One of the best things about Vampire Masquerade: Bloodhunt, at least in terms of the game’s original wow factor, is that it’s only coming to PS5 and PC, not any previous-gen consoles. This allows it to push the standard for the genre, at least technically, with all the rhetoric leaving the old platform behind.
To learn more about this decision, I sat down with Anders Holmquist, Technical Director of Sharkmob Studio. While I was there, I wanted to dig into the details of some of the technology that exists in Bloodhunt and the options for moving to Easy Anti-cheat from their previous in-house software.
iGamesNews: The game is coming to the PC platform PS5, and in previous interviews, it was said that these platforms are the current focus. Why choose the PS5 as the primary option over other contemporary consoles?
Anders: I think the PS5 is the market leader at the moment, and Sony has some really, really good tech — especially for an open world game like Bloodhunt, where you can’t load the whole map at once, you need parts of the city to go in and out. I think, for example, [UI] Improvements made on PS5 – you can do some really clever things with it just to make streaming fast enough.
iGamesNews: In what ways does the PS5 technology built into the hardware affect the typical gamer’s average gaming experience and make sense for their own experience?
Anders: I think the lights on the controller have a lot of in-person functionality, and the adaptive triggers make it even more immersive. You feel like you’re playing a game, I think a lot more than when you’re playing a mouse and keyboard (which is a bit static by comparison).
So I think it makes a big difference, and to be honest, the performance of the PS5 in general is pretty impressive.
iGamesNews: You are using AMD FSR technology, right? This allows players to choose from a range of different performance modes. Tell me how important it is to have it in your game?
Anders: I think, in general, there are a lot of good supersampling techniques out there that make a big difference to what resolution you can have and how well you can make your game perform. It also helps to give gamers a choice, like one thing they want to improve visual quality, or do they just want to improve performance?
It also does open up the game to more machines and people at the moment, as chip shortages and hardware upgrades aren’t always available. We hope to have a bigger impact on things like this in the future. Something cool might happen.
iGamesNews: I want to talk to you about the motion capture technology used in Bloodhunt. How does the technique used here (you can scan a variety of different outfits and other assets into the engine) directly differentiate the game from the competition?
Anders: I think we have an interesting problem, which is that we are a near-real game. We are in the real world, with real people, and this comes with expectations about how they move and behave. Then you add the supernatural element of the vampire. So the question is; how do you make it feel real while still having this supernatural element? I think motion capture really helps: it allows us to make scenes and animations that really push the envelope. Basically, it really pushes the feeling that this vampire might be real.
I would say that I think a lot of studios are moving towards using a lot of motion capture.
iGamesNews: Is it just because of how it looks? Or does it come down to ease of use or any other factor?
Anders: Yes, I think it gives you a lot of freedom and control over the animation and you can make a lot of animations with high fidelity. Mocap used to be a bit unstable. It’s like you record someone doing a good jump, and then you load the data as if their legs just flew out of space. It has gotten to the point where it can do some really good things.
You can immediately see the mocap data in your game in Unreal Engine to see if it looks good, and if it doesn’t, you can take it again and say “okay, but try jumping like this”.
iGamesNews: Why choose Unreal for Bloodhunt over other engines?
Anders: There are many, many reasons. When we started, I looked at several engines and Unreal was the closest to what we were used to. It’s a very mature engine, built around a more traditional AAA development style. For example, Unity has a very different process in how you use it – working with very large teams can be a bit difficult. So from that perspective, Unreal Engine is a good fit.
iGamesNews: Back in early access, there were issues with the in-house anti-cheat software originally developed for the game. What drove the transition from that to Easy Anti Cheat and what did the team get out of this situation?
Anders: We have an internal anti-cheat that honestly works pretty well. But anti-cheating has always been a very sensitive topic, and I can see why. Especially now that it’s gotten to the point where anti-cheat needs to run at the kernel level, because if you don’t, all cheats will run and it won’t see them.
So it comes down to a lot of trust. You give a lot of anti-cheat access, and what we’ve seen from early access is that it’s not something that at least Westerners are very used to, and it makes them nervous, and we can understand that.
So after Early Access, we had a long discussion about what we could do. And I think the ultimate conclusion is to make the community feel comfortable using what they know and have seen before. I really like Easy Anti Cheat, I know these people because they started a company. Yes, it might be the right choice, but it’s not easy.
iGamesNews: From your answer, I think you do stand by the validity of the original anti-cheat.
Anders: Yes, I think they are basically very effective anti-cheats. I think there are some on the market that work well.
iGamesNews: Sounds like someone is pushing a lot of technological advancements in Bloodhunt across the board? Was that what the game was intended to be from the beginning?
Anders: No, no, absolutely not. It didn’t start like that. Especially when we start a company, our ambitions are much more modest. We quickly realized that we’re not good at not being ambitious, that’s kind of, that’s what we do.
We joke about this all the time. We’re like the worst indie game in the world because we’re very bad at saying this is enough or this is good enough. We’ve always wanted to push things forward.
If you’re in the mood for more Bloodhunt interviews, you might want to check out our conversation with the game’s art director on why the former Division developer chose Prague as the classic setting for Vampire Bloodhunt. Alternatively, you can check out our beginner’s guide to help you master the game.