I checked outTrine 4: The Nightmare Princeat E3 2019, and it felt like the creatively charged return to form that the series needs.Trine 4: The Nightmare Princeis a 2.5D platformer likeTrine 1and2that heavily relies on players using the three main characters in tandem. Pontius, Amadeus, and Zoya are exude charm and play quite different from each other, like usual, opening up the opportunities for many great puzzles.
With how faithful to the first two games, it is worth reflecting on howTrine 3: The Artifacts of Power,the black sheep of the series, impacted the development ofTrine 4: The Nightmare Prince.At E3 2019, I talked with Producer Antti Rantanen and Marketing Manager Kai Tuovinen to get a better idea of where exactly Frozenbyte’s headspace is heading into this new entry in the belovedTrineseries.
The big question on many a fan’s mind is why exactly the developers decided to return to the series after all this time. As a reminder,Trine 3had a much bigger scope than the first two games as it attempted to be a full 3D adventure; unfortunately, the game’s lofty goals ended up being a bit too ambitious for Frozenbyte. This meant that did not meet expectations with some underwhelming design choices and ended abruptly on a cliffhanger that angered fans. Following its reception, Frozenbyte’s Joel Kinnunen left fans afraid of never getting anotherTrinegame when he said in aSteam Communitypost that “The future of the series is now in question, as the feedback, user reviews and poor media attention has caught us by surprise.”
That being said, the same post also claims that Frozenbyte was “proud of the game and what we have achieved overall.” Still, Kai and Antti explained to DualShockers that it took some time off from the franchise and a fresh, younger team to getTrine 4off of the ground. “TheTrineseries has always held a place in our hearts, so we needed a little bit of a break from makingTrinegames. And we made a couple of different games, three games actually, before we went ontoTrine 4.So we needed a little break fromTrinegames, then we reignited the spark and how decided how we were going to reapproach the series,” Kai Tuovinen began. Antti Rantanen highlighted the newer team by saying “the company has also grown this year. We have got a few people who came in wanting to makeTrinegames, so there are fresh ideas as well.”
As I mentioned, many elements ofTrine 3were middlingly received. Still, something can always be learned from your mistakes, especially when it comes to game development, so I asked the Frozenbyte developers if there were any major elements or things learned onTrine 3,outside of the fact that fans wanted a more traditional entry, that the developers were applying toTrine 4: The Nightmare Prince. According to Tuovinen, “some of the skills [fromTrine 3] have made it toTrine 4"and “the thief’s rope technology that we made forTrine 3” was also carried over. It definitely seems thatTrine 3’sinfluence on the series was on a much more technical or project scope level, rather than from a story or game design standpoint.
Working on a game of this size has also been helpful to Frozenbyte though, as they “are able to create a lot more content” for a game likeTrine 4: The Nightmare Princeeven though the team size isn’t too dissimilar to that of Trine 3’s. As Antti Rantanen ultimately reiterated, the renewed focus ofTrine 4means that Frozenbyte “is a lot more efficient with what we are doing.” Hopefully, this all pans out for the team andTrine 4project as a whole; if the early taste DualShockers got was any indication, it should be a good time.
Trine 4: The Artifacts of Powerfrom Frozenbyte and Modus Games is currently poised to come to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
