Hunted: The Demon's Forge Message Board older than one year ago

Bethesda's new IP puts a new spin on the classic dungeon crawler formula.

Just another day at the office for these two partners as they battle through menacing dungeons, overgrown ruins, and downtrodden towns.

Brian Fargo is no stranger to the world of video game development, having originally founded Interplay back in 1984. He's worked on titles like the original Bard's Tale and Wasteland, and Interplay developed everything from Battle Chess to Fallout to Baldur's Gate. When Interplay was acquired by Titus in 2002, Fargo left and founded InXile Entertainment, which later released an updated Bard's Tale for PS2, Xbox, and PC. Now both Fargo and InXile are moving onto next-generation consoles with the swords and scorcery co-op title Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

We recently spoke to Fargo about the game, which you can find just after the break. But be warned! Just prepare yourself for the sheer about of verbiage manages to foist upon us when we asked what the initial genesis for the game was. It's quite an answer! Read on to see what he has to say about the upcoming title, including why they limited to two characters, the depth of the puzzles in the game, and boob jiggle. Yes, boob jiggle.

Clicked: The Full-sized Gallery Bethesda's undoubtedly one of the best developers in the industry; however, as a publisher, it's had its fair share of ups and down. Last year's Wet and Rogue Warrior illustrate both extremes quite well. Earlier this year at GDC, when Bethesda unveiled the clumsily titled Hunted: The Demon's Forge - a new co-op dungeon crawler from inXile Entertainment, Interplay-cofounder Brian Fargo's new digs - we immediately wondered which side of that gulf it would live on. Would it be worthy of the Bethesda name on its packaging, alongside promising shooter Brink, surefire-hit Fallout: New Vegas, and id Software's Rage? Fargo certainly thinks so.

In fact, Fargo is so sure about his new game, that he wasn't afraid to recall the past glory of games like the original Bard's Tale and Wizardry at a recent Bethesda press event, and Fargo had previously introduced the concept, saying "What you're going to see here today is a reimagining of the dungeon crawler, the classic game that got me into this industry." He continued, "It was the Might & Magic series, it was the Ultima series, Dungeon Master from FTL was a bit of a breakthrough product ... that's very much the experience I grew up with." And as action games supplanted the dungeon crawlers, Fargo "felt like the core experience of that good ol' dungeon crawl, getting lost in the dungeon, had sort of fallen away. And it hadn't fallen away because the titles were doing bad. People forgot or something."

While we don't know if they forgot - Demon's Souls, Torchlight, and Diablo 3 say hi! - Fargo's "reimagining" certainly doesn't look like what you imagine when you think dungeon crawl. "The gamer today has a different metaphor for engrossing themselves, which is more the action, Gears of War-type thing," Fargo explains. "So what we need to do is take today's experience and mix those two together but ... we the take you someplace very different, and in the beginning we need to get your attention." Read to to find out where your attention will be going, and to find out if inXile has been successful in grabbing our attention.

#bethesdasoftworks The head of Hunted: The Demon's Forge developer, inXile Entertainment, doesn't take comparisons of his dark dungeon crawler to Gears of War unkindly—even if you're labeling it Spears of War and Gears of Warcraft. More »

Bringing sexy back to dungeon crawling.

#bethesdasoftworks inXile Entertainment's Brian Fargo wants to update the classic dungeon crawler, popularized by MUDs and dark medieval adventures like Stonekeep and the Wizardry series, into the modern age for the Halo or Gears of War player with Hunted: The Demon's Forge. More »

Click to descend into the Lair of Screenshots
If you and your friends are eager to dive into a monster-filled dungeon -- and who isn't -- then Bethesda has a thrilling announcement for you: The publisher is handling a new co-op fantasy action game, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, developed by Interplay founder Brian Fargo's InXile Entertainment.

Fargo describes Hunted as an "upcoming release that takes us back to our roots," and the screenshots (in our gallery below) paint a pretty clear picture of what that could mean: warriors and archers putting holes in orc-looking things with sharp objects and magic.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge is in development for Xbox 360, PS3 and Games for Windows (PC). We'll have some impressions of the game later today.

One of the founding fathers of the western RPG talks Hunted, The Bard's Tale, Fallout, Interplay and sexy elf.

The classic dungeon crawler gets a face lift.