have a certain level or gold, you'll keep it all. We also want to give a big thank you to those who supported us by buying campaigns. What we're going to do is give them unique, exclusive, in-game content. This is to everybody who supported raiders by buying a campaign.

Chris: You've mentioned that within the solo mode, you'll get rewards. Is there a limit to stop people from grinding the training mode to overpower themselves?

Enric: It's not going to happen, don't worry. It's not going to happen. When you later interview the senior (Joan Amat) responsible for the progression and advancements system, you'll be able to ask him this question. He'll be able to specifically answer you that.

Chris: So how are you keeping the community together, is Spacelords cross-platform?

Enric: At launch last September, our worst performing platform is Steam. Why? Well, the confusion among people when the game was released. Part of the game was under the free to play label with another part under the premium label. To download Raiders of the Broken Planet it's under free to play games but the first thing you see is a price attached to every campaign - a paywall.

If you look at Steam and review the negativity about the game and pretty much 95% is about what I've said. There are a lot of striking comments that say "Great game but a shitty business model, not interested". This didn't happen to that extent on consoles. The number of players on Steam has maybe 50 to 200 concurrent players. With consoles, this raises to 2500 or even 3000.

Chris: But how does the cross-platform actually work for Spacelords? Knowing the recent news about PlayStation with Fortnite and cross-platform play.

Enric: PC players can either cross platform with Xbox players or PC with PlayStation players. PlayStation with Xbox players is forbidden. We would love it if this was also allowed. I have little doubt that eventually, this will happen, people will demand it.

Being in third person and with some actions taking time, it has a consequence gameplay wise. This is that there's not much difference between playing with a gamepad or a keyboard and mouse. So far, we haven't had any complaints from people playing together and the difference between a PC and console.

Chris: So what are you eventual aims with Spacelords?

Enric: If you look at PlayStation 4, for example, the opinion of people is 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's the same game, but from a social aspect, Steam users are different from PlayStation users. So what we really want is to remove all concerns people have about the business model and just let the game shine by itself.

We already know what will happen because it's already happening on consoles. People will enjoy the game.

Chris: So how are you going to monetise the game?

Enric: In-game monetisation structures. We are selling skins which you buy with Mercury Points. To get the Mercury Points you go to the store and buy them. You can turn these points into gold or you can spend them on skins or experience boosters. These boosters will let you move faster through the experience bar.

Chris: Being able to buy experience and gold, used to upgrade weapons, is there something in place to stop it becoming pay to win?

Enric: All weapons are equal in damage but have different abilities. This is something you'll be able to ask about more in your interview Joan later and he'll be able to answer in full. Spacelords will be pay to progress, not pay to win. Experience is used to unlock new characters but also to progress through the levels.

Chris: Have you considered bringing Spacelords out onto the Switch?

Enric: We would love to have Spacelords on the Switch but it's not possible yet. Spacelords is self-financed so when we looked at adding Spacelords to Switch, we thought it would be a great idea but it was too much for us.

Chris: Will you re-look at releasing a switch version if the relaunch is successful?

Enric: Yeah, of course. Spacelords would be great on the Switch. It's something we would look at again in the future.

Chris: Thank you for your time.

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