Interview – Gigantic: Rampage Edition Devs Talk Bringing Classic MOBA Shooter Back to Life

Although Gigantic originally closed down after its roughly year-long run in 2018, its dedicated fans have inspired Abstraction Games and Gearbox Publishing to revive the beloved MOBA shooter with Gigantic: Rampage Edition. Eschewing the free-to-play-with-microtransactions model of the original, Rampage Edition instead ships as a complete package with all content available for players to freely unlock. In addition, two new maps, two new heroes, and an all-new Rush mode are included, and there are plans for a future Ranked mode and additional free cosmetics.

Game Rant played a few rounds of Gigantic: Rampage Edition with game design lead Bart Vossen along with Brad Crespo from Gearbox Publishing, and they spoke about the game’s revival as a passion project for both Abstraction and Gearbox. They discussed their goals regarding preserving and building upon the original Gigantic MOBA shooter, the game’s post-launch plans, how they approached developing the new heroes and maps, and more. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: I noticed we are given a letter grade for our performance at the end of each match. Can you talk about how that assessment is made?

Vossen: The short of it is that the game compares your stats against other players that play the same character, but it’s a little bit more involved than that. We group the stats into three different categories: one is offensive, one is defensive, and one is support. The offensive ones are, of course, kills and assists. For defensive ones, you want as few deaths as possible, but it also looks at damage taken. For support, it looks at the healing, buffs, and debuffs that you’ve done.

It then compares that against other players that use those categories to determine your playstyle, and then it compares you against other players of that playstyle. If you’re in the top 10%, you get an S rank; if you’re in the next 15%, you get an A rank, etc.

There’s a grade tab at the end that gives you a breakdown of all the stats and there’s like an up or down arrow that shows if you were above the average or below the average, so that gives you some inkling in terms of “maybe I didn’t heal enough” or what you need to focus on.

New Maps in Gigantic: Rampage Edition

Q: How did you approach the development of these new maps? Were you thinking in terms of design themes like verticality or focusing on certain aesthetic aspects?

Vossen: The starting point for both of these maps is that Motiga did some of the original development, and they were in various stages of completion. Of course, we first looked at what the vision was that Motiga had in mind with this map. For example, Picaro Bay was just a rough blockout that focused on having two to three layers: the street layer and the rooftop layer. So that’s what we took as the core inspiration for Picaro Bay.

For Heaven’s Ward, the map was a little bit further along, so then we looked at how we could build from this rough layout and develop onto the map there. We also had the original lore from Motiga in terms of who House Tesserus is and all that already exists, so we looked more at opportunities to build on to that and to give the map its own unique aesthetic. That’s what we used with the art team to determine the visual style of the map and to create the landmarks and all those things.

Q: Is it difficult to design the maps around all the various playstyles in the game’s hero roster?

Vossen: Not so much, although it is definitely something you have to take into account because, generally, what we’ve done is just a lot of playtesting the map, trying out the different characters, and trying out the different play styles. For example, you’ve got Imani, a sniper character, and that’s a character you have to keep in mind for pretty much every sightline you have on the map to make sure that there’s no overpowered sniper spot that’s way too advantageous for her. It’s a lot of playtesting and then tweaking sightlines and tweaking access points and stuff.

Q: What was your approach to revamping Gigantic for Rampage Edition? What did you feel was particularly important to tweak or change, and what did you feel was important to preserve?

Vossen: The very first goal that we had, of course, was to keep what fans love about the game. As you just noticed yourself, a core part of that is the wild roster of characters. They’re all very unique. They have their own play styles and their own personalities. Even if you look at them visually, they’re a really cool bunch, so that’s definitely something that we wanted to keep in.

Also, the original game mode, Clash, is partly why the fans loved the game so much, so we wanted to make as few changes to that as possible. Any changes we would make would only be a quality-of-life improvement to keep that core experience intact. One of the first major areas where we really looked at improving the game was the tutorial experience. When the game launched seven or eight years ago, one of the challenges Gigantic had was that the Clash game mode had quite a few intricate rules that weren’t immediately easy to learn when you just jumped into the game. We wanted to make sure that we have a good set of tutorials that walk you through the game mode, introduce the various mechanics, and set you up better for learning the game.

On the other hand, we’ve also made several quality-of-life improvements. One of the things we noticed new players struggle with is the upgrading mechanic, and as a result, we’ve added a couple of settings that helped with that. There’s the auto upgrade setting, which is on by default to help new players, but we expect experienced players to turn that off once they adapt to what is happening in the game. Even then, if you have auto-upgrade off, there’s still a quick upgrade option in the game.

Then for each hero, we’ve added two default builds that players can choose between that really highlight some different playstyles for the character, and players can create their own custom builds. At the start of the match, the build you select is what the upgrade system then follows.

That’s kind of how we approached it. We asked “What problems are players running into in terms of lack of feedback?” or “What mechanics are a bit harder to understand for new players?” and thought about how we can make that more approachable for players so that they can skip the boring learning phase and really dive into the game and learn organically.

Q: Can you talk about the new heroes, Roland and Kajir? How did you approach their design with respect to the rest of the roster?

