Porting a game from PC to console is hard, especially if the game in question is from a genre traditionally one native to the PC. It can be tricky to make the transition across platforms without losing something along the way, but in the case of Dune Awakening, the game has been “designed with a controller in mind”.
All this, without any word on when a console version is coming out. In fact, the game’s release on PC (which we know will be coming first) is also a mystery. To help figure out what considerations were taken with this inevitable multi-platform release, I sat down and spoke to Nils Ryborg. Ryborg is a producer on Dune Awakening, but prior to his time at Funcom he worked on the console port of Pillars of Eternity at Paradox, and so could provide some unique insight on the process.
“The struggle there, I remember Pillars of Eternity (laughs) we spent a lot of time trying to figure out the UX in it, and brought in a little bit of influences from action RPGs, especially with how you move.” Ryborg stated. “It’s primarily a very tactical game, and obviously you’re very limited when you use a controller. So we created AI architects you could work with, so you could make your NPCs make better decisions, and direct them a little bit.”
He continues, “We made it easier for you to move your character around and make quick decisions, and do real-time combat a bit more effectively. But we also left in the mechanics that allowed you to pause and pull off more complicated strategies. All this alongside basic UX things like finding ways to cycle different buttons and what not. But the driver there was shifting things to more of a ARPG while keeping as much tactical stuff as we could”
So that’s what the Paradox team had to do, what about Funcom? Was its approach the same, or were considerations taken to make the transition a little less hassle?
“So from the start, it’s the easier way of making a game, going console-first. A lot of that transitions easily back on the PC, whereas if you make a pure PC game where you use a mouse and keyboard to control, it’s really difficult to port over. So it’s been designed with a controller in mind from the get-go.”
“Obviously, we’re releasing on PC first, right? So that’s where we’ll have a good setup, but the console UX-wise, I’m not super concerned. Obviously it’s all the classic tech stuff, y’know, where they’re a little more limited in certain hardware things. So it needs to perform well and other tech stuff. It shouldn’t be overly complicated.”
So, while those anticipating Dune Awakening on console are still going to have to bunker down for a while, waiting for more info, they should at least be happy knowing that the version they get won’t be drastically different from their peers on PC.