Playwing is an independent game developer and publisher founded in 2017 with three studios in Europe. To date, the studio has released two games: The Modern Warfare Strategy Game Instant Warfare for iOS and Android platforms, and Dragon Quest Online Game Century: Age of Ashes, which is currently available on PC and will also land on this and older consoles this year.
Excellent flight mechanics, clever level design, and the opportunity to burn opponents in the air all combine to create a unique flying air bucket game, Century: Age of Ashes.
In this team-based multiplayer competitive game, you'll jump on the saddle of a fire-breathing dragon and engage in battle against your enemies, swooping over castles, swooping into tunnels, and casting dodge spells to throw off pursuing soldiers in the process.
In this article, Pascal Barret, art director at indie studio Playwing, and Laurent Denis, head of product marketing, describe how the team orchestrated the dragon's aerial ballet, what inspiration was behind the game, and what factors needed to be considered in designing the map for the battles between these flying behemoths. Let's take a look!
How big was the team that produced Century: Age of Ashes? How long is the development cycle?
Art Director Pascal Barret: Our Bordeaux studio, which we founded in 2019, led the development of Century: Age of Ashes. The team, which started with just 14 members, has grown to include 40 talented individuals from a variety of fields. The industry veterans who led the team have been in the game industry for more than 20 years, and have worked on such excellent works as Killing Night Devil, Life Strange, Vampire and RuneScape.
What inspiration was behind Century: Age of Ashes, such as movies, books, or other games?
Barret: On a visual and atmospheric level, we created this dark fantasy world with reference to classic literature like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, as well as famous video games like The Witcher and God of War. We also dug into a wider range of sources of cultural influence, such as Rob Bowman's Dragon Empire and Hellboy comics.
As for the dragons, we wanted to create an unprecedented experience, with the feeling of flying at the heart of the experience, while making sure that our depiction of these proud creatures (their animalism, strength, speed, and agility) still fits people's impressions of them. To that end, we drew inspiration from the Hungarian tree bee that comes alive in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the Toothless Boy in How to Train Your Dragon.
Did the team set certain goals during development?
Laurent Denis, Head of Product Marketing: Century: Age of Ashes is the first project we've taken over from our Bordeaux studio, and our main goal is to release the game within the appropriate deadline. When the project started, we were just a small team, and we were ambitious to create a dragon game that every player had dreamed of one day playing, which meant we also needed to maintain a sufficient level of quality in all aspects of the game. In this dark fantasy game with dragons, we don't want to live up to expectations.
Why is Unreal Engine suitable for Century: Age of Ashes?
Barret: For a team of our size, Unreal Engine is the perfect tool. Whether it's pre-production or production, it fits directly into our diverse pipelines, allowing us to achieve high-quality results in a short period of time. This technology is very easy to grasp and has a beautiful progress curve. Before the project started, some on the team had little to no experience with Unreal Engine.
Truth be told, without Unreal Engine, we probably wouldn't have been able to release Century: Age of Ashes. Without it, we would have had to build an in-house engine and would lose the support of the wide range of creators in the Unreal Engine community.
Rising to top speed, swooping down to the surface of the water, and then flying up in the wind and sneaking back into the air, it's a fascinating round of aerial ballet. How did the team develop flight mechanics that would make players feel like they were flying a dragon instead of flying an airplane?
Barret: Continuous push creates a natural sense of flight. This is a rather tricky question, because for creatures that do not exist in the real world, it is impossible to clearly define what nature is. All the questions focused on how to show the feeling of vitality and vitality, recreating the dark fantasy world of people's impressions, while trying to avoid the uncanny valley effect.
We put a lot of effort into improving the "3C" in the game, constantly adjusting the correspondence between the player's actions, the reaction of the dragons on the screen, and the way the field of view is captured, so as to avoid stiffness when flying. This is an approach that needs to be continuously improved, and we will continue to improve it in the future.
There are many open spaces in the map, as well as some hidden corners, giving players the opportunity to shake off the soldiers who are not willing to follow. What are the characteristics of a good map, and how did Playwing design the stage in Age of Ashes?
Barret: In the conceptual art drawings in the early stages of game development, we identified some aspects and built a map based on that.
The map we envisioned was like an open arena with magnificent scenery and a wide vertical area that strongly conveyed the feeling of flying freely. To accommodate the dragon's movements, we precisely calculated the size and length of the various set elements, striking a balance between risk and reward to give the player a sense of excitement as they sprint and "cleverly maneuvered.".
Century: Age of Ashes maps are built in a very special way, where players can explore multiple sub-areas (wide areas with few bunkers or obstacles, where players can easily be targeted; narrow areas are dense and complex, and players can dodge opponents, but also more difficult to aim at others), all of which are connected and do not block the player away, allowing them to maintain a smooth and natural flight.
Century: Age of Ashes is a purely multiplayer game, and surprisingly, it has a wealth of animated footage. How important are these film animation shots in the process of creating a sense of grandeur for each game, and can you tell us about the process of creating these film footage?
