Surreal episodic adventure D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die is coming to PC next month, entirely free from rubbish Kinect motion controls. Creator Swery65 discussed the development of the PC version in a recent interview with Metro, and he’s keen to point out that this is a ”proper” rendition of the original game.
I like Swery (real name Hidetaka Suehiro). He’s an eccentric schlock auteur in the grand tradition, and he answers questions with phrases like ”your question is making my mouth tingle…” You don’t get responses like that from, say, Ubisoft, do you? He’s also clearly passionate about his work. From the sound of it, he’s taken a prominent role in the translation of D4 over to the PC.
”D4 is Access Games’ first PC game. Therefore, I think there may be some people out there who are worried about the answer to that question,” Swery replied when asked whether the PC version would stand up to the original Xbox release. ”But please, there’s no reason to worry. I gave direction during the transfer to PC, and the entire D4 team is working on it. We’ve been doing the proper quality checks, ensuring game stability, and communicating with the players as much as possible!”
”We got rid of all the Kinect controls and redesigned the game so that it could be played entirely with the mouse. I think that’s the biggest change. We also rebuilt the gameplay system, of course, as well as the user interface. It also moves at 60 fps now, load times are shorter, we redesigned the balance, fixed known bugs, and did everything we could to make D4 a more comfortable experience.”
PC gaming is still sort of a niche hobby in Japan, where consoles and especially mobile gaming rule the market. Swery hopes that by utilizing the power of the platform, developers can start to change that.
”Currently, there are very few Japanese games that have been developed for the PC market, which I think is largely in part due to the current environment Japanese people live in. How’s it going to change from here on out? I’m not sure, but at the very least, I’m personally working hard to transmit information to the entire world. I think that’ll connect us to the future of games.”
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die is set for a PC release on June 5, and will be available on several retail platforms including publisher Playism’s site, Steam, the Humble Store, and GOG.com.
