News from Underkeep: We Have Quests!

Old-school dungeon crawlers usually didn’t feature any real quest system, let alone branching dialogue. Most of the time you simply started at point A and had to reach point B.

Underkeep, however, is not just a straight corridor. The world is, to a certain degree, open, allowing you to explore locations more freely. And that naturally led us to quests and their completion.

It may look easy on the surface – throw in a simple fetch quest and you’re done. But believe us, writing and properly scripting even the simplest quest is no small task. We need to account for the order in which quests are accepted, what happens if you skip a step, or even bypass the entire “beginning” of a quest. The game still has to respond consistently and keep the story and world logic intact.

We also want the player to feel that certain choices will have consequences in the world. Not every decision is just a line of dialogue, but something that may echo back later. And as many RPG veterans know, sometimes it’s the side quests that end up being more memorable than the grand, epic storyline.

That said, we’re excited to announce that quests are now in the game, and we can’t wait to show you how they unfold.

What type of quests do you enjoy most in RPGs - epic main storylines, optional side adventures, or unexpected encounters that surprise you while exploring?