“But it’s OK. It’s OK to hate shit in GTFO, it’s part of the experience!”

Legendary games developer Ulf Andersson invited Hey Poor Player to chat about GTFO, 10 Chambers, the Payday series, and something very secret he’s been dying to talk about.

Throughout our discussion, Ulf and I covered many topics, ranging from GTFO and its inspiration, what inspires him, and the games he plays, to discussing design strategy for his upcoming title.

Jon Davis: GTFO has been in 1.0 since December 2021 – for around eight months or so. How has it been going from early access to full launch?

Ulf Andersson: I mean, it’s been very similar to [early access] for us, really. We kept doing rundowns, throwing shit out there, taking stuff out, and we just kept doing that. So, really, 1.0 was a massive undertaking.

[We asked ourselves] is the quality at the bar that we need? I mean, according to the audience – our players, and our critics – we were pretty high up [in terms of quality] already, and I think that’s what gained us some traction [with GTFO].

I mean, the score is higher than I thought it would be!

JD: Ah, OK – so has it genuinely surprised you at how GTFO has taken off?

UA: Sort of, yes. We went in with the idea that ‘we don’t care if you like it,’ and we’re going to do something that feels exactly [the way we want it to feel], capturing that magic of ‘what the fuck is this shit!’ If you take this approach, of course, you’re gonna alienate a bunch of players.

So, we’re always surprised [players like our game]. Take the show right now [Gamescom]. It’s crazy that [there are such large queues] for people to play our game. There are new games; they’re not there [attendees], and GTFO has this massive queue.

JD: Would you say you and the team approached making GTFO with a real purity – in the sense that it’s going to be this way, and that’s it?

UA: Yes, it’s really about creating a certain emotional response for the game, and then all the mechanics of the game itself fall into place. I think if you want to create a certain emotional ride, then you have to make the game quite hardcore.

JD: Any further plans to expand GTFO beyond what we have now?

UA: GTFO is sort of in a ‘phase two.’ Before we did the rundown concept, we didn’t have to do any support for old stuff; just focus on the new stuff. Rebalance and reintroduce things while moving into a good space.

Now we’re saying we’re gonna start reintroducing old rundowns, but like alternate takes. I’m not going to go into any detail, why or how it connects [up].

We don’t want to tell a story [in GTFO] that never ends. There are a lot of TV shows that are great. They try to tell their story, but [over time] views dwindle, and then nothing happens. We’ve got our eye on an end date for the story we’re trying to tell with GTFO to ensure we don’t overstay our welcome. But we’re still a way from that right now.

JD: I love the enemy variety in GTFO. One enemy, in particular, I love/hate are those fucking ‘shadows’ from the first rundown. Thinking of you and the team, what was the favourite enemy type you’ve created?

UA: I think those ‘shadows’ are close to it, y’know, because they freak people out. The enemy I hate the most is the Spitter. And that’s because I can’t see it, suddenly it’s like [unintelligable Spitter noise], and you’re like ‘Ah, fucking hell!’ I hate that one. I thoroughly hate it.

But it’s OK. It’s OK to hate shit in GTFO, it’s part of the [experience]!

From a design point of view, the Scout is the one. It has this physical sneaking mechanic, and it solves a bunch of problems from an FPS and detection mechanics perspective.

So, from a professional standpoint, I’d say that’s the one I’d pick.

Oh, and the sound of it also. You open a door and hear that sound [the Scout’s sound], and then you’re like, actually, I’m not going in there…

JD and UA: *Both make the door closing sound and laugh*

JD: What inspired you and the team to create GTFO in the first place?

UA: Multiple things. The boring things are basically, we have this amount of players, a certain number of characters, what would they fit into?

Then, there’s another process that’s emotion-led. For instance, if I want [people] to feel a certain way, what are the trigger points for that? To generate that feeling? The reason [GTFO] is a horror game is not because we wanted to create a horror game [rather] we felt it was the right setting to generate that feeling.

It’s funny you talked about the horror stories you and your team had [prior conversation before the interview started].

If you think about Left 4 Dead – which I love, by the way – and you think about Payday, they have random waves [of enemies], and they’re still doing that, and it’s fine they do that – but from a gameplay perspective, you never are really in control of the situation, or choose how you tackle it.

It’s a bit like ‘Ah, wave!’ and it’s a gamble whether you’ll win or not.

JD: So, more reactive in that situation, right?

UA: Yes, that’s right. Whereas in GTFO, it’s a situation that you have to tackle [when it goes wrong] and [we give you the option to try to beat it], and then you’re like ‘Phew, we made it,’ and get ready for the next situation.

JD: What inspired the visual look and feel for GTFO?

UA: I mean, look at this [points at his grey hair] grey-ass dude, of course, Ridley Scott [James] Cameron, are massive inspirations for visuals of the game.

I just love monochromatic colour palettes and hardcore lighting stuff. From the era I come from, many games don’t put stuff in the air. I’m talking about volumetrics here, and it’s such an interesting game concept.

