“The singleplayer is much stronger because of the multiplayer,” Swen Vincke, head of developer Larian Studios, tells me. If you give players room to do what they like together, you can also give lone players the same thing. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Very mild spoilers follow, but nothing actually spoiling, promise. How does it succeed? Well, through a feature that you’d never think is related. But Divinity: Original Sin 2 goes a step beyond, telling a clear story and allowing - even encouraging - you to do all kinds of dumb things, all without completely breaking. Quite a few RPGs do a good job! Planescape: Torment, for one, presents a fantastically dense and interwoven set of characters and scenarios which you can approach in many different ways. But if players can do anything, how do you tell them a story in the right order and without bits missing? What if they kill some plot-important character or sell the magical thing that does the special thing? It’s the holy grail for RPGs, right, that perfect mix of a strong story and freedom to do what you want. This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games.
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