Chainz 2： Relinked

Chainz 2: Relinked, the sequel to Chainz, is set to come out this month. The sequel, Chainz 2: War of the Light, will follow a new hero, Zeke, who has escaped the Dark Lord's clutches and now sets off on a journey to find the Power Sword, but as he'll have to fight the undead, Zeke must also battle his way through legions of soldiers, creatures, and zombies in this action-packed adventure. The game's story will span two generations of Zeke's time.

"Chainz 2: War of the Light will be one of the more memorable sequels in the series and will follow Zeke through all six chapters of his time on a treacherous path of adventure. With time traveling by the year, the heroes will journey to new lands, build their own settlements, and do battle with some new monsters in order to emerge victorious. Gamers will get to explore a whole new continent, explore incredible landscapes, and battle powerful bosses in a brand-new storyline."

The first two games will be enhanced by higher-resolution visuals, although the developers are not ready to discuss the upgrade.

"We have the benefit of fully customizable sprites for the characters, which should help the graphics maintain the high quality standards we have set in the series," said Key to Key. "We're also happy to talk about the new types of heroes. With the introduction of new blood and violent conditions, we can increase the intensity of the combat in the game, and we also add a whole new dimension to the music and sound effects in the game."

GS: What about the third game, Torchlight II? Will it be as much of a sequel to the first game, or will it feature more in terms of content?

MY: Torchlight II takes place in a different world. It's a different realm entirely, and we're not ready to reveal much about the plot for the third game. But the storyline is very important to us. We are very happy to go back to the first game and improve on the feel of the first game, with much more detail, more emotion, more puzzles, and more enemies. We are very pleased to be able to go back to the original Torchlight in a new and interesting way, and we are very excited about what we have in store for the third game.

GS: Have you gone through any of the changes or upgrades you've made to the engine?

MY: The development team has really hit a bullseye with all of the enhancements we've made to the engine, and we're getting to work with the final code from the ground up. The engine has been completely reworked and redesigned to allow for a much better representation of the game world. We have been able to take the first game's graphics, the animations, the dynamic camera, and the lighting effects and shadows, and we are also working with game designers to further improve the world and level design. With our first Torchlight, we learned that we had to make better use of our animations and physics, and we are doing it with the second game's engine. We are taking some major steps forward in how the game has been rebuilt, and we are really pushing our engine to be the most powerful in the game and the most interesting game we've seen in years.

GS: Are there any concerns about how much progress will be made in the game's multiplayer? What's the basic functionality you're expecting from the game?

JC: We are expanding the game's multiplayer, and we have many new features and enhancements in the sequel. These improvements include an improved user interface and the ability to play with up to four players in a game together, something that had never been done before. One of the coolest things we have done in the game is to turn the player into a wolf. We have done this before with real wolves in Half-Life 2, but we really took the features that have been available in the first game and tweaked them. You can now play as a wolf in the first game, with a new engine that can display your dead wolf powers and weapons as well as new skeletal animations. The last thing that we wanted to do was to force players to use a lot of the armor that they have at their disposal, which was really hard for me to do. I really hope we can make the same game with the next one.

GS: We've heard that Half-Life 2 will take place in 2004. Why did you decide to do this sequel? Will it continue the storyline that began in Half-Life?

KB: I think one of the big things we loved about Half-Life was the way the storyline had ended, and we are really looking forward to our next entry. The first game was set in 1998 and it introduced the concepts of Vortigaunt, the Combine forces that were created and some of the fiercest enemies in the world.