Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical sounds unbelievable. And I’m not saying that within the metaphorical sense of “Oh, this looks as if it is going to be actually cool.” No, as a musical journey sport with RPG parts, it actually sounds fantastic–the music for this sport is unimaginable. After sitting down for 2 hour-long previews with narrative director David Gaider, managing director Liam Esler, and artwork director Benjamin Ee to debate how this Greek mythology-inspired journey sport got here to be, I’m blown away at what the crew has already achieved and what they envision for the ultimate product.

During our dialog, I took the prospect to ask Gaider concerning the world-building that went into Stray Gods’ extremely numerous modern-day Greek pantheon, and the crew additionally walked me by way of Stray Gods’ opening half-hour, confirmed off behind-the-scenes visuals of idea artwork, and revealed a number of never-before-discussed songs from all through the sport, together with a touching soliloquy from Asterius to Hecate.

Stray Gods is the debut title of developer Summerfall Studios. It sees you play as Grace (voiced by Laura Bailey), a college-dropout-turned-singer who finds herself turning into the newest and final Muse following the homicide of Calliope. The surviving governing physique of the Greek pantheon–known because the Chorus–condemns Grace for the crime, forcing her right into a search to find the id of the true killer inside every week’s time or face punishment of their place.

Choice is on the coronary heart of Stray Gods’ gameplay, and the sport kicks off with an enormous one: What sort of particular person is Grace? You can select for Grace to be extra kickass, charming, or intelligent, and this choice informs what choices you may have in sure conversations. “Kickass is aggressive and punk rock and highly effective and in your face,” Esler informed me. “Clever is considerate and strategic and educated. Charming is empathic and caring and attempting to do the correct factor.”

In the demo I noticed, making a kickass Grace gives you with loads of alternatives to be confrontational and extra direct throughout conversations; alternatives you would not have with a intelligent or charming Grace. For instance, when Grace’s finest good friend, Freddie, expresses concern for the way distant and depressed Grace has appeared since dropping out of school, Grace can simply play issues off and even be slightly flirtatious in response. But a kickass Grace may also be direct in that state of affairs and simply inform Freddie how it’s: Freddie is at all times supporting Grace, and Grace feels insufficient in how too one-sided their dynamic is.

Your selections in conversations can have small impacts, such because the route of a dialog, or large penalties, like which Greek gods grow to be your allies. And as is the case in my favourite sorts of video games, they’ll additionally affect who Grace finally will get to finish up smooching by the sport’s finish, as Stray Gods hosts 4 romance choices: Freddie, Pan (god of fertility), Persephone (queen of the underworld), and Apollo (god of prophecy).

And talking of characters, Stray Gods builds on an idea most just lately popularized by Hades, a sport that reimagined the Greek pantheon as a set of people who surprisingly aren’t really all Greek and strengthened the notion that divine magnificence may exist even in those that do not match the traditional concept of what is engaging. Stray Gods goes a bit additional than Hades does, nonetheless, portraying characters who’re fats or have bodily disabilities as engaging and fascinating as nicely. It’s a really numerous pantheon of attractive gods.

This celebration of variety feels most evident when Grace first meets the Chorus. She’s delivered to them by Hermes, an androgynous teenage-looking Asian child dressed to the nines in Hypebeast-inspired clothes. The Chorus themselves are composed of Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Persephone (in addition to Calliope, previous to her loss of life), and whereas Athena and Apollo extra intently resemble the standard concept of Greek gods, Aphrodite and Persephone are noticeably darker-skinned. And apart from all of them being sizzling, none of them look even remotely biologically associated.

This is as a result of, inside the world of Stray Gods, the Greek gods could be reborn again and again. If a god dies close to a residing particular person, the essence of who they’re, their eidolon, is handed into that particular person. That’s how Grace turns into the brand new Muse–Calliope’s eidolon enters her as Grace is holding her when she dies.

“When I got here up with [the lore] initially, having the eidolon be handed on to anybody, that created a possibility to put in writing that, over time, after many, many occasions that [the eidolons] have been handed on over many deaths, and now we’ve got maybe slightly bit extra variety than there was initially,” Gaider stated.

In creating the solid, Summerfall Studios additionally opted to maneuver away from many of the extra common names in Greek mythology. In the world of Stray Gods, lots of the extra well-known gods–like Zeus, in addition to his brothers Poseidon and Hades–have fully perished or eliminated themselves from the pantheon solely. This creates extra room to give attention to constructing tales across the different gods and creatures of delusion. Beings like Athena, Persephone, Apollo, and Aphrodite have bigger significance as the one remaining rulers of this pantheon, and people lesser than them have equally been promoted to extra necessary roles to fill any empty slots. This is a pantheon that has been round for a lot of millennia, and the previous guard is lengthy gone.

