Crimson Moon game director David Lesperance discusses launch feedback, post-launch plans, and making time for Soulslike action.
ProbablyMonsters isn't interested in making Crimson Moon a soulslike that demands your entire evening. You can spend hours mastering its combat and experimenting with loadouts, but the studio also wants it to feel satisfying when you've got less than 30 minutes to spare. Shortly after the game's launch, I spoke to game director David Lesperance about its initial reception and what comes next.
You may have seen Crimson Moon popping up on your social media feeds. Playable solo or with a friend, it takes the familiar Dark Souls gameplay loop and puts it through a roguelike lens. Rather than exploring a huge interconnected map in one playthrough, you unlock districts by completing runs, typically culminating in a boss battle. Its world has a weathered, almost mythological beauty, with ruined castles, enormous caverns, and distant landmarks making it feel ancient and unknowable.
There's a lot to like about the new soulslike game, and its $19.99 price makes it an easier sell when you're trying to convince your friends to take a gamble on something new. Crimson Moon's launch hasn't been all smooth sailing, though. It's still sitting at mixed reviews on Steam, with players calling out optimization issues and asking for specific features. I ask Lesperance how the studio has responded internally, and whether anything about player reactions has surprised him.
He tells me that "whenever you release a game, you have a whole collection of positive and anxious feelings. It's this thing that you've spent a long time crafting and building together as a team, and then at launch, it suddenly becomes something for everybody else." Since launch, ProbablyMonsters has been collecting feedback and moving quickly to implement highly requested features.
Lesperance notes that "we have players who are really passionate and want to see the game improve, and the dev team has been fueled by seeing these players share their feedback in our Discord community." He points to requests for custom keybindings and mouse sensitivity controls, which the studio added shortly after launch, while saying the team is now "focused on addressing other player feedback, such as camera improvements. We can't wait to continue making the game even better together."
While new patches are already in development, ProbablyMonsters is also preparing its first major content update. Lesperance tells me that "we'll be announcing our first content update soon, which will add a number of awesome things to the game's runs, combat variety, and challenges." However, the studio isn't ready to discuss more than that right now. Whether you're jumping in now or later down the line, one thing Lesperance is keen to retain is Crimson Moon's focus on respecting your time.
"Life happens, and most people don't have three-to-four hours to play a game at a time," he explains. "With Crimson Moon, we wanted players to feel like they made progress no matter how long they played." Drawing from his background in CGI and cinematics, he says "the games that have resonated most get me into the experience quickly," adding that the team was "inspired by old-school experiences with satisfying gameplay that can be enjoyed whether you're playing for 15 minutes or several hours."
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/crimson-moon/interview
