“Hack and slash.” “Action RPG.” Perhaps “Diablo-esque.” Call it what you will, Titan Quest is the newest title from Age of Empires co-creator Brian Sullivan, president of Iron Lore Entertainment. Brian took some time to speak with Gamasutra about his latest project, his history in the industry, and his comments and criticism on gaming at large.

Shaking Up the Biz

No stranger to the games industry, Sullivan was one of the driving factors behind the critically acclaimed Age of Empires, a game that is considered by many to be quite a paradigm shift for the PC gaming industry.

“The thing that made Age of Empires unique is that we designed the game for casual players and not just hard-core players (although we had many features for the hard-core),” Sullivan said. “That really opened up this kind of game play to many people who would never have tried an RTS game otherwise. We also used this strategy on Titan Quest.” We set out to develop a game that was not only a great game for hard-core players, but was also accessible enough for casual players. We wanted a game that mass market gamers (of sims and tycoon games) could easily play and enjoy if they wanted to play a ‘more real game’. It is quite a jump from RollerCoaster Tycoon to Warcraft 3.”

On the subject of Titan Quest, Sullivan said the game was a labor of love.

“The whole time I was working on Age of Empires games I always thought about doing an action RPG in the same setting, but with all the mythology thrown in,” he said. “It was very nice to actually be able to develop this game after thinking about it for so many years."