Of the brand new interpretations, Persephone (voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) has one of many extra intriguing storylines. “This is a model of Persephone who will get mad quite a bit as a result of folks assume that her story ended when Hades took her to the underworld to be his spouse,” Esler stated. “But the fact is for her, that is the place her story started. She killed Hades and he or she took his throne after which the remainder of the gods punished her for doing so and exiled her from her realm, so she’s a queen in exile. And she’s by no means fairly forgiven them for that, even after a few years, and carries round a hardness and a bitterness.”

I do assume Summerfall Studios is a tad behind on the overall strokes of this variation of Persephone, as due to video games like Hades and webcomics like Lore Olympus, I do not know of any Greek mythology followers who assume Persephone’s story ends along with her turning into Hades’ spouse. Recent tales have already finished an excellent job of breaking the mould of her delusion and rewriting her lore in order that her story doesn’t finish inside the underworld, however moderately really begins there. However, Stray Gods’ Persephone is certainly one of many extra corporate-like interpretations I’ve seen. She’s demanding and results-oriented, dressing like a businesswoman and treating these she deems beneath her (which, actually, looks as if virtually everybody) extra like workers who could be simply discarded.

As Ee explains it, when it got here to creating this interpretation of Persephone, the crew needed somebody who leans into each female and masculine vibes by way of her design and character. “She has extraordinarily large woman boss vitality,” Ee stated. “And so quite a lot of the vibes that end result from that’s simply somebody who holds herself as much as excessive esteem, somebody who feels very elegant. And so she’s carrying this attractive silk kimono-esque gown robe. Everything that she has appears to be like costly as a result of she’s a queen and he or she’s like, ‘I demand respect.'”

Persephone strikes by way of her scenes with a inflexible authority and divine grace, the nonetheless photos of her character mannequin interspersed in a fashion that juxtaposes the extra fluid actions of Athena or Aphrodite or the gradual meandering of Apollo. Long earlier than she opens her mouth to sternly inform Athena to get on with sentencing Grace to loss of life, you’ll be able to visually see that she’s highly effective however positively distinct and completely different from her fellow gods. This visible fashion of storytelling extends to all of the characters, with Summerfall Studios utilizing an animatic fashion of motion to enhance its comedian book-looking visuals–in movement, the sport appears to be like extra like a trendy storyboard than a stop-motion comedian, with the 2D character fashions transferring inside 3D areas.

“We pivoted to being as just like comics as we may, like a cell-shaded look, no rendering concerned,” Ee informed me when explaining how the crew arrived at this fashion. “It was clear that the id of Stray Gods was brightening as much as be that approach, like a lantern within the darkness. We have been beginning to head in the direction of that route. [Summerfall Studios character artist] Jessica Lee is an insanely good artist and her dynamic posing is simply out of this world. So these expressive characters have been delivered to life by her hand and it is so wonderful to observe what she does.”

He continued: “So we have been going with this very stunning comedian e book fashion. The concept was movement graphics, however as we have been implementing our scenes and testing them out, we have been realizing that our photographs have been very static as a result of we have been leaning so laborious into being comics that we have been simply having a shot, like a comic book panel shot, and we have been discovering that it simply feels instantly useless, that nothing was transferring in them. And so we’re like, ‘We have to provide you with some form of approach in order that we’ve got some movement taking place in each scene.'”

Of course, in terms of precise books, comics have a number of panels throughout a single web page, permitting writers and artists to redirect a reader’s eyes throughout the web page and consequently including motion to in any other case nonetheless scenes. That impact is more durable to realize in a visual-novel-looking journey sport since each nonetheless panel fills up the display and the participant is clicking from one nonetheless picture to the following. If there’s nothing to attract the participant’s consideration to completely different elements of the display, then it does not really feel like there’s any motion to the scene, even when the picture on the display is altering.

“When [a shot] takes up an entire display, all of the sudden it is actually necessary the place characters are and stuff,” Ee stated. “It’s the entire science of the place your eye goes to go–leading your eye is what a storyboard artist does. And so I attempted my finest for a bit however it was very clear that I used to be just a bit fish within the large ocean, and so we employed our wonderful Sasha Mutch, who’s a storyboard artist, to assist us out with that and it has been insane. Let me let you know, the level-up has been loopy. And so, once more, the undertaking form of shifted round to being this stunning animatic-style cinematic expertise. Liam calls it the language of motion–it provides this complete new dimension to every part, and it nonetheless feels very comedian booky, however on the identical time, it felt like these characters have been virtually alive. You can get immersed of their story.”

