Mad Max developer to “maintain sense of mystery about what has happened in the world”

By Stephany Nunneley

Mad Max developer Avalanche Studios wants players to feel the same “sense of mystery” when roaming about the game world, as movie goers felt when watching the films.

Speaking with AusGamers, senior game designer Emil Kraftling said the game will continue the theme set by Mad Max creator George Miller in that they know the world is destroyed: but they are unsure what the cause was and will draw their own conclusions.

“Obviously we want to maintain that sense of mystery about what has happened in the world, and what is the history of every place that we visit,” said Kraftling. “And while some of it is things that we have explained in development — either on our own or through the consulting with George Miller — while we know it, we don’t spell it out to people, but it affects how certain areas are constructed and what we find in certain areas.

“There’s a lot there for the players to discover if nothing else. They won’t get the answer, but they will be able to look at a place and start thinking about how it came to be like that.”

Kraftling gave one example, citing an area in the game called The Great White – which resembles a white desert or flats.

“It’s the old seabed, and there’s all this trash and the treasures of the old world that were buried at the bottom of the sea that is now exposed, or semi-exposed,” he said. “That’s a really interesting location to be in and explore, and see all of these things that when you first come across them, you might be like ‘oh, this is an old rock’, and then you realize what was here before was maybe a reef, or something that was very different in the old world than it is in this one.

“There’s a lot of interesting stuff there for us as developers as well as for players, and what we know and what the players know will not necessarily be the same. In some instances, I know myself that we have some stuff in the world, and it’s not described anywhere why it is how it is, but I’m making educated guesses as to why it is this way.”

Mad Max is slated for release on PC and next-gen consoles.