Exclusive Interview with Fatshark's CEO: How to not ship broken games and more

A: What were the biggest differences between developing for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, or was there even anything significant?

M: There weren’t any significant differences really, they were pretty similar in my opinion. There are some technical differences of course and some differences in philosophy on each platform, but they felt pretty similar. We developed them both at the same time, there are some hardware differences, as everyone knows.

A: Will there be any differences between Vermintide on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One? Or will they be identical?

M: They will both be identical. We chose to try and make all platforms as identical as possible. There is a discussion to be had here; many publishers have many different version with unique features and such and it is possible that we might add a little something, but as it stands today, both versions are the same so that everyone gets the same experience no matter the platform they are playing.

A: What’s your opinion on PlayStation 4 Pro and Project Scorpio? Are you for all these 1.5 consoles?

M: It’s exciting! I haven’t had the time think too much about it, but it’s interesting. We want to support our game the all the way, so for us, it means making sure that the game works on the base console and then you can upscale for the new consoles. It’s an exciting development; we just have to wait and see what happens. I’m not sure if this will bring any changes for us since we want to support the old generations, so I see no issues, it’s a positive thing, they are stronger machines, it’s nice. As long as they don’t change the architecture completely, so you get the old Nokia phenomenon with thirty million different screen resolutions and all that, but the risk of that happening can’t be that high.

A: Haha, hopefully! We talked a bit about cross-play last time I was here, is Fatshark’s stance still the same?

M: No, we have not added it. We have thought about it, and it’s not hard to do, technically speaking, the thing is keeping up with updates, it would force us to update all platforms at the same time. It’s not impossible that we might add it sometime in the future, we have to wait and see. 

One of the most difficult things with games, like I talked a bit about, is updating and testing and all that. We would have to update our backend, our clients on all the different platforms, and if an update were not to pass or get through the submission phase that console has, we would need to have everything synced perfectly and the mean much more work. It is possible that we might get there one day but as a smaller company, it is another step which is quite messy. We might give it a try in the future, but we have no plans for it at the moment.

A: Fatshark’s current size makes it too much of a hassle?

M: I think we can pull it off in due time but like I said, with all the updates (A: precisely, they need to roll out) we have to push out, all the patches need to roll out, we need to get our new content out, we have built some content that still hasn’t been released since we haven’t had the time to test it. 

For us it’s about catching up, to release everything that we have built and after that, it’s things like that that takes time so let us say for example that the PS4 and Xbox versions can handle an update but PC can’t, if that happens then you need to hold back the PS4 and Xbox versions while PC catches up or the other way around, the risk there is that you might end up never releasing updates and it becomes an even bigger hassle than it already is. That might probably be the biggest argument against cross-play, the argument for cross-play is like you said, multiplayer game, play with each other.

We have also made some changes on console that doesn’t exist on PC to make Vermintide “better” on console since it is a different medium and you play at a different tempo; you don’t play the same on console as on PC when you move, shoot enemies, and such. We have tweaked the console versions to make them feel as good as possible, so it’s no longer the same game which can make it unbalanced and unfair when playing with PC players. Though playing with Xbox and PlayStation would be fair and balanced, I think it would work with PC, but it’s a bit more of a balancing act.

A: Vermintide has been a real success for Fatshark, a real lift for the company. Have there been any offers for some of the bigger publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and all those players?

M: That’s something that you’re not allowed to talk about in interviews, but of course, the interest in the company has increased a lot, and that’s is great, and it also opens up new possibilities. For us, part of the success with Vermintide was that we decided to put the player in focus, we were going to do as great of a game as we could, and the rest would follow, and it’s great that it paid off, so that is what we will keep on doing. 

We will see, if we find a partner who will allow us to make better games then we can discuss it, but we don’t want to get into a situation where we will have to compromise on game quality. That is not fun, hehe. I have been in the industry for so long so it has to be fun, the day it stops being fun you have to start doing something else, it’s supposed to be fun, and you’re meant to work close to the players. One of the benefits of being independent is that you can be more transparent, you can say what’s on your mind, you can be more open to players and say “this, and that will happen.” 

But it is also a problem, like now, you say something, and then something else happens, and then you got to delay, and people get disappointed at you, but we are trying to be as transparent as possible.

A: So when you were down in Barcelona at DICE 2016 with Randy Pitchford from Gearbox, it was not to plan a new Duke Nukem game by Fatshark?

M: Hahaha, no! Randy is a pleasant person, fantastic guy all around, and I highly respect him and his work. But we were mostly having fun and had a lot of discussions with guys like Hilmar from CCP; he had a great introductory talk, and he talked about the visions and gaming as a whole. 

We are living in exciting times. Games have become something bigger than they have ever been, and I am not talking financially, I am talking about what you can do. VR, it is pushing technology, it is pushing ideas forward, it is pushing the development of AI. There is a lot of cool stuff happening that you might not see when you’re sitting in the middle of it all, it’s not just that one game. We are pushing things like VR and AI forwards, it’s pretty cool when you think about it, and it drives you to make even bigger projects that are even more advanced, it’s very inspiring.

A: Back in the day it used to be the military who pushed technology forwards, now it’s the gaming industry.

M: Yes, exactly, now it’s the gaming industry. Nowadays the gaming industry is helping more and more and more when it comes to advancing things. That’s also the thing with it being financially viable; the advancements become even more efficient. It’s really awesome; it’s great!

A: Appropo VR, VR is a big phenomenon these days, what do you think about the future of VR, is it here to stay? 

M: VR is here to stay, absolutely, but I don’t think anyone can tell exactly what it will be used for. It is something we are keeping up to date with and informed on and are working with and learning and such. But it will take a while until it is financially viable to sell as a consumer product, the computers need to become cheaper and also be able to run VR, the headsets needs to become more user-friendly, the cords needs to go away eventually. 

Something that I think we will see a lot of early, which we already see today, is VR experiences, to experience places and such, that’s something I believe will be cool. We will probably also see VR conferences which will make them quite efficient. There will also be coming a lot of cool VR content for games as well, but we have to wait and see what will happen. What makes this so interesting is that it is big players who are investing in VR. 

I think that commercially VR is a few years away before it becomes viable. I also believe that it’s important to follow the development so you know what’s happening so you have the competence to work with it and push the technology forward. It a pretty cool concept, it’s a special feeling to sit in it, but I don’t think you can sit for too many hours because otherwise, you’ll get a headache. I never get motion sickness but after sitting for 45 - 60 minutes I started to get tired and felt like I needed a break from it, there’s a lot of impressions all at once.