The road to the early access of Solasta II has been a long one, and many of us have been eagerly waiting for it. Fortunately, the wait is over, as it is about to go live. As some of the lucky few who got to preview this build before its launch, we also had the opportunity to attend a hands-off preview of the game and got to talk with Pierre Worgague, Marketing Director of Tactical Adventures, and Mathieu Girard, Studio Head at Tactical Adventures. While they were talking about the upcoming Solasta II, we threw in a couple of questions, which we’ll show right here.
Q&A With Pierre Worgague and Mathieu Girard
We got invited to a hands-off preview of Solasta II before delving into the game ourselves ahead of its launch. During this preview, Pierre and Mathieu encouraged us to ask a few questions, so it quickly became more of a Q&A with them, and here’s what they had to say about this long-awaited sequel:
Julio La Pine, Senior Staff Writer at The Nerd Stash: If you don’t mind me asking something about the character creator. I can see there are many options here already. As a team, at what point do you say, “Okay, we’ve added enough?”
Mathieu Girard, Studio Head at Tactical Adventures: We went full speed into adding as many options as possible. I guess there are also many options in other games, but I think we have been comprehensive. That said, we need to see if we need to add more options, more variations for each option, for example, for hair, makeup, lips, etc. We’ll see. But I think that we have something more than comprehensive.
Julio: I know that you already announced the classes coming to early access, but what was the process of selecting the ones that would launch alongside early access?
Mathieu: I think we chose first the core classes that you would expect in an SRD ruleset game, and then we opted to add the Paladin and the Sorcerer to add more variety for a caster. Also, these are not the most complex classes to develop, like the Warlock or Druid. We started with the more classic ones.
Pierre Worgague, Marketing Director at Tactical Adventures: Also, part of the answer comes from a community survey we did a year ago after the demo. It was matching the choices we made, so we were super happy.
Mathieu: I wanted to add that you will also see a description of what class is good, like a frontline, support, etc. There are hints even at high levels to understand what the class is good for.
Julio: Do you have a favorite multi-class option?
Mathieu: I am not fond of multi-classing because I felt the subclasses met all needs, but this was something the community really requested. I developed the system to make sure it worked. There was a multi-class character already in the demo, so it is working. But for me, in terms of immersion, I prefer to stay with one class and subclass because I feel you can make the same as a fighter/cleric with a subclass.
Julio: I think that in an RPG, one important aspect of them is the world-building, so what has been your process to build the world of Solasta II? Do you have external inspiration, or is it all from inside the studio?
Mathieu: It was the joint effort of our writers and our Director. They created the world of Solasta and then Neokos. I guess they were influenced by popular novels, not D&D, but more high fantasy. We just wanted to have an interesting take. For example, the high elves are some kind of evil empire that used to perform slavery. But yes, we wanted to have a different stance on what high fantasy is. It’s a mix of classical fantasy and interesting perspectives on some of the elements.
Julio: Do you have a favorite zone or area that is coming to early access?
Mathieu: I spent most of my time in a place called “Tech Playground,” which is a technical level made of squares to test the ruleset and interface. It’s not the sexiest, but when you discover Caer Mar, you’ll be amazed by the detailed density. You can’t explore the full city yet, but it is still very impressive. What is interesting is a location called Sentinel from different perspectives. It also shows the strength of what UE5 is bringing to environments to bring different visions of the same place.
Pierre: From previous playtests we had in the past, we always heard that the world, especially different civilizations, like the stone people, felt very grounded, like they have their own beliefs and have a special relationship of being explorers. We’ll, of course, let you discover all of that, but it was fun to build all that from the first feedback we received.
Julio: I wanted to ask this before the presentation, but how are you feeling about the imminent release of early access?
Mathieu: It’s always very scary. When you ship again, you’re thinking about what people are going to say about it. But we got positive feedback from the character creator, but it is a mix of being terrified and confident. I think we did not betray our community. I think they are going to be happy because we did not change our creative vision—it is bigger, better, and with more options and possibilities. I just hope we have more players joining the fray and playing with us.
Julio: You mentioned a lot of player feedback, which is something amazing that you take into consideration for development. Also, the modding community of Solasta is huge, and it continues growing. Were there any community creations that inspired gameplay systems for the sequel?
Mathieu: Not for systems, but there were a bunch of excellent campaigns.
Pierre: Some campaigns were absolutely incredible.
Mathieu: What was interesting was how some of these campaigns had very tough encounters, and gave us a good sign of what we can do to make the game more interesting.
Pierre: That and meaningful choices. Some of them are heavily narrated. You get into them because the writing is so good, and it was inspiring and humbling at the same time. We have a great and creative community.
Julio: Is there anything you’d like to say to players before the launch of early access?
Mathieu: I hope they have fun and enjoy our baby. I hope they don’t have huge expectations. We’re often compared to another game, but we’re a different animal. Even if we have our way of differentiating, I hope they see Solsta II as something unique.
Pierre: We have a great community for that. Whenever we’re compared, we always have parts of our community that invite newcomers to understand how big we are, what it means for us to play a TTRPG experience. There’s a lot of support to explain what Solasta is, and we hope they remain here to help us explain what we want to achieve. We can’t wait for them to get their hands on Solasta II.
Remember that Solasta II is launching on early access on March 12, and it will include six classes, each one with different subclasses, Act 1, and several other systems to let you dive into the world of Neokos. So, if you want to watch this game grow until it reaches its 1.0 update, now’s the time to grab your party and start your adventure.
