Evercore Heroes Injects Roguelike Dungeon Runs Into A MOBA-Like Set-Up

Vela Games’ Project V has been officially revealed. Called Evercore Heroes, the upcoming game combines inspirations from several different genres. It looks and controls a lot like a MOBA, even featuring a roster of colorful science fiction- and fantasy-inspired hero characters. But there are elements of a roguelike as well, given how each player delves into every match with the aim of optimizing their build for the current run. Evercore Heroes dips a bit of PvP competition into its primarily PvE gameplay loop as well.

In Evercore Heroes, four teams of four each battle through waves of enemies in PvE combat all on the same map, each striving to accomplish objectives and fully outfit themselves with powerful shards while also protecting their evercore from waves of enemies. After several rounds, all teams are placed into a boss encounter, where it becomes a race to see which team can beat the big baddie first.

If your team’s evercore is destroyed, you lose. But leaving it behind to go accomplish objectives is the only way to earn enough resources to power you and your allies up enough for the boss, so it pays to run out and complete as much as you can in-between waves of enemies. And even if you can’t directly interact with the other teams on the map, you can see where they are and what they’re doing, allowing you the chance to try and complete objectives on the map before them, locking them out from receiving the rewards for that specific task.

Following the reveal of Evercore Heroes, I interviewed Vela Games co-founders Travis George, Lisa Newon George, and Brian Kaiser. The transcripts of our conversation is detailed below.

GameSpot: How did y’all arrive at this art and visual style? It’s quite vibrant, despite the dark undertones of the narrative.

Brian Kaiser: Just in terms of the overall presentation of the game, it was very much a deliberate choice to provide something that felt vibrant, that felt positive. We really want to give players a satisfying, fun, and positive escape with this game. And you know, the stakes are very high in the story. And you heard about the Shattering and how it’s affecting the world and those kinds of things in the presentation. But there’s also hope built into the story automatically because the veil is starting to shatter, but it’s still there. There’s the chance that it could shatter further, there’s a chance that maybe there’s a way to repair it. We could have set the story 100 years after the veil completely shattered–that’s an apocalypse so we didn’t go there. We wanted [players] to feel heroic. We really wanted to have the spirit of players coming together and having this competitive PvE experience but with this focus on team play cooperation, and really bring that sense of teamwork and heroism and that positive escape into the story as well. And the fact is, of course, the look of the world and the characters.

Lisa Newon George: And speaking of the heroes–well, first of all, taking a step back. We decided to sort of go for a more stylized look in the game, you’ll see that–especially with the look and design of the heroes–as opposed to something more photorealistic. This is a style that we love as creators, but we also feel that our players would really love as well. So with regard to the sort of personalities and tones that you might see in the initial eight [heroes], that that is just a starting point–we are developing a larger roster. And within that roster, there’ll be a wide range of different types of personalities and stories that will range from more upbeat, positive, sort of spunky, and cute, to characters that have more of a dark side, more of a darker look. And so we’re looking to really push the sort of boundaries there and offer different types of heroes to different people because we know that players have lots of different styles and tastes, and they connect to different types of heroes. And so we really want to provide a hero for everyone in that way that everyone can find and connect with.

You’re talking about this starting point and then building the roster of heroes. Was there any specific reasoning for starting with the eight seen in the trailer?

Travis George: We had lots of discussion about this because we have more than eight [ready]. One of the reasons was, we wanted to represent different gameplay styles. And that team comp [seen in the trailer] could be a very valid team comp in the game. It’s not something you have to choose, but we wanted to show [a valid team]–we always want to be authentic. We didn’t just pick the coolest-looking characters.

Lisa Newon George: When we were putting our heads together, thinking about the trailer, we really wanted to highlight four different heroes from different regions with different personalities and different aesthetics, different stories, and different playstyles. And we landed on those initial four, and then the four who run by, similarly, we were thinking through all those different things, and we decided on those four, for potential stories in the future.

