'We Thought About Sequels and Wanted to Go 3D' - Fallout Dev on Future of Arcanum
Tim Cain talked about the ideas and plans Troika had for Arcanum 2, the sequel to the excellent steampunk RPG from 2001.
Tim Cain is a true legend of the PC RPG market. He took part in the work on such titles as Fallout, Fallout 2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura or The Temple of Elemental Evil. Almost as interesting as the games he has completed, however, are his projects that have been abandoned. On his YouTube channel, the developer talked about several of them.
Most of the material is devoted to the cancelled Journey to the Center of Arcanum, a continuation of the first game Tim Cain developed at Troika, the studio he founded.
- The devs started thinking about the sequel while they were still working on the first part.
- The developers wanted the sequel to be made in 3D, unlike the two-dimensional original. They considered using the Source engine for this purpose.
- A large part of Journey to the Center of Arcanum was to take place underground. Just as the title suggested, one of the inspirations for the devs was the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.
- In the campaign, the player character would be hired by the wife of Franklin Payne, known from the first part. Her husband built a large machine capable of drilling deep into the earth and went on an expedition in it to search for the remains of ancient civilizations. However, the contract with him quickly stopped, and our task would be to find him.
- During the expedition we would encounter, among other things, underground civilizations and dinosaurs. We would also discover a special ore that would enable us to craft items where magic and technology could be combined without conflict.
If you want to learn more about the game, we recommend reading a document with the premise of the project, discovered a few years ago.
Arcanum 2 ended its life in the concept phase, but the established cooperation with Valve later led, however, to the creation of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, which was built on the Source engine.
If you want to play Troika games then only with mods.
Troika's games were full of great ideas, but they all debuted in a technical state that left a lot to be desired. Today, however, this is no longer a problem, as fan patches and mods are available for each of them, fixing virtually all shortcomings.
- If you want to play Arcanum then the basic project is Unofficial Arcanum Patch. It is also worth installing the mods Arcanum High Resolution Patch (enables you to play in high resolutions) and beautifying graphics of cities High Quality Townmaps. In addition, if you have problems with playing on modern PCs Dinputto8 will help to solve them.
- On the other hand, in the case of The Temple of Elemental Evil you should choose one of two mods: Circle of Eight Standard Edition fixes all bugs, but does not change the content or balance. If you want these changes, as well as the restoration of cut content, then install Circle of Eight New Content Edition.
- However, when playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines it is absolutely necessary to use VTMB Unofficial Patch. On the other hand, if you want to spice up your gameplay, good suggestions would be The Final Night and Bloodlines Extreme.
