Unforetold: Witchstone interview: “Our key focus is freedom and agency”

While many expected CRPG developers to be disheartened by the mammoth success of Baldur’s Gate 3, it seems Larian’s behemoth of a game has had the opposite effect. With the recent release of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, we saw that there is still scope to do things a little differently and be successful, and now Spearhead Games are entering the fray with Unforetold: Witchstone.

We recently spoke to Malik Boukhira, Creative Director of Spearhead Games who was kind enough to answer our questions. But before we get to that, some background on this exciting new CRPG.

It’s set in the realm of Kalsundia, a fledgling nation created by the refugees of two warring empires, who fled to this new land and then banded together to repel their former masters. Your customised character comes to Kalsundia to find adventure and face their destiny, but how they do that is entirely up to you.

While on the surface the dice-roll mechanic looks very similar to Baldur’s Gate 3, Unforetold: Witchstone is its own beast entirely. For a start, the story is incredibly, perhaps even uniquely, malleable for a CRPG. You see, you can recruit almost any NPC you meet as long as their goals and yours align. The influence system is unprecedented, allowing you to not only recruit NPCs but persuade them to do almost anything, including steal, lie, or kill for you.

The campaign is also very freeform. While there is a central narrative, you’re often left to your own devices to figure out a way forward, adding even more of a dependence on using your wits to overcome challenges. Unforetold: Witchstone is about far more than just following quest markers and completing fetch-quests – though it’s not entirely above that.

Combat is turn-based with a tactical pause, allowing you to assess and react on the battlefield – but you’ll often be able to talk your way out anyway. Your race (human, elf, or dwarf) and choice of class will further determine how NPCs react to you, as well as which of the minor and major factions you’ll be able to join or oppose.

Our primary influence for Unforetold: Witchstone is tabletop RPG. Specifically, the feeling of freedom and agency with the world you have when playing on tabletop. You feel you can say or do anything, and be creative in how you solve a challenge.

As Witchstone launches into early access there are four primary classes, each with several specialisations. For example, a Fighter could be a Spellsword or Gunslinger, while a Cleric can be a Sage or War Priest. I went with a human Gunslinger for my initial playthrough of Act 1, and quickly found myself recruiting allies from the opening are to help me escape the first city, but I spent much more time talking than fighting, thanks to a high Charisma value and a fair amount of luck.

The early access release ends at the end of Act 1, but that’s still a lot of gameplay depending on how you approach the game, and certainly more than enough to get my attention.

Read on for our interview with Malik Boukhira, Creative Director of Spearhead Games.

Mick Fraser: How does it feel releasing a CRPG in a post-Baldur’s Gate 3 world? Is there added pressure?

Malik Boukhira: Baldur’s Gate 3 is a truly amazing CRPG for sure. I think that, in our case, releasing after them does not create a matter of pressure, but of expectations. Despite both games being in the same genre, and sharing similar mechanics like turn-based combat, the gaming experience we aim to create with Unforetold: Witchstone is quite different from Baldur’s Gate 3.

We’re a small team of 30 people, so we’re not going to compete with the production value, like motion captured cutscenes and the like. Instead we focus on bringing cool new experiences to the genre by focusing on new systems and mechanics that forward the interactive aspect of the story rather than its presentation.

Mick: What were some of your primary influences?

Malik Boukhira: Our primary influence for Unforetold: Witchstone is tabletop RPG. Specifically, the feeling of freedom and agency with the world you have when playing on tabletop. You feel you can say or do anything, and be creative in how you solve a challenge. You also feel like the world and characters can react to all your actions and that you can impact the world in meaningful ways. Well, provided you have a good Game Master of course! That freedom and agency are the key elements we focus on for Unforetold: Wichstone.

Mick: How do you set Unforetold: Witchstone apart from other games in the genre?

Malik Boukhira: As mentioned in the previous question, one of our key focuses is freedom and agency that we find in tabletop RPGs. To really push that aspect, instead of the classic branching narrative approach used by many games, we developed a new approach based on interconnected narrative systems and NPC AI that allows for a more dynamic and reactive world and characters. This unlocks new possibilities in terms of freedom and story flexibility for the players.

