September 12, 2000 - After a year and a half in development, dismembered limbs, bumbling corpses and chainsaw wielding maniacs are drawing closer to your homes, via THQ's Evil Dead: Hail to the King. Ash, the original character from the Bruce Campbell movies, is set to terrify PlayStation, PC and Dreamcast users all over the U.S. come November.

The game was originally called Ashes to Ashes until realization hit that about five years ago a game existed with the same name. So THQ simply changed the name to Hail to the King and went about making the game scary but still retaining that infamous Ash humor. But will the game really make you jump? Scott Krager, executive producer on the project, revealed all to IGNPSX...

IGNPSX: Will Hail to the King actually make you jump?

Scott Krager: It's keeping in line with the Evil Dead 2 movie. The first part was a horror movie but it had funny moments, and that is what we are going for, although there are parts that will make you jump. At the same time, the Ash voiceover and one-liners, the things he says make it funny, but it is meant to scare you -- unlike some survival horror games that are all scare and no humor, we have scare with some humor.

IGNPSX: What have you used to make the game scary?

Scott: It's a combination of things. There is a certain level of campness and humor from the Evil Dead films. The things that make it scary are the environments; and the game uses pre-rendered backgrounds similar to Resident Evil and other survival horror games. We are able to animate as much as we want to, and this helps animate the background that we want. I think the environment is designed to make it scary, and the sound is the other scary element. We tried to add really cool sound effects. The music cues scary instances too, although it's not the scariest element. It just helps to contribute to what is going to happen next, you know the anticipation...

IGNPSX: Could you describe the settings for us in terms of the locations and the environments?

Scott: From a global standpoint, the game is divided into acts; the first act takes place in the woods, and you start the game in the cabin that was featured in the film. We have extended the woods, and the environment beyond that is a graveyard and a campground. There's an old run down hillbilly-type house that is very reminiscent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

So you start in a cabin and then go to a bunch of new areas outside of that, and then in the game, time travels back to ancient Damascas at the time that the Book of the Dead was written. So the second half of the game takes place at an old armory and similar places. So you have environments that are very reminiscent of Evil Dead 1 and 2, and you also have a cabin, which appears in those two games.

IGNPSX: How does the story progress through the game?

Scott: It's not mission based, you don't get briefings or anything like that. Instead we use in-game movies to tell the story. In these movies we not only have the story but through the story players can achieve objectives. There are certain kinds of dialogue that we use to convey and help the player to do what he needs to do as he moves through the game. It's not really mission based it is more like Resident Evil.

IGNPSX: Did you use hand-drawn animation?

Scott: The program used to model the environments was Maya and the environments are actually rendered to be 2D rather than 3D. The artists take the 2D shots and touch them up in Photoshop, which adds a lot of detail to what's seen with the base textures in the game. They then take that and create the animating elements like fire or fog. It is similar to using blue screen in movies, because you have like these 3D characters and objects like Ash and stuff, and those are composite on top of the animated backgrounds.

IGNPSX: How much involvement did Bruce Campbell have?

Scott: Quite a bit, he did all the voiceovers, and certainly when we recorded, he added some changes that were very helpful. We showed him stuff and he commented on it. He has been great in the sense that he has given us free rein, but at the same time when he sees something he thinks he should comment on -- he will. But at the same time he is very busy, so he's not down here every week.

IGNPSX: Being honest, how realistic is the game? Will it look authentic?

Scott: When we took environments from the film; such as the bridge area, we wanted to be faithful to the movie so, artists took stills to use as angles from the movie. They were pretty faithful when creating the cabin so, for example in Evil Dead 2, we looked closely at the interior of the cabin. Certain details like the wood was important so we made sure that we included it. And people walking around in the cabin and so on, I think players will feel like they are in the movie.

IGNPSX: But what about the blood and the gore, is that realistic, too?

Scott: There is definitely blood and gore. When you hit an enemy with a chainsaw, you see blood. It is there!

IGNPSX: Will players benefit from different camera angles during the game?

Scott: We try to have camera angles that you would see in a horror film, although we have to be careful in case it affects the gameplay in a negative way. For example, if it became difficult to see what was going on we had to make sure that the camera angle couldn't hurt the player in anyway. We are trying to keep the angles low to the ground or Dutch-angled (high). Some areas have that and some areas where there is a lot of combat going on, we wanted to keep the camera angles a little bit more intrusive to that type of gameplay.

IGNPSX: Why is Hail to the King a single-player game?

Scott: Well, you have a story and you have these camera angles, and it would be a bit tough to come up with gameplay like Doom or Quake where you are running around shooting your enemy; that is a very fast-paced game. Having these camera cuts with this in the background just makes it difficult.

IGNPSX: So if you'd included a multiplay option, you'd have had to sacrifice other game features?

Scott: Well, I think it would be a different game. We would have had to have made (instead of a story-based survival horror game), a fully 3D world, where there are no camera cuts, and something faster paced. The thing about Evil Dead is that when you compare it to other survival horror games, there is more of an emphasis on action. Resident Evil is a great game, but a lot of it is based on puzzle solving, and although a lot of Evil Dead is based on puzzle solving, we have many more dynamic enemies in combat than Resident Evil.

IGNPSX: So how have you got the characters to move quicker?

Scott: The A.I. and the design of the characters; a lot of the characters are enemies and like in Resident Evil are zombies, so they are scary. But what we wanted was not just zombie-humanoids, we have those in the game, but we also use enemies that are unique. We have better animation and the A.I. is such that it is much more dynamic, quicker, the characters have different types of moves that make them more action orientated. Also, the engine was built specifically for Evil Dead. Before the Heavy Iron guys took on the project, we worked on some ideas. They had been prototyping certain things, and then once Evil Dead fell into their laps, they started to build the engine for this game.

IGNPSX: Do you think that any of the next generation platforms such as PS2 could give advantages to Evil Dead?

Scott: Definitely, I think one of the biggest advantages would be being able to do a fully 3D engine, and retain the detail that you get from the pre-rendered backgrounds. I think that the reason Capcom and those guys have used backgrounds in survival horror is because they are pre-rendered. It also has a cinematic feel with the camera cuts, and with the next-gen platforms I'm hoping to see a fully 3D world which allows you the advantages of that type of technology. This means you'll be able to affect much more of the environment. You have models and such that you can alter for whatever you want to do, but at the same time take the Code Veronica programme which still uses camera cuts, but in combination with the moving camera. Also, what was cool about Silent Hill, which was 3D, was the way they made really cool environments, and you could do that as well.

IGNPSX: Do you have any plans to extend the Evil Dead franchise?

Scott: We don't have anything set in stone and nothing is definite, but we'd like to think that Ash will have many adventures. If we were to move forward, it would be on a next gen platform.

IGNPSX: Who do you think is going to buy Hail to the King?

Scott: Fans of Evil Dead, and beyond that I hope that people who like survival horror whether they are Evil Dead fans or not, will buy it. Because we have a bigger emphasis on dynamic gameplay, people that are not fans of survival horror will be drawn in by it. We have a good story, we've got Bruce Campbell, we have dynamic enemies, we have amazing looking backgrounds, and hopefully the gameplay experience will draw in fans of that genre.

--Agatha Chapman

For more details on the PS version of the game, click on the links below, and for details on the Dreamcast version, click here.