Vossen: Here also, Roland and Kajir were already in various stages of development from Motiga, so we really looked at the characters in-depth to try and see what Motiga’s original vision was for the characters. From there, we looked at what fits the fantasy of their playstyle.

For example, Roland is a bounty hunter with a mechanical arm, so we focused his skills on giving you the experience of getting in close and attacking with the shotgun, while the bolas also allow you to stalk your prey, slow them down, or set traps for them. You’ve got the grappling hook which allows you to chase your prey or gives you an extra level of mobility.

With Kajir, we really focused on making him a very strong burst assassin who has brief moments where he’s strong, but between those moments, he’s lacking in some damage output. Given the pirate background that he has, we gave him a skeleton crew to work with to create moments of distraction to use as an escape or sometimes for offense.

In short, we looked at what the original vision Motiga had for the characters, and then we looked at how we could fit that within the current roster, what kinds of playstyles and fantasy we could create with these characters, and then built it from there.

Q: For players who may have missed out on Gigantic the first time around, why do you feel someone should give this MOBA a shot?

Vossen: For me personally, it’s the variety of characters. It was very easy to find a play style that I enjoy from other games, and there’s a really good blend between melee characters and ranged characters, between characters that go in and play more like a shooter like Beckett and Imani, but then there, have also characters that play almost like a fighting game like Wu who has a bunch of combos in that sense. It’s just a really cool variety of characters. After you’ve come into Gigantic and you’ve learned your first character, you have so much to discover with the other characters that I think there’s something there for everyone.

For the matches themselves, Rush mode allows you to just dive into Gigantic for 30 minutes, have a couple of matches, and chill out. Or you can go into Clash mode, which still allows you to lean on the character skills, but gives you a bit more of that long-term strategy to also play with. Even if you’re maybe not winning one-on-one fights, you can still outplay your enemy team in terms of overall strategy. I think players are definitely going to love that aspect of it as well.

Related

5 Once Popular MOBA Games That Are Now Almost Dead

These once-iconic MOBA games are on their last leg due to low player counts and interest.

Gigantic: Rampage Edition’s Feedback Changes and Post-Launch Plans

Q: There was a beta recently and the team has been pretty active within the community. Has there been any feedback from players that has especially guided certain decisions?

Vossen: We’re definitely listening to player feedback. There were a couple of things called out. For example, during the beta, players called out that jump attacks take up quite a bit of stamina and that kind of disadvantages melee characters and this had a bunch of outcomes. We agree with those outcomes, and as a result, we’re reducing the stamina cost of jump attacks so that players don’t accidentally waste stamina or don’t consume their stamina too fast. It becomes a bit more viable to use that for melee characters.

Besides that, I have a bunch of feedback documents that I would have to dig back through. Oftentimes, what also happened with both this beta and the throwback event was that quite a bit of feedback from the players overlapped with some concerns that we had internally, so that just made it really easy for us. We think this thing doesn’t feel that great, and then the players are saying that too, and it was like, “Okay, yeah, cool. We don’t have to question this anymore, let’s just improve it and fix it.”

Q: What are your plans for the future of the game? Are you thinking of adding additional maps later down the line or new heroes?

Crespo: We definitely want there to be post-launch content and for all post-launch content to be free. With that, there are plans to bring a ranked mode which was one of the most highly requested features from the original game. Lots of people ask about it and, as I speak, there’s a Reddit thread about ranked mode being added and how it would add so much to the competitive scene of the game. So that is in the works and that’s going to be coming post-launch.

There are also some hero skins that we’ll be releasing for free as well post-launch. That’s the current plan, as of right now, for post-launch. Of course, good old balancing and patching and all that stuff will be there as well. The previous game was free-to-play with microtransactions, but with Rampage Edition, microtransactions have been completely removed. When you buy the game for 20 bucks, you get the full game right then and there. That’s kind of the main thing we want for players to take away from this. “Oh, this is great, I just straight up spent 20 bucks, and I’ll be able to get everything in the game and not have to worry about microtransactions. They’re also not only bringing the game back, but they’re also releasing content post-launch that we’ve been asking for.”

It’s essentially a good “thank you” to fans of the original, while of course introducing new fans as well. That’s kind of the intention for both launch and post-launch.

Q: Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?

Vossen: I would encourage everyone to just go play and enjoy the game, and I’m really happy to be able to bring this back to all the fans. In a sense, it’s due to the fans maintaining faith and love for the game that’s what ultimately brought it back. Without them, the game wouldn’t have come back.

Crespo: From a publisher standpoint, we’re all huge fans of the original, and this is a passion project for us as well. We’re super thrilled to bring back Gigantic and bring it to life. Not only that, but also to bring it back and make it so that anyone can get it and enjoy it to the fullest. That’s the intention here. As you mentioned, it’s wholesome and something you don’t usually see, and it’s incredible to be a part of that. We’re really excited for everyone to jump back into Gigantic whether they’re first-timers, or they’ve played thousands and thousands of matches in the original.

[END]

Gigantic: Rampage Edition launches April 9 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

MORE: The 5 Best MOBAs Of All Time