From individuals, to entire towns to the entire continent. Every character has their own personality traits and routines.

One of the most obvious and coolest things this approach enables is our Influence System. Influence is a unique feature of the game that allows you to craft your own dialogue options to try and influence any character in the game to perform different actions. There are many commands to choose from, such as “attack another character”, “give me something you own”, “meet me somewhere”, “join my party”, and more. There are also diplomatic options when dealing with factions such as “surrender”, “sign a peace treaty” or “declare war”.

You then pick the approach you want to take to convince your target, such as threatening them physically, fast-talking them, arguing logically or even blackmailing them. This feature offers great roleplaying opportunities, but also a ton of freedom and creativity on how to solve various challenges in the game. There’s more the game has to offer, such as a very dynamic world.

Mick: Witchstone is listed as an RPG Sandbox. Just how malleable is the world you’ve built?

Malik Boukhira: From individuals, to entire towns to the entire continent. Every character has their own personality traits and routines. Factions also have their own agenda and can take actions locally and globally. They can react to your actions and decisions, but you can also directly influence them socially with the Influence system. Depending on your actions and goals, a town could be flourishing, torn by war, or even entirely destroyed. With both characters and the environment being dynamic, that makes for a very malleable world that may end up looking very different depending on where you take your adventure.

The equivalent of quests in Unforetold: Witchstone are “Opportunities”, which you can choose to perform because they are a way to further your goals, or simply because you want to befriend a character or faction.

Mick: The decision to release into Early Access is becoming more common across all genres. What kind of feedback are you looking for from this period?

Malik Boukhira: With so many possibilities offered by the game, there’s many kinds of feedback we’re looking for from the community. Should we add more influence approaches for certain roleplaying styles? Are there creative solutions they attempt to reach their goals that we should support? Are there things they did in the game that should elicit more reactions and consequences? We built our systems to be expandable, but we certainly didn’t think about every possibility, so we’re looking forward to working with the community to keep developing and improving the game.

Mick: How critical is the narrative in Witchstone? Will the player have freedom to go off the critical path?

Malik Boukhira: In the case of Unforetold: Witchstone, freedom is not contradictory with Narrative. We have the chance of working with Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Forgotten Realms, so we have great world building and characters. But, like mentioned above, the appeal of our narrative is not about the fully realized cutscenes, it is about living an adventure that feels uniquely yours, one that is a direct result to your roleplaying and actions. There are multiple goals you can accomplish that shape the fate of the world. Combined with that, there are many approaches you can take to reach each of them.

Also, unlike any other RPG, there are no mandatory quests. The equivalent of quests in Unforetold: Witchstone are “Opportunities”, which you can choose to perform because they are a way to further your goals, or simply because you want to befriend a character or faction. But you can also look to reach your goals without heeding any opportunity, using all the tools at your disposal, whether it’s social gameplay, combat, or stealth and skulduggery.

So the combination of different goals and approaches with their various consequences, reactions and evolutions from the world is what makes the narrative of the game. A memorable moment in the game will not be “I saw this cool cinematic…” but rather “I tried to accomplish this a certain way and that happened next…”

Mick: What kind of social aspects will be included? Is it a solo experience or will there be multiplayer?

Malik Boukhira: There is no multiplayer at the moment, but we do hope to add co-op multiplayer in the future.

Mick: Will it remain a PC exclusive or will it be heading to consoles in the future?

Malik Boukhira: We’d love to bring the game to consoles in the near future.

Mick: Are there plans to support Unforetold: Witchstone post release?

Malik Boukhira: Yes, after the Early Access period, there’s a lot we can do to expand the game’s experience. Being an open ended RPG allows us to do all sorts of updates, from classic RPGs staples like new classes and ancestries, to new regions and factions that offer new possibilities in terms of stories and adventures.

Thanks very much to Malik Boukhira for answering our questions.

Unforetold: Witchstone was developed and published by Spearhead Games, and is currently available in Steam Early Access for £26.99.