Throughout history, different mythologies have always produced some of the most interesting stories, such as Homer's epics, great Greek tragedies filled with toying gods, and Egyptian mythology has influenced everything from The Mummy movies to the Stargate franchise. A game shaping up to read hack and slash the competition to pieces is Loki, a game that sees you traversing the different eras, battling all manner of beasts as you seek to take down Seth. We got to ask Patrick Pligersdorffer some questions about Loki, and here is what he had to say.

1. What is the story of Loki and where does the name come from and fit into the story? Many probably assume Loki to deal with the mischievous character in Norse mythology when first hearing the name.

We wanted to make an action RPG that was not too heroic-fantasy. We thought that it would be nice to use a mythological setting and have the player meet some famous characters and participate in famous mythological quests. To sum up the main plotline, Seth has come back from and wants revenge on the other Egyptian gods. In order to do so, he forges alliances with evil gods from the 3 other mythologies, ie Greek, Nordic and Aztec. The hero will have to make sure this alliance doesn't succeed and destroy Seth. We chose Loki because it's one of the major gods in the story but also because it's an easy-to-remember name and that it is rather easy to pronounce in all languages. :-)

2. How important is story to the game and how will it unfold (voice acting, cutscenes, etc.)? Is the story of Loki more to set the action hack and slash up, or will players genuinely care to see what happens in the story next?

Loki is an action RPG at its core and the focus is on the action. However, we wanted an interesting story to keep pushing the player forward. So that it is not just: kill this monster, then the next one. The story is more complex than it appears. There are different endings at the 3 different difficulty levels and each character also has its own ending. There are a few twists too but I cannot elaborate on this obviously without spoiling the surprise. The story will unfold through a few cut-scenes and there is voice-acting for all the main quests. We certainly hope that the players will care about the story more than for most of the games in that genre.

3. There are four heroes that the player will be able to control during the course of the game. Can you talk a little about each character and their role/traits, with special consideration to the two female characters?

There is on main hero per mythology. Each one can be compared to a class of character in other games. For example, the Nordic hero would be close to a warrior or barbarian in heroic fantasy lore. He relies mostly on his strength and close-range combat. He is as tough as it gets. The Greek is more of an archer. She can also set devastating traps. She's much more of a finesse character than the Norse. She is an apprentice to the famous Achilles who sends her on these quests to help the Greek Pantheon. The Egyptian is a priest / sorcerer. He mostly deals with spells. He's the closest character to the main plot. As the story progresses, so will his physical appearance as fighting one of the gods of this culture will take its toll on him. Finally, the Aztec is a shaman trying to save her people from annihilation, not only in this world but in the next one. She is close to nature and mostly relies on abilities linked to nature.

4. Players won't have to rely on the same skill set from the beginning of the game till the end, because each character has three skill trees the player can use to customize their characters with. How do players go about picking abilities from the skill trees and in what ways do they branch out and what traits of the characters can you customize through the skill trees?

Each character can select among 3 gods to worship that are specific to his/her world. Each god has a very specific skill tree. When you gain experience levels, you're awarded points that will allow you to acquire abilities and spells. The available skills depend on the god you worship. You can actually worship more than one god which could be compared to multi-classing in most RPGs. Obviously, if you worship more than one god, it will take much longer to acquire the most devastating abilities of a specific skill tree.

5. What will be the control scheme with the game and how you control your character on the screen?

We wanted an intuitive system and that is easy-to-use, yet effective. To attack, you just click on a monster. Same for picking objects. There are a varieties of shortcuts to use spells and abilities. You can customize the interface in order to choose which abilities you want to assign shortcuts to. To move the character, you just have to click on where you want to go or keep the left button of the mouse pressed and move in the direction you want to go. Pretty standard controls for the genre.

6. One critique many players have of hack and slash games is the fact that gameplay becomes repetitious and you are only doing things like hitting the same button over and over until everything on the screen is dead. What are you doing with Loki to make sure that doesn't happen to gamers and they are still having fun from beginning to end?

We think that the balancing and the variety of the abilities in Loki will avoid this pitfall. The most powerful spells and skills are really very strong but also very expensive in mana and have a long "cool down" so they cannot be used all the time. For Loki, the goal of each ability is to be interesting throughout the game and in combos. This should allow to quickly switch between abilities, while waiting for a more powerful one to become available again. It adds a small tactical choice during fights.

7. Beyond having the only goal of fighting from the beginning of a level to the end, players also have over 50 quests to embark on. What types of goals and quests can players expect?

The main quests follow the game's plotline. They are rather standard and familiarize the player with the universe, let him meet famous characters and pace the progress. There are some classic quests such as destroying a centaur camp threatening a Greek village, finding an artifact for someone. But Loki also integrates some more advanced quests such as the siege of Troy which is a series of short-term goals that will allow the Greeks to conquer Troy.