I asked how Grinding Gear made that “thunk” so splendid. The crossbow has a satisfying “thunk” with each shot. The archer went from piercing shots that blasted through armor to elemental shots that threw out bolts in wide cones. The crossbow looks quite different from how bows play in Path of Exile. And so, there is surprisingly diverse selection of weapons that work like this, though it does mean we miss out on bardiches and halberds and other types of polearms, which maybe we introduce later.”

The spears alternate between being ranged, melee, or both. “It’s partly because we wanted to have these have a consistent set of skills, and this evolved into poking them into enemies and being thrown and so on. I understand that there are halberds and stuff that don’t use exactly the same attacks, but there will hopefully be more than just spears in that weapon class,” Wilson said. “There may be a variety of pointy polearms used. This flexibility is something Grinding Gear is going for.Īnd I also had to ask why Grinding Gear is using spears over other pole arms, because, well, polearms are just the best, you know. You can either use it as a melee or missile weapon. The first wielded a spear, a new weapon for Path of Exile. The video revealed a couple of different weapon-styles as the player mowed down wave after wave of enemies. The first half of Wilson’s presentation (you can see the entire shindig above) shows off Path of Exile 2 (which doesn’t have a release date yet). Grinding Gear has tried this, but again, you have a limited pool when you’re dealing with a country of only 5-plus million people. Ubisoft in particular has a reputation for this, partnering with area universities and colleges when it opens new studios. “We’ve hired one person, who is a New Zealander and has come back to New Zealand because of the pandemic, which was helpful,” Wilson said.Ī number of publishers and studios have created local ecosystems to train new game developers over the years. So, how many hires has Grinding Gear made? Wilson said they just got the OK to bring in folks from Australia (which has a growing game development scene), but that’s it. New Zealand hasn’t let new people into the country during the pandemic, either, so you can’t hire workers. So it doesn’t have a lot of game developers. New Zealand, while having a land mass that rivals California, doesn’t have a lot of people (5.1 million as of April, making it the 121st most populous country on Earth). Grinding Gear has found itself struggling with a different COVID-related problem - hiring. We don’t sit there making a spec document for something we just discuss it in person, and they go and make it.” We’re not a very documentation-heavy company. There are developers crowded around each other’s computers, pointing at stuff and having discussions … and they get their information that way. Our game has evolved to involve development that takes place in the same room. “It would just be a nightmare to have the entire team working from home. Grinding Gear hasn’t experienced the same problems other studios have had with delays that come from working-at-home. “But the country is sitting there at a zero case rate, so it’s pretty safe for them to come in, because there aren’t plague cases that haven’t been discovered, as far as we’re aware.” And during the other times, we come to the office unless there’s extenuating circumstances, like people who live with very vulnerable family members and so on,” Wilson said. “We’ve been back in the office for 80% of the last 12 months basically, so during the times when the government recommends that people work from home, we work from home. So Wilson said Grinding Gear’s staff has been able to work on both Path of Exile and its sequel in the office. Join gaming leaders live this October 25-26 in San Francisco to examine the next big opportunities within the gaming industry.īecause New Zealand has sealed its borders, and its citizens and government heeded COVID-19 protocols, the virus is almost nonexistent there.

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