What’s it like designing quests for a less fixed protagonist like V, who has varying backgrounds, character builds?

As quest designers we were already used to tell nonlinear stories, so having a character like V gave us more of what we already like to do. The lifepaths are actually one of my favorite features, because they just give us more roleplaying opportunities. A nomad can of course solve some problems much better than a corpo, but put him into a board room and he might not really have the best way to lead a conversation the way he wants to.

So when we come up with challenges, we also like to think how different lifepaths could solve them effectively. This will hopefully give players lots of motivation to play the game multiple times, because they can have a completely new experience.

The new gameplay options thanks to our fluid class system essentially give us more opportunities to make our quests even more nonlinear. It’s a lot of fun to work with our level and encounter designers on locations for our quests, because there are always so many different options we can come up with. And sometimes, these options can then also change the story, so just like the lifepath, these gameplay abilities just make it easier for us to make the quest more nonlinear than ever.