Having written the volumetrics for the game myself, and essentially hard-wiring fog into the game, so people ‘can’t turn it off’ it gives you graphics as a gameplay mechanic, or even a character in itself, which massively influenced the art direction of the game.

JD: How are you going to expand the narrative within the GTFO universe?

UA: [Big smirk appears on Ulf’s face] Yes, so reintroducing older rundowns with a twist will give new players the opportunity to reexperience content. So if you’ve come late into the game, you can replay this content. That’s key to wrapping up the story, but I can’t say much more than that.

Interestingly, we’re focusing more on stories now than we used to. But we’re never going to go down the route of cut scenes. We’re just going to carry on drip-feeding weird shit.

JD: Last GTFO question: Any plans to port to console?

UA: There’s been a bit of a debate about this internally. Right now, we’re continuing to bring the quality of the title up by patching heavily. We don’t feel that we’re in a position to deliver an optimum console experience right now because we’re focused on supporting the PC release, and we think we’re doing a good job with that.

However, we’ve done console games before, tonnes of them, so we’re not ruling it out completely – we just don’t think it’s right for us right now.

JD: You mentioned in your email to us that you wanted to talk about the future of 10 Chambers – what does this look like?

UA: Well, a couple of years ago, after the studio was formed, we all met and asked ourselves, ‘how can we keep having fun making games?’ This naturally led to talking about what the next thing will be. Can we do it again [make a cooperative game]? We’re getting older, we may want to do different things, and will we feel the same in six/seven years?

It led me to think about revisiting an older theme. I felt it ended sorta badly for me, and I have so much more to give; almost like unfinished business.

Heist cooperative is something we’re heading straight into.

JD: Very interesting!

UA: Yes. And I want to stress that this isn’t going to be Payday 3. For me, Payday 3 was a lifetime ago, actually two lifetimes ago, because we’ve done GTFO since then. I want this to be something different.

It’s going to be an FPS, because that’s what we do. It has a technothriller theme to it, and [that] opens up the gameplay for us significantly.

JD: How so?

UA: OK, so games like Cyberpunk 2077 used a lot of old books as source material to inspire [the look and feel], and I’m reading similar books to inspire this new game. It’s not going to be a Cyberpunk thing, but it is going to be a semi-futuristic thing.

I’m obviously always closer to Blade Runner, considering the art in GTFO, but also, think of Inception too. But, I’m also a massive Heat fan too.

JD: How far along in development are you?

UA: We’ve been planning and designing for around two years now. We started production, I think, at the beginning of this year [2022]. We did the unorthodox thing of not just focusing on the new game; we worked together on GTFO and the new title.

JD: Are you planning to go the early access route with this new title?

UA: Yes. That is the current plan, but if it changes, it changes. But we really like that [early access] approach, as long as it isn’t an infinite early access – I don’t like that.

And I think to us, the two-year early access for GTFO was a tad long. If it were one year, it would’ve been better. But you never know: it’s all about quality.

It’s more like harnessing people, talking about the thing, and also getting people in that are super-interested in the theme of the game and having them directly feedback. [when talking about the benefits of early access]

But I stress that it’s not about having people tell us what to do. We know exactly what we want to do – it’s more like – are they experiencing what we want them to do, and in the right way? Are we ‘puppetting’ the right feeling/experience?

JD: How are you going to address the shortcomings of GTFO; in particular around single-player experience(s)?

UA: OK, so GTFO is GTFO. This new thing is something the team and I have been playing around with. So, for instance, let’s say we have a lot of players. How can we design something like this in a more modern way that uses more players, that really leans its design into this fact [player count]?

JD: What sort of themes and pressures do you want to put onto players in this new title?

UA: Yeah, I’m not sure I can go into details. What I can say is that compared to GTFO, it will have a broader appeal. So, for instance, on a Friday night, I want to play Destiny 2 and do a VoG raid. Or during the week, I’m alone, and a campaign isn’t that bad [an idea], or then, I’d maybe revert back to playing Call of Duty or something like that.

The question I’m answering with this new title is: ‘How do you design something that dynamically scales?’ We’re also questioning four players – whether we can be fluid with this. Could be more, could be less. It’s not too rigid of a thing [the game], but it’s still a heist game, right?

JD: What sort of timeline are we looking at for this new game?

UA: I can’t really say. All I can say is we avoid promising things. We don’t want to be promising timelines at this stage.

JD: Anything else you want to tell me about the new title?

UA: I usually don’t get excited about my own games. I’m not giddy, but this one I really want to play. GTFO, I love the design of it, but it’s not really a game for me. I can’t handle the stress for too long [of GTFO].

JD: Really?

UA: Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s doing what it’s supposed to do [to me], and then I’m like: ‘Ah, fuck that!’ So this game is probably closer to [my interests]. I play a lot of Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and those sorts of games. So less hardcore, but it still creates those moments of ‘Fuck, that was challenging!’

JD: Well, I think we’ll stop there. Thanks for your time, Ulf.