ECTS 2002: Black & White 2 update

Earlier today in a hotel suite not far from this year's ECTS at Earls Court, London, we met with Peter Molyneux and two of his colleagues from Lionhead Studios to discuss the grand vision that is Black & White 2 and to take a look at the game in its current early state.

Molyneux started his presentation by stating that he plans to release a total of at least five Black & White games, each one featuring a world slightly more evolved than the last. This could potentially mean that a later Black & White game will take place in a world not too far removed from our own, but for right now it basically means that the villagers in Black & White 2 will be able to make and use weapons and armor, build walls, and stand up for themselves if they feel like they're getting a bad deal from their god's chosen creature.

We got to see hundreds of villagers fighting each other with short swords at one point of the demo, but the final game will be able to support thousands rather than hundreds of villagers at a time, and their arsenal will also include the spears, arrows, and flaming arrows that we also got to see today. For the purpose of the demo, the projectile weapons were being fired into the air by the player rather than by the villagers, but seeing hundreds of projectiles flying through the air in real time and then sticking into buildings as they landed was impressive nonetheless--particularly when the flaming arrows found their target and set the village ablaze.

In addition to attacking rival tribes and creatures, the villagers will be capable of attacking the player's own creature if it makes a habit of throwing them around for fun or eating them. Since the build of Black & White 2 we saw today was still using the creatures from the first game, the cow didn't really understand or respond to the volley of arrows that were left sticking out of its belly after an unprovoked attack from Molyneux. This won't be the case in the final game, and we can only begin to imagine the kind of damage that a village might sustain as a result of such a scuffle.

To protect their villages from rival tribes and creatures, players can now "draw" walls around them and place turrets as they see fit. This really did appear to be just as easy as it sounds, and it wasn't long before villagers were taking to the ramparts and defending their homes.

In the original Black & White , environmental changes determined by whether you were a good or evil god were quite subtle. In the sequel, Molyneux is promising that the effects will be far more immediate and noticeable, perhaps even to the point that every footstep a creature takes could either leave scorched earth or luscious green grass and flowers behind it. The effects should be quite dramatic, which definitely appears to be the effect that Lionhead is after for the game--Molyneux spoke of epic battles between good and evil, and he took great pleasure in demonstrating the game's new volumetric clouds as heavy rains accompanied by thunder and lightning swept across the island. Like the weather, the effects for magic spells in the game will also be much more pronounced and spectacular, although we didn't get to see any of them in action.

An issue in the original game that Molyneux seems particularly keen to resolve in the sequel concerned the praising and punishing of the creatures. In the first game there was no way to really be sure that a creature knew why it was being patted on the head or slapped across the back of the legs. In the sequel, when players interact with their creatures, they'll be presented with a menu listing all of the creatures' recent actions--they'll then be able to tick the box next to the correct action before raising their hand. Incidentally, it was also mentioned during our demo that severe punishments might see the player employing a stick with a nail through it.

It has not yet been decided how many different creatures will appear in the game or whether the creatures from the Black & White expansion pack will be included. Lionhead did confirm that players will be able to upload their existing creatures' "DNA" to a Web site so the creatures can subsequently be taken into Black & White 2 with at least some of their personality intact.

Lionhead has been working on Black & White 2 since January this year and has a completely separate team working on the multiplayer aspect of the game so no sacrifices are made in the single-player experience. No release date has been announced for the game at this time, and it seems reasonable to assume that even a late 2003 release estimate would be optimistic. We'll bring you more information on the game as it becomes available.