Interview: Alex Billaud from Echo of Soul, New Dev Diary Revealed

I recently had the chance to chat with Alex Billaud, Associate Producer for Echo of Soul, about their upcoming 2015 North American launch of Echo of Soul. While they couldn't answer all of the questions I had about the game and its publisher, understandable this far from launch, we did get a small peek behind the curtain at the efforts underway to bring the free-to-play title to the Western audience.

Magicman (MM): Can you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them a little about your title and what you do for Echo of Soul day to day?

Alex Billaud (AB): Hi, I am Alex, the Associate Producer on Echo of Soul. My tasks are to liaise with Nvius, the Korean developer of Echo of Soul and to ensure that we are bringing the best MMORPG experience to the Western audiences and MMO fans!

MM: An interesting part of this whole equation is the collection of souls. How does that system work and what does it provide to players?

AB: In Echo of Soul, gamers are tasked by the Gods to become their Soulkeepers and help defeat the evil forces. To carry out this quest they will have to save the world from the corruption of the Shadow Soul by defeating the monsters of the world. After each encounter with a monster or evil spirit, players can receive a Soul Fragment from the fallen creature. Players can then purify the corrupted souls collected and use them to become stronger.

Soul Fragments can be purified into 4 types of Soul skills thanks to Soul Sanctuaries - Hope, Will, Courage and Peace. Each purified soul gives to the player the ability to trigger a powerful buff during battle.

MM: Being developed by some of the Lineage II team, what made the team go with the current EOS art style instead of a more realistic style like as seen in Lineage?

AB: When programming the game the key objective was to optimize graphics based on the experience in developing Lineage II. The team applied a new graphic method to the Unreal engine, resulting in its current style

MM: EOS released about a year ago in Korea. How is the game being received there? Will NA and Europe see the exact same version of the game or will changes be made to some systems?

AB: Since its release last year, Echo of Soul has captivated players in several Asian markets - not only in Korea but also in China and Thailand. In Korea it has been in the gaming Top 10 Ranking. It also gathered several awards, one of them for its soundtrack, “Best Game Sound” at the Korean Game Awards. In Thailand it won “Best MMORPG Award 2014” at the Thailand Game Show Festival.

In terms of consumer feedback, players praise the richness of the world and its vast content. They also appreciate that any MMO fan, regardless of his or her level, can enjoy the game easily!

MM: Can you take us through some of the usual MMO features that we might see in EOS? For instance things like dungeons, raids, PvP etc.

AB: We can't disclose much at this stage, but what we can say is that there are more than 1600 quests and 68 areas available, resulting in thousands of hours of PvP and PvE. Register to the beta to make sure not to miss any updates on the game!

Our thanks to Alex for spending some time with us!