We hope you're all having a nice time with Shadows and our newest faction: the Forgotten. We've read your comments on the recent focus video regarding them and understood you wished there was more lore. We're hoping this will answer some of your questions.
Jeff (aka Slowhands) on the Lore
You may have heard (or discovered hidden the game files) that the Forgotten actually started as something different – a faction of doppelgängers and shape-shifters called the Replicants. They fell out of the initial line-up of our seven factions, however, and by the time we got around to adding a ninth faction we realized that what we (and the community) wanted was good espionage gameplay and a faction that would tie in well to that.
The Forgotten’s backstory came together easily; we were thinking of what humanoid faction they might have evolved from when the idea of the science-intensive Vaulters as a foil for the science-rejecting Forgotten became obvious. As far as the faction creation goes, the various pieces fell into place relatively painlessly! The bird of prey that accompanies the diplomat was added by an artist, and the notion of these silent hunters as symbols and allies of the faction was immediately adopted.
Backstory
A clan of the Vaulters sought to evolve or change themselves in order to be able to survive on the surface of Auriga during the cataclysms that wrecked the planet after the Endless War. Using genetic modification, serums, and mutations, they made numerous experiments on dissidents, refugees, political prisoners, and those they viewed as criminals and heretics. Until the day that the lab rats fought back…
Escaping, freeing their fellow test subjects, and slaughtering the scientists, the core of renegades who became the Forgotten escaped from the Vaulter tunnels – and then were locked out in both vengeance and shame. Driven to survive in the savage conditions of a ravaged planet, the Forgotten learned to excel in stealth and secrecy. They pulled back and away into the mountains, deciding they would rather adapt to the cold and scarcity than remain in contact with other peoples. But as Auriga warms, and many inhospitable regions become habitable, it is perhaps time for the Forgotten to leave their mountain hideaway and see what they must do to secure their future…
Corinne (aka Sostene), on the Art Direction
People/Main inspirations
The specificity of this faction is its natural invisibility - at the early beginning of the design for this faction, as Jeff said, they were even more than that, they were true shape-shifters, doppelgängers, able to physically transform and mimic any shape at will. It had even imagined that they were, by default, invisible… and would need Dust to become visible.
All their culture, as well as the type of pet/creatures associated with this faction revolves around the ability of changing shape, imitation, invisibility to deceive and destabilize the opponent... and of course frighten!
One can imagine that even in visible mode we find traces of this taste for camouflage:
Working their bodies as to pay homage to animal creatures, and their special ability/art of altering their appearance
- Paintings, scarification, tattoos, piercings, use of elements of costumes to alter the perception of their real silhouette, the actual volume of their bodies.
- Hairstyles done with clay, henna, hair as "carved" to alter the perception of the natural volume of the skull
- Scare the opponent by their appearance to destabilize
- Asymmetry
- Thin, agile, discrete, stealthy, fast; even without their faculty of invisibility, they remain formidable opponents
- Tribal society
- Their attacks are silent and terribly efficient - due to their fairly rudimentary weapons, they are often entitled to touch at first try (Blowpipe, dagger, bows and crossbows, poisoned arrows)
- Associate a connection with unusual pets, to emphasize the link with nature
Habitat/City
Habitat follows the same credo that the people: camouflage, discretion in general - it should blend with the natural environment, with, sometimes, the use of some strong colour touch to indicate specific buildings to notice, to whom would dare to venture on their land (same logic as the use of "deterrent camouflage" ("Beware, no trespassing!")
- Inspirations: SunRay Kelley and his natural and irregular, "living" architecture, buildings that look almost alive, and capable of growing, changing their shape over time.
- Use of materials from the surrounding environment
- Wood, twigs, straw, living grass or or dried
- Terracotta, Pisa, lumpy mud, Earth/mud
We played with the tribal look in the way that the buildings are built, but looking somehow a certain elegance. It is not because we use a very raw materials, that we are not attentive to the building aesthetics. Their constructions are neat and original in form, it is just the material base which is kind of raw (raw, but not coarse).
Ben (aka Kaboomer), on the Game Design
We knew for a while that among all the different gameplays we would design for Endless Legend, there would have to be a slot for a faction using invisibility and skilled as assassins; shadows, as good at fighting on the battleground as back-stabbing. In the end, the Forgotten are also the only ones that be be equipped with two weapons: all their units are very agile in battle, they've got the best spy heroes of the game, and they can even steal technologies. I would say, they have a lot of potential.
In addition, apart from how well it fitted with their lore, we took Science away from them to force a different gameplay. It really pushes you to play smart but also dirty in order to get what you need as a Forgotten... It makes them quite hard to master I think. It can really devolves into “me against everyone” if you don't play cunningly enough, considering all the bad things you will have to do to survive: pillaging, spying, destroying villages, stealing techs…
Finally, their faction quest was also a way for them to accept it and say “Enough, we won’t hide anymore!” using their feeling of revenge as a strong incentive throughout the story. Such bad guys… but it’s not their fault!
>> For more information on the Forgotten, check out their [FACTION CARD].
Sincerely,