But as stunning as Stray Gods is to take a look at, its musical inspirations most strongly distinguish it from different journey video games. As a Muse, Grace has the divine capacity to remodel any second into an opportunity for folk to precise themselves by way of track. She cannot make anybody sing; she as an alternative transforms the area round her right into a musical, offering room for her and the opposite characters to precise themselves. As a participant, you do not select when these moments happen–they solely happen throughout necessary narrative beats, the place the storyline can department. You do get to resolve how the songs themselves play out although, making selections all through every musical quantity that may inform the route of the track and the story.

During the preview, the crew confirmed me 4 completely different songs: one through which Calliope introduces herself to Grace and the 2 carry out a duet, one through which Grace meets and is chastised by Medusa, one through which Grace and Freddie assist Asterius admit his emotions for Hecate, and at last one through which Grace confronts Apollo for his insistence in refusing to make use of his reward of prophecy to assist her uncover the id of the killer. If the displaying was any indication, Stray Gods options a number of genres of music–such as jazz, different, and rock–and lots of the songs can remodel and shift halfway by way of as their tone or narrative objective evolves. Kind of like, you already know, a musical.

One of my favourite examples of witnessing how a track can change occurred throughout Asterius’ soliloquy for Hecate. The bumbling minotaur will not be an excellent singer and begins bombing early into the track as he tries to precise himself to the goddess of witchcraft. And as Grace, you’ll be able to select to additional encourage him, flip to Freddie to lend a extra supportive hand, or step in your self for a extra direct alternative to regulate the track. When you select for Freddie to step in, the track loses the stilted elementary rhyming scheme from earlier than and turns into extra melodic. It’s actually cute.

During songs, you might have branching choices a lot as you’d with conversations in an RPG. And very like these conversations, the results of your selections impression not solely the route of that individual track however the songs that come after it. Additionally, every track can affect the route of the story, and consequently, the story can have an effect on the route of future songs and which songs you are even capable of expertise. For instance, every romance choice culminates in a musical quantity, so if Grace falls in love with somebody, that may affect each the route of the sport’s story in addition to its music. As such, Stray Gods won’t have a canonical soundtrack, as each track within the sport can have dozens of permutations. “When we began, it appeared like, ‘Oh, it is not that bad–it’s similar to dialogue selections, however music. It’s not that rather more sophisticated, is it?'” Gaider stated, laughing.

Turns out, it’s. It’s far more sophisticated. “You’re not serious about genres, or completely different tempos, or every part like that,” Gaider stated. “We introduced on [composer] Austin [Wintory] after which the lyrics just–there are sure guidelines that go into singing, proper? And not only a track, however a musical. I’m conscious of how narrative modifications the second you add interactivity. That company, that modifications the foundations of narrative. Similarly, the foundations of how a track is made or how music works modifications as quickly as company enters the image. But nobody’s actually finished that earlier than, so we did not know precisely how the foundations have been going to vary. So we slowly had to determine for ourselves.”

It’s one thing that Gaider has needed to do for some time. Prior to co-founding Summerfall Studios, Gaider labored because the artistic director at Beamdog for 2 years, and earlier than that, he wrote for 17 years at BioWare, the place he created the setting for the Dragon Age collection and served as lead author for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. At BioWare, Gaider pitched the thought of a DLC enlargement for Inquisition that will function as a musical that will have taken place inside the metaphysical realm of The Fade. That, sadly, by no means occurred. But it did present the inspiration for Stray Gods.

“This is a pleasant examine off the bucket listing simply to see, ‘How does this work?’ and in a approach, we’re form of proving whether or not there’s curiosity on the market,” Gaider stated. “No one’s finished it to fairly to this stage earlier than, so we will see. And I imply, our intestine feeling, once we did the crowdfunding, we found that there was an viewers. There are so many individuals that got here ahead and so they have been like, ‘This sport looks as if it is made particularly for me.’ And they’re actually not alone, however on the identical time, once we have been speaking to publishers and stuff, there was this sense that there isn’t any straight line you’ll be able to draw between this sport and one thing that is come earlier than to find out, ‘Is it going to achieve success?'”