How big of a focus is the story?

Brian Kaiser: When we’re in the game playing in the moment-to-moment of a session, we’re all focused on the game experience that we’re having with our friends with our co-workers. And we think that’s really important. Stories are an important part of the experience, though, and the game does have a seasonal structure. And that opens up a lot of really exciting opportunities for things that we can do narratively, that do evolve the world of the story and allow changes and allow us to get closer looks at the characters and get closer to them and for players to fall in love with them in the way that we have. And you take those experiences and those feelings from the characters and naturally bring that into the gameplay experience with you. So I really look at it as sort of a cohesive experience. It’s overall. So you know, getting some of these characters feeling like you’re having an impact on this world is an important part of the overall experience.

What mechanics or features are in the game to encourage players to work together and not go off and solo tasks?

Travis George: Great question. And I think I’ll just say this upfront, I think we’re going to continue to evolve this over time. And I can tell you our thinking on it right now. One is just the foundation of the game itself. Project V, when it started, was a very co-op PvE experience–there wasn’t that competitive element on top of it.

But now what you have is you have this competitive element where you have to outplay other teams. But the moment-to-moment gameplay is still very cooperative. We don’t like to talk about genres–we like to talk about [Evercore Heroes] as its own thing because there’s just honestly too many genre influences. But if you think of a MOBA–which is what a lot of us here have worked on, so it’s a good reference point–you’re kind of playing like three or four separate games. And then occasionally come together in a team to fight or contest an objective.

That’s a very cooperative [experience], like you will have a very hard time venturing out and trying to do much on your own. Now, we also don’t want to be super restrictive. So there are actually some ways that you can devise a split-up strategy. There’s actually a shard in the game that is pretty rare but it’ll actually let you have enough power and stats to go out on your own if your team wants you to. But generally, if you just decide you’re going to go out and solo, you’re probably not going to make it terribly far. And you’re probably not going to win the match. So one of the biggest things I can say to that general kind of thinking is the way to be good at Evercore Heroes is to be really good at working with your team.

Does the game use a Role Queue?

Travis George: Our intention is to put as few restrictions in place in terms of team comp as possible because we think it’s really healthy for the game to have an evolving narrative that’s driven by player strategy, And so part of that is being flexible–there’s many games where we have seen their methods evolve in drastic ways over time. And I think the more hard constraints you put on those things, the less room you have to maneuver. And we just generally think we want to create an ecosystem where players can develop fun strategies because that is part of the game: thinking about team comps. So I can’t commit to what [Evercore Heroes] will be in the future, but our intention is to have as few restrictions as possible.

I will say, in the game, because of that cooperative nature, the roles are pretty distinct. Tanks really do have different tools–they have taunt, like there’s aggro in the game. DPS [characters] need to apply DPS, so they often have disables. So it is pretty tough to run off if you are the team’s tank. You can do it, but, again, you probably won’t win. The game may indirectly enforce more notice on you than we would artificially if that makes sense. Just because of the nature of the co-op play.

What incentive will be in the game to encourage losing teams to stick around, or punishment to prevent them from leaving early? Like, how does the game handle loss? Do you still earn something for completing a match?

Travis George: In general, one of the things we liked about the four-team format, as opposed to just the binary, win-loss, is if you’re in fourth, you can fight for third, and if your third you can fight for second or first–you can come back. There are mechanisms where even if you’re behind at various points if you can outplay somebody in a moment and carry that momentum, you can turn the game around. And there’s nothing artificial going on behind the scenes. So there’s no rubber banding or anything like that. But we do give you opportunities to demonstrate your skill in that moment and come from behind.

Now, the game does get harder as time goes on. So if your team’s just really behind and really underpowered, the game becomes really hard. Because step one is beat the game, and step two is to outplay other teams while doing it–you might actually just get eliminated. I played in a match last night where my Evercore got destroyed. And so I was out after about seven minutes. So there are those kinds of mechanisms.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.