X02 Europe: Molyneux talks BC

During a "Developer Unplugged" session at today's X02 Europe event in Spain, Peter Molyneux offered something of an update on BC, which he described as an action adventure game.

Contrary to what had been stated at E3 2002, Molyneux said that in BC--which challenges players to help their tribe evolve while solving puzzles and fighting off dinosaurs--players do not necessarily play as the leader of their tribe but can, in fact, choose to play as any member of the tribe at any time during the game. He also revealed that the game will employ a very simple interface for interacting with other tribe members, which, it seems, might not be very far removed from that in Oddworld Inhabitants' Munch's Oddysee. There'll be a single button to "tag" tribe members, making them follow the player, and a single action button. All the tribe members who are present when an action is performed will start to learn that action for themselves. Examples given by Molyneux included collecting fruit and using stones as weapons against larger dinosaurs. Molyneux said the system is nowhere near as complex as that in last year's ambitious strategy game Black & White .

The larger dinosaurs in the game, which Molyneux incidentally mentioned will spill "swimming pools full of blood" when killed, will include a T-rex that Molyneux revealed will be around three times the size that it should be so that it will create the same kind of terror that Godzilla would. Molyneux also mentioned that in one of the later levels of the game, players will be required to establish a camp in a valley--a valley that turns out to be the giant footprint of a dinosaur that we can only assume is by far the biggest in the game.

Perhaps not wanting to disappoint those of us used to hearing him making seemingly unbelievable claims at these events, Molyneux went on to reveal that the BC world will feature its own fully functional food chain. The insects on the ground will hunt for food and will in turn be hunted by rodents, which might in turn be hunted by velociraptors, and so on. Molyneux hinted that it might actually be possible for players to affect this natural order of things to a certain degree, although it seems unlikely that a game that he himself has described as being quite bloody could end up being a warning of the dangers of species extinction.

BC is still far from finished, and, having admitted to never predicting a release date correctly in the past, Molyneux would only offer his personal guarantee that the game will be available this millennium. For more information, check out our Black & White of the game.