With not a lot to take a look at inside the gaming business, Summerfall Studios turned to the music business for recommendation. Alongside Wintory, Gaider additionally labored with musical comedy trio Tripod, in addition to artwork pop musician and Twitch streamer Montaigne for the songs and lyrics. “We approached it from an RPG aspect, the dialogue aspect, first,” Gaider stated. “Because that half, at the least, we knew we understood. I’ve finished quite a lot of that, however it’s like I needed to write it with all of the crucial emotional factors saved for later. So I needed to write every part round that. So in terms of the massive emotional half, now, as an alternative of writing it myself, I’ve received to sit down down with Austin, our composer, I’ve received to sit down down with our lyricists, and we’ve got to put in writing that half collectively, and determine it out.”

Regardless of the selection you make in the beginning of the sport, inside every track, Grace has possibilities to be extra kickass and direct, intelligent and strategic, or charming and empathetic. But these are simply narrative penalties of the track. Summerfall Studios needed to go above and past, so these choices can translate into musical penalties, too. Kickass selections appear to lean a bit extra into rock, whereas intelligent is a little more jazz-focused, and charming selections are extra melodic. And all of these musical selections should naturally circulation collectively like all of them appear to belong in the identical track.

“And that was the half that tricked me,” Gaider admitted. “Because I’m like, ‘Okay, the [narrative] path, you’ll be able to perceive.’ And then they’re like, ‘Well, however a track has a by way of line.’ And then they stated, ‘What if the primary selection that we make determines the catchphrase of the track? What if that’s the by way of line? And then, every time you make a selection, it makes a department. And so for example you might have three selections. Instead of being a department of three, it is now a department of 9, as a result of each department wants itself to department as soon as for every sort of by way of line that you’ve energetic within the track.’ And they’re telling me that this can be a required factor for them to do for the track. And I’m like, ‘Shit, that is quite a lot of branches.'”

All of those branches culminate in a musical finale, which is Grace making her case to the Chorus on the finish of the week. This remaining track is constructed primarily based on the alternatives you have made in each track and main story choice as much as that time, which means one participant’s finale may sound radically completely different compared to one other’s. The crew couldn’t give me a tough quantity on what number of permutations of the ultimate track exist, however I’ve to think about it is on the massive aspect if it has to make callbacks to dozens of doable selections.

“I’m glad we left [the finale] for final, as a result of it was an enormous factor once we lastly received to the finale track,” Gaider stated. “We sat down and we simply had a collection of conferences the place we simply constructed it piece by piece, as a result of it callbacks to each different track within the sport. But as a result of the songs change if you make selections, we needed to return and decide from the alternatives you made in order that the callbacks you are listening to are particularly those that you simply heard.” It seems like quite a bit, and I might have cherished to have been a fly on the wall to see what it is wish to report a number of variations of various verses for a similar track.

Stray Gods has quite a lot of robust vocal expertise behind its characters. I wasn’t kidding once I began this off by saying Stray Gods actually sounds fantastic–I’ve by no means grooved so laborious to a online game preview earlier than. There’s quite a lot of good music right here that is backed up by artists who know the craft, all of whom acquired recommendation and route from Troy Baker. Beyond Bailey and McGlynn, Summerfall Studios is not able to reveal any of the names of Stray Gods’ solid and requested me to not announce any voices I acknowledged. I did acknowledge fairly a couple of although, and might say that Summerfall Studios has nabbed some unimaginable expertise from throughout the voice appearing and theater industries. I particularly like who they received for Medusa (who brings a hissing raspiness to the position that is concurrently seductive and creepy as hell), however the voices for always-in-a-rush Hermes and awkwardly bookish Asterius are additionally impressed selections that received a realizing chuckle from me when their characters lastly spoke on display.

Of the solid I can speak about, I did not get an opportunity to listen to McGlynn drop any bars, however Bailey, naturally, popped up in quite a lot of the songs I received to listen to. Bailey does a terrific job as Grace, which comes as no shock given her spectacular lineup of appearing credit and singing roles (most evident in her work for Critical Role, the place she voices Campaign 1’s Vex’ahlia, Campaign 2’s Jester Lavorre, and Campaign 3’s Imogen Temult, and is a vocalist in “Your Turn to Roll” and “It’s Thursday Night”). Bailey’s musical performances for Critical Role lean a bit nearer to rock however as I used to be watching her performances in Stray Gods, I could not assist however recall her saying throughout The Making of “Your Turn to Roll” video that she’s extra used to singing sweeter and nicer-sounding songs. And that is instantly evident in Stray Gods the place most of Grace’s performances appear to be typically extra melodic in nature, and all of them are unbelievable. Bailey is in her component and it exhibits.

