TecRah

This article was originally published by IGN China and written by Kamui Ye, and is prohibited from being republished without authorization.

It’s been a few months since I met Martin Hultberg, co-founder and CMCO of Sharkmob, and it’s still because of EXOBORNE, but this time I didn’t just listen to his PowerPoint presentation. Instead, I actually played the Beta version of the game all day long, and then interviewed Martin Hultberg with a few questions. Some of the questions are additions to the previous interview, and some are related to my experience after actually playing the game. It’s brief, but still very informative.

Martin Hultberg, Co-Founder and CMCO

At Tokyo Game Show 2024, I asked you why players who are playing as Reborn members fighting against Rebirth are fighting each other instead of joining forces, and you replied that you would add some backstory to the game, so can you tell us what you think of the setting now?

Martin Fundamentally, in the rules set by EXOBORNE, you belong to what we call the Reborn Reborn, and you are one of those rebels who rose up against the Rebirth Corporation Rebirth Group. But there are some Reborns who have betrayed this philosophy, who do not follow the same code of conduct as the others, which you do. They don’t pursue the same goals that you do. When you’re in the game world, if you meet another player, if that player starts shooting at you, he’s obviously hostile, right? Interestingly, we’ve done some interesting design work for the part of the game that deals with how conflict is created.

If you want to choose not to engage another player in a firefight, you can actually do that. But the interesting point is who’s going to shoot first? It’s kind of like that classic scene in Star Wars where Han Solo encounters. Who’s going to shoot first when you’re in the middle of a fight? It’s the moment when swords are drawn between two people.

We wanted to set up a rule that would make these moments of tension reasonable. So you can actually approach another player. In the game, you also have a reason to act like a good guy; you can ask the other player if you’re a good guy too? If the other player answers yes, then we don’t have to shoot each other.

However what’s actually more likely to happen is that given what we know about player psychology, the vast majority of people will assume you’re a traitor to the Reborn’s beliefs, and you’ll assume I’m such a traitor, and no one will want to take the risk because it’s a high-stakes game.

So usually, we tend to just shoot each other because that’s the way to reduce the risk, after all, I don’t know you, so you’re dangerous and a threat to me, and that will naturally lead to a firefight. But we also wanted to create the kind of great moments that are hot on YouTube, where players meet and do something crazy together, and then go their separate ways and do their own thing afterward. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish with this setup!

It sounds a bit like the Dark Forest in Three Body, which makes sense to me. Another question is about localization. Is there already a Chinese title for the game? A lot of local Chinese gamers are very concerned about this, because a good title can really boost the impact of the game as it spreads. Do you have any specific ideas or general direction regarding the title?

Martin: I don’t have any ideas at the moment. When we do localization in different languages, we definitely take into account the regions and their language characteristics. Max, this is probably even more of an issue for you and your distribution team, and I’ll have to defer to you on that.

Max I think that localization, in a way, has to show respect for the audience, but at the same time be true to the connotations that the name represents. I think the question remains, how would you interpret the name of the game EXOBORNE? What does it mean to you guys?

Martin That’s a very interesting question.

We’ve actually been working a lot on localization lately, and first of all the question of context is very crucial. Because every word that we use that is special to us has to be provided with the context and the context in which it is used, so that the translators can translate it correctly. For example, EXOBORNE means born from EXO, which refers to Exo Rig, the exoskeleton armor that is one of the core settings of the game, i.e., you are born from EXO, so the name has to convey this meaning in the translation. This can be tricky when localizing between languages. In English it works well. In my experience, it’s not a good idea to translate the word EXOBORNE directly into Swedish, it doesn’t work well in Swedish. But it works in some languages.

When you look at the company name Rebirth Rebirth, they took that name to send a signal and they wanted to show that we’re going to give you a new world, and this world is going to be reborn. That’s actually where Reborn, the player’s character, gets his name from.

So the two words echo each other, Reborn which ties in with the concept of Reborn. The Reborn initially acted alongside the Rebirth Corporation, but they later split up and went their own way and still call themselves the Reborn. It’s a play on words. I think it’s important in the localization process to make sure that the people who are translating and localizing understand exactly that, and understand how that word association should be presented appropriately in different languages and regions, and I don’t really have a good idea of how to do that at the moment.

MAX Yes, that work is already well underway. I think it would be very helpful. So you can explain to the gentleman that the reason we finally chose the name EXOBORNE was that there were a number of options. The name actually implies the idea that the Exo Rig was born from the exoskeleton armor.

Martin, it’s an interesting process to come up with a name for a game. You run into a lot of problems with the existence of other registered trademarks and so on. For example, initially we envisioned the game as Rebirth, because that’s the main villain in the game.

But then when we started looking at the situation, we realized that the name didn’t quite work. First of all, would it work on a legal level? Does it look good as a trademark? There were many aspects to the discussion about the name. So we held a lot of seminars and had a lot of discussions. Then we came up with the word EXOBORNE because it meant something else to us. When you start playing the game, you’re playing from the perspective of a Reborn. That’s how we tell the story. You’re reborn and you’re working with the rebel leader, Tore, to accomplish various goals. And with the EXOBORNE name, we were actually able to come up with some spin-off ideas and content.

Maybe we can add something completely new in a future update, like you can play as what we call the Guardians of Rebirth, because they have exoskeleton armor, or we can introduce a camp system, where you become a Rebel and join the Rebels, but you’re still an EXOBORNE because you’re still wearing the exoskeleton armor, Exo Rig.

So as you can see, everything is centered around the Exo Rig. Conceptually, the focus is on the Exo Rig and being able to use the EXO, and that’s what the name implies. So we wanted to have a name that would allow us to associate the game’s content in the direction that we wanted the player to go. In a sense, the name couldn’t be too restrictive.

The last question is that I experienced 3 maps in the demo, what is the main design concept that differentiates these maps from each other?

Martin Yes, we have three maps for this test, Maynard, Agnesville and Sinkhole. Maynard is the largest in terms of surface area, but it has a very rural feel to it. The houses are spaced out and there’s more of a wilderness, forested landscape, while Agnesville is more of an urban battle map, located in the center of the city. Agnesville is more of an urban combat map, located in the center of the city. It’s more densely built, with tight, vertical spaces and lots of room for vertical movement. In Agnesville, the combat is almost like trench warfare, because you can jump in and out and up and down. So it’s a different style of gameplay. Whereas Sinkhole is almost like an arena because it’s much more cramped in space, it’s actually an enclosed space. You have a circle of edges above your head and then you go down deeper, just like in an arena battle, and the player’s maneuverability is limited in some ways, like not being able to use a vehicle.

And everything gets tighter and more urgent. To a certain extent, it also affects the gameplay experience. We’re balancing this by having different NPC bots and PVE combat missions on different maps. It makes a difference in the gameplay experience. On the Maynard map, anyone can play at any time. If you want to go to Agnesville, you’ll need to have a certain amount of gear, weapons, and EXO gear or you won’t be able to enter.

And to get to Sinkhole, the riskiest area, you’ll need a special token or entry ticket to get into the area. It’s kind of like making sure to set up maps with progressive difficulty for players of different levels. So newer players tend to gravitate towards Maynard, while more experienced players want to go to Sinkhole, where the battles are obviously more intense.

Thank you very much for the interview.