The cyberpunk parkour title Ghostrunner has a new demo launching today on Steam ahead of its Oct. 27 release date on PC and consoles. During PAX’s online event, The Escapist had the chance to catch up with the team at One More Level to learn what’s new in the most recent demo compared to the others they presented at previous showcases.
Szymon Bryla, the studio head at One More Level, explained that while the content in the demo is roughly the same as in previous ones, it’s going to be a much more polished experience because it’s an updated build. The lead level designer, Marcin Kulzek, said that they’re currently working on the leaderboard portion of the game.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback from previous showings of Ghostrunner was that players wanted the ability to change key bindings on PC. At first, there were no controller schemes, but now players can play however they want on either controller or keyboard. Radek Ratusznik, a game designer on Ghostrunner, mentioned that some players didn’t enjoy having to use the bumper button when jumping, which is a basic function of movement in the game. As a result, controller schemes were added.
Speedrunners in particular offered helpful feedback for Ghostrunner. “We got tips from speedrunners where they wanted more momentum during wall running and movement. So we were adjusting things here and there and making things feel more fluid,” explained Ratusznik. Some players are incredibly competitive and wanted to know stats such as how many times they died to compare them with their friends. Ratusznik hopes that new changes that address such feedback will showcase themselves throughout the demo.
Damian Tłuczkiewicz, lead artist on the game, said that the team had been working with Nvidia to make Ghostrunner shine. They want to utilize the RTX technology and take advantage of all of its possibilities, including ray tracing and optimization. Ghostrunner was inspired by works such as Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell (the anime, that is). The game has plenty of lights, fog, buildings, and rain, as the team wanted to build a heavy atmosphere.
“If you’re following our game, you might have already seen that we showed some demos with RTX technology,” said Tłuczkiewicz. “With that we can run (Ghostrunner) as optimally as possible, with the best possible performance and visuals. We will support raytraced soft shadows, raytraced reflections, and raytraced ambient occlusion.”
Bryla explained that, throughout Ghostrunner’s development, One More Level was the biggest team working on the game, along with Slipgate Ironworks and 3D Realms. One More Level was responsible for the game’s entire design, visuals, and PC quality. The folks at Slipgate were primarily in charge of the console versions. However, One More Level doesn’t believe it was that difficult to coordinate work, with a total of around 40 people on the development team.
In terms of publishing, All in Games! is responsible for public relations for first-parties and publishing, while 505 Games brings experience in marketing and first-party relations in certain areas. “They’re trying to help each other to make the best effort for our game, and I think that’s the best and optimal solution for us,” said Bryla.
Ghostrunner is already landing on a wide multitude of platforms, but as for the future and the next generation of consoles, One More Level is excited about what they can offer. Bryla believes there will be “new opportunities to tell stories and better visuals.”
Ghostrunner will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG on Oct. 27.
