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The developers behind Solar Ash want the game's speedrunning audience to utterly break it.
Speaking in the latest issue of PLAY Magazine, Solar Ash creative director Alx Preston confessed his love of speedrunning, saying that he loves the wider Games Done Quick showcase and how players tackle the act of speedrunning games. The creative director says he's "fascinated by the efforts that go into the speed runs," and the way the "community comes together" is admirable.
"I want to see people break the fuck out of our game, that would be really fun," Preston adds. "Because our character has some physicality to her... who knows what they'll be able to do and who knows that they'll be able to like break paths in some way or another." Preston goes on to exclaim that "I'm very, very excited to see, again, how they break the fuck out of it."
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In the new interview with PLAY Magazine, Preston also touched on how developer attitudes to speedrunning have changed. Preston reflects on when developers used to force players to sit through extensive cutscenes, whereas now developers adapt to the speedrunning tendencies of their audiences with dedicated modes. "It's one of my favorite things about games just because the community around it seems so good, good-natured in a lot of ways," Preston adds.
This all actually builds from the way players would speedrun Hyper Light Drifter, the developer's previous venture before Solar Ash. Preston says that although he's "not like deeply involved in speedrunning in general," he was excited watching the things the Hyper Light Drifter community got up to complete the game in the quickest time possible, which feeds into the developer's excitement for what comes next with Solar Ash.
Solar Ash is out on PC, PS4, and PS5 later this month on October 26. For another deep dive into the creative process behind the new action-platformer game, head over to our extensive Solar Ash preview for more.
Play Issue 5 is on sale right now, with an exclusive look at Battlefield 2042.