Barret: The overall cinematic experience of Century: Age of Ashes is the result of a combination of carefully crafted factors. First, our creative team took particular care to design the animations of dragons and riders, which were built with keyframes rather than motion capture (although motion capture was quite difficult for dragon models). In addition, in the competition and hall, we also did some in-depth treatment of camera positions and visual effects (such as prelude/ending sequences, idle movements of dragons, hatching of young dragons, etc.).
The design itself also exhibits a cinematic experience. Like you said, every game has to show a sense of grandeur. Here, the scenery is vast and magnificent, and the open-air area is crowded with dragons spitting out flames, creating a strong sense of immersion, just like the flow of the game, visually shocking climactic moments that will deeply attract you - like the scene of the vault explosion in the "Loot" game mode.
It's exciting to hatch dragon eggs and watch their young grow as if they were their parents. How did the team come up with this idea, and how did you implement it?
Barret: We made dragons the core of Century: Age of Ashes backstory and gameplay, and from the moment we made that decision, it became a matter of course to involve young dragons. The challenge was to create a core feature that would strengthen the connection between players and dragons and avoid turning the game into a gacha or another Pokemon. These creatures, though cute, are also ruthless and will burn you alive and swallow a chunk of your flesh.
At different stages of development, especially during closed testing, the dragon's nesting function has also been greatly improved. Community feedback has made some important points that have led us to implement the current growth system based on empirical value feeding. Going forward, we also plan to have the young dragon play a bigger role in the gaming experience than just leaving it in the lobby.
Century: Age of Ashes is one of the most gorgeous free-to-play games on the market. Can you tell us about your art design process and how the visuals we see in the game are created?
Barret: From the past to the present, whether it's designing characters, or environments, effects, animations, etc., the art team has been very focused on providing the highest quality assets possible for the game. In addition, we insist on the visual quality standards of AAA games to achieve a cinematic experience.
Concept art graphics are the origin of everything; for us, the most important thing is to maintain an artistic direction that perfectly matches our signature gameplay. It comes down to finding a balance between realism and stylization.
Now that the game is out, have you learned some lessons from the production process?
Denis: We learned a lot. Developing a free, real-time game featuring dragons has both benefits and shackles. We've spoken to a large group of players, and everyone has their own ideas about the perfect dragon-slaying air combat game. It's great to see so many players contact us because they believe in the game and its immense potential, but that comes with responsibility. It's an iterative process that requires a high degree of flexibility, being able to turn quickly during the production process, and most importantly, we have to be brave enough to face change.
After the release of Century: Age of Ashes, we questioned some of the core design elements that had been taken for granted, such as the fast-paced flight mechanics and our approach to scale adjustment. In addition, we learn every day how to optimize real-time operational methods, such as what type of activity or reward structure is more effective. Thankfully, our community is highly engaged, and when it comes to improving the game, we deliberately put them at the heart of the decision-making process. We believe Century: Age of Ashes is moving in the right direction!
Can you talk about how you optimized the game for mobile platforms?
Denis: We're still in the early stages of development, but our goal is to achieve an impressive visual experience like the desktop version. To do this, we had to put extra effort into several aspects of the game, such as using different render pipelines such as lightmaps, software occlusion, and so on.
Adapting to this platform is almost tantamount to refactoring the game from scratch, and the versatility of Unreal Engine will help us achieve this perfectly. We had to completely rewrite the screen interface and user flow to accommodate touch screen controls and other ergonomic limitations, and obviously, there were specific graphics requirements.
Has the team achieved something particularly proud?
Denis: Obviously, we released the game in the scheduled time frame, in the quality that we were looking for, and we're very proud of that. In addition, we were surprised by the level of acceptance of the game by players and the media. We received a positive response from the start, with the game reaching a million downloads just one month after its release. Of course, this also comes with a lot of challenges, but this achievement itself proves that the games we have are very unique and have great potential.
After the release of Century: Age of Ashes, how do you plan to support and expand it?
Denis: The release of Century: Age of Ashes is just the beginning. First, the game will be present across multiple new platforms, starting with Steam, then the Microsoft Store, Epic Game Store, Xbox Series X|S. A mobile version is also in the works.
As far as the game content itself is concerned, we've launched an intensive roadmap for continuing to refine the game and community in the coming months. These include: a series of monthly live events dominated by a limited-time play mode (e.g. the festive event "Ice and Fury", or the latest "Standing to the End team"), additional core features (voice chat, calendar events); new maps; permanent game modes (e.g. 4v4v4 survival); QoL improvements (class balance and match pairing); tons of new customization options (costumes, weapons, and dragons!). ）。
There's one thing that will surprise players in the second quarter of this year: the first season is about to kick off. This marks the start of our new competitive season, which will include a whole new series of tiered challenges and rewards. We'll also introduce some key content: a fourth character class (types of riders and dragons), new maps, and dragon levels filled with hundreds of rewards. Season One also marks the beginning of our first storyline, which will reveal more secrets about the world of Century: Age of Ashes, which will gradually come to light over three months of rich content, and then reach the climax of the story at a PvE event.
Going forward, our team will continue to release improvements to key elements of Age of Ashes, including balanced classes, poses, post-game animations, and custom matches, plus regular live events, new maps and variants, and customization features. We're also working on an innovative game mode that will be the hallmark of Century: Age of Ashes, with major updates to the core gameplay and exciting new opportunities for players to interact with their environment.