Summerfall Studios desires gamers to stay within the component, too, so past the alternatives you make, there isn’t any interactive facet to any of the songs. You’re allowed to simply benefit from the music. “There will not be a mechanic to the songs, you are simply making selections primarily based on how you are feeling,” Gaider stated. “And that was one other factor we needed to uncover as a result of initially, we had extra of a mechanic within the songs the place you had factors you constructed up. The factor we discovered is that any mechanic we put within the track, all of the sudden gamers have been targeted on, ‘How do I construct up these factors?'” and never listening, actually, as a lot to the track itself. But in [Stray Gods], we’re not simply listening to a beat like, ‘This is cool. I wish to dance.’ It’s like a Broadway track in that the lyrics you are listening to are necessary as a result of they’re the story. All the songs occur in any respect the massive, crucial, emotional moments.”

Music is transformative, a notion that, inside the world of Stray Gods, Grace could make literal. Her energy as a Muse can create the area for music, however it may well additionally create an area outlined by music. Summerfall Studios calls these areas Song Worlds, and so they remodel the surroundings in response to music, very like the evolving units of a Broadway efficiency.

“Song Worlds have been our approach of breaking actuality in a really stunning approach,” Ee stated. “So doing our analysis into how we may exhibit the musical facet of our sport, we saved coming again to Broadway phases and stuff like that, in addition to testing music movies, and one of many issues that saved displaying up was simply these bizarre, generally props we might use. Okay-pop music movies have been extraordinarily useful.”

He continued: “The manufacturing [in Broadway] occurs so quick that they should have these very hanging environments that do not want quite a lot of work to place into them. [The Song Worlds] are extra complicated, summary in an summary approach, and the set design is predicated off the track vibe and what they’re saying in the intervening time.”

During the preview, I received to see how the crew constructed one such Song World for when Grace is confronting Apollo–a fractured, shifting scene that displays the emotional and psychological state of a god who has been repeatedly cursed with the data of future calamities and missing the means to vary them. Over the course of the track, we selected for Grace to be supportive of Apollo whereas remaining insistent that he use his reward in support of Grace. These selections manifested in a tonal shift to the initially mournful track, which finally ended on a extra hopeful observe. In the world round Grace and Apollo, the darkish area of Apollo’s thoughts grew to become illuminated by the beams of a lighthouse and noticed Grace and Apollo transfer collectively in concord, with Grace’s highly effective voice lending power to Apollo’s softer vocals. It was a surprisingly stunning finish to a haunting track.

“And relying in your selections, the chorus of the track can be completely completely different and every of the person verses can be completely completely different as nicely,” Esler teased. “That track is about, 4 to 5 minutes lengthy and there are over 22 minutes of music for that track. So in a given playthrough, you’d see only a bit lower than 1 / 4 of the doable issues you might see in that track.”

“Each Song World is a chance for us to indicate off and push more durable on the emotions of a track, the feelings and the metaphors particularly after they’re going by way of lyrics and stuff and speaking about melancholy or one thing like that,” Ee stated. “It can be a lighthouse within the darkness sort of factor, you already know what I imply? The feeling of attempting to carry on in crashing waves after which dimly lit areas that really feel cramped, stuff like that the place in actuality these individuals are simply singing in particular person in a room someplace.”

“Generally we put songs the place there are actually large key selections to be made, and quite a lot of these have distinctive Song Worlds,” Esler added. “The factor with Stray Gods that is necessary to notice is the songs are diegetic–they happen on the planet, the characters are conscious of them. This is a factor that’s really occurring and a part of [Grace’s] energy is we needed to have the ability to create a actuality round what’s going on and have the track affect that actuality in several methods, and that was the genesis of the thought of Song Worlds.”

I, for one, am bought on the thought of this sport. Stray Gods seems like an unimaginable experience–it’s positively not one which I’ve seen earlier than. The notion of a musical the place each track evolves and modifications primarily based on selections the participant makes looks as if a staggering ordeal, but when Summerfall Studios pulls it off, I feel there’s one thing particular right here to be enthusiastic about. For now, nonetheless, we simply have to attend and see. Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical doesn’t but have a launch date, although it is scheduled to launch for PC through Steam.

Author’s Note: This function initially claimed that Stray Gods wouldn’t have a soundtrack, which is not essentially true. Rather, the sport won’t have a canon soundtrack–there is not any “appropriate” technique to play by way of Stray Gods.