After Master Creating finished their latest game, Legend: Hand of God, we had an opportunity to sit down with Han Beuck, Co-Founder and Lead Game Designer at Master Creating.

You can check out the full interview after the jump.

1) Can you tell us a little about yourself and your company?

Hi, my name is Jan Beuck, and I am Co-Founder and Lead Game Designer at Master Creating, an independent game development studio located in Hamburg, Germany.

2) What is the backstory to Legend: Hand of God?

Legend: Hand of God is a 3D action role-playing game in a brand new fantasy setting. After completing our work on RESTRICTED AREA in late 2004 we decided to stay in the same genre, but instead of developing a sequel we wanted to explore a new scenario. What sets Legend further apart is that we had more than 10 times the budget, a larger and more experienced team, and a new, outstanding 3D engine.

3) What games have influenced you during the creation of Hand of God?

Diablo 2, Titan Quest and old console games like Secret of Mana and The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past.

4) How long has the game been in development?

Exactly 3 years.

5) What was one of the biggest hurdles you faced as a developer with Hand of God?

When we started the project we thought about licensing an existing technology (like Unreal Engine 3), but we soon noticed that they all focus on 1st person shooters. While it's possible to use them for an Action-RPG they are not ideal. At the same time we wanted all the exciting features of current and upcoming FPS highlights, such as high dynamic range lighting, vertex- and pixel shader 3, normal and specular mapping, and much more. So we decided to develop the engine ourselves from the ground up. We invested a whole year to have an engine custom made for Legend that is able to set new standards in the genre. While it was the biggest task to develop a state-of-the-art 3D engine for LEGEND, to develop the shadow system was the single biggest challenge during the entire development and took several months. But it was worth it: Our unique shadow technique allows for extremely fast dynamic soft shadows with self-shadowing and percentage closer filtering, in a quality that hasn't yet been seen in an Action-RPG yet.

6) What do you feel really sets Hand of God apart from all the other RPG's?

Legend has a stronger RPG bent than other Action-RPGs. The way Legend tells its story is much more like a real RPG - non-linear, with multiple-choice dialogues and a deep, thought-provoking storyline. Not least, the technology is state-of-the-art: with high dynamic range lightning, shader model 3, normal mapping, dynamic soft shadows, and a fantastic physics engine (PhysX, also used by Unreal Engine 3).

But really unique is the mouse cursor – or better, that there is no normal mouse cursor. Instead you control a small luminous light elf which is part of the game and serves as the light source as well as a sidekick for the hero. Thanks to real-time dynamic lighting, this makes for some really cool shadow effects, especially in the dungeons.

And finally, there's the Cinematic Combat System...

7) The combat system has been described as a Cinematic Combat System that is set to make combat look like its Choreographed, but be highly dynamic. How dynamic are all of the attack moves available to the player and what game can you most liken the combat system to?

They are pretty dynamic: the system takes into account the size of the enemy - you can simply clobber smaller ones like goblins from above and they have to jump in order to even reach you and deal damage. But this is reversed when you meet a larger-than-life monster. Now, you're the one who has to leap, and blocking their powerful swings is out of the question; your only option is dodging. Some enemies are three times as big as the hero... some are bigger than the whole screen! And this leads me to the second important point; if an enemy has a shield, he actually uses it to block. If he has a sword, he parries, while with an axe, he has to try and dodge. This way, the style of combat changes dynamically according to the weapons used and the attributes and skills chosen by the player. I would like to give you a reference, but I think the Cinematic Combat system is still pretty unique.

8) Will the height and other physical characteristics of a player's character affect how the game is played? Also, what kind of physical customizations can a player expect to see?

The height affects the look of the combat and also large enemies are usually slower, but I wouldn't say it affects the way the game is played.

Obviously, items are an important part of an Action-RPG, and we will have the full range. There are set items, several degrees of rare items, magical items, etc.

In addition, everything you equip will be visible on the hero - and when I say everything, I mean everything. Pieces of clothing and weapons are givens, but you will also be able to see every ring or amulet you have equipped - you just might have to zoom in a little.

9) What can North American gamers expect to see that is different from the game's original release in Europe?

It's not a secret that complex games like RPGs often have some bugs when they are released - even great titles like Diablo 2 needed some patches.

You are lucky because the European gamers already found the bugs for you that we didn't see before releasing it - the version released in the U.S. is 1.02, which means it already includes both updates we released in Europe.

10) In a recent interview with Destructoid, it was mentioned that Master Creating had a license to produce Xbox 360 titles. Do you plan on taking advantage of this license sometime soon?

It's true that we have a license to develop for X-Box 360, but the open game world and the mouse-driven game play wouldn't work well on a console, so LEGEND will remain to PC exclusive.