Below is the interview between us and the CEO of Kung Fu Factory – Ricci Rukavina – Exclusive Information Revealed:
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The inclusion of female fighters seems to be an attempt to help attract a female audience, are there any indications yet that this has been a successful strategy?
Adding female fighters just seemed to make sense for Supremacy MMA as the game bucks all the traditional trends within MMA games, and let’s face it: female fighters have been there, they just haven’t been included until now. With the addition, we’ve gotten just as positive a response from males as females; I think when people realise that these girls who are as tough as nails—and train and fight just as hard as anyone else—haven’t been given a fair shake in gaming until now, will realise it’s been a missing element to MMA games.
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Do you have any plans to turn this game in to a series, and if so do you have an idea when we could expect the next one?
Our goal has always been to deliver the most brutal and arcade-like MMA game out there, and do what all the big companies can’t do because of their rules and licenses. We think there’s an audience out there for a mash-up of MMA and Tekken and Mortal Kombat, and we’re committed to giving them exactly that.
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How will this game raise the bar compared to other fighting games?
Like I said, it’s the fastest MMA game out there and plays more like Tekken than it does other games. First and foremost, we’re gamers, and we want to play a game that’s fun. As much as we’ve played and enjoyed MMA games to date, we feel they’ve largely descended into slower, more-simulation based gameplay, and after a while that just becomes slow and boring. Our game is all killer, no filler; no fat, nothing extra. It’s 100% action, and it’s far more brutal. There’s almost as much blood as popping somebody’s head in Gears of War, and you can break bones. So how it will raise the bar? It will raise it with sheer AWESOMENESS.
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Does this game cater for all levels of gaming ability?
For sure. You’ll notice immediately that you don’t have to wade through a boring tutorial just to play; The ground game is very intuitive, and once you get into the gameplay and start toying with each individual style, you’ll notice there are literally hundreds of moves for each fighter. So button-mashers can play and be competing at once, likewise advanced players can sink into the menus and go crazy stringing combos together and wreak glorious havoc on their opponent.
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A short or weak story mode frustrates gamers, what have you done to combat this?
We’ve assembled what we feel like is a comfortable medium in the story department, telling the story of each individual fighter and their specific path to supremacy. For some it means redefining who they are and their family name (Jens Pulver, former UFC champion), for others it’s providing for their family after the death of a parent (world-champion Muay Thai fighter Malaipet “The Diamond” Sasiprapa, who has been fighting since the age of nine). Each story has been given a graphic novel treatment that’s gritty and more akin to Guy Ritchie or Grand Theft Auto than reproduction of a televised broadcast, so it’s totally unique compared to what you’ll find in any other MMA game to date.
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How long does it take to play through and what have you done to ensure re-playability?
The heart and soul of Supremacy MMA—much like Tekken, Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat— is 1v1 multiplayer action. So the game has infinite re-playability in that respect, especially when you consider the depth of the move sets of each individual fighter and style.
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Could you give us a list of the game environments, and which are some of your favourites?
We really tried to go in a unique direction with venue selection and based all the venues on real places that people fight. Take The Warehouse for instance, which is modelled after underground fight rings in New York city where people literally take over vacant and abandoned warehouse space for a night, set up generators, lights and a ring and throw an event in one night, tearing the whole thing down immediately after. We went a saw such a fight, and it was mobbed with people, bands were playing, it was absolutely crazy!
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Other games within the genre suffer from the robotic appearance of the fighters, Fight Night Round 4 managed to overcome this and gave realistic action, how does MMA Supremacy measure up to the kind of standards set by Fight Night Round 4?
Our fighters are high-polygon models that move, react and behave very realistically. There’s an advanced blood and bruise system where your fighter will begin to show bruise damage in areas that have taken more damage, and the blood will smear and drip in realtime on the mat and on the fighters bodies. There’s even facial expression changes as they suffer injuries; you’d probably cringe if someone gave you a good soccer kick to the head and followed up with a full headstomp finisher.
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What genres of music will be in the game and are there any big artists?
Could you give us a list? Lots of METAL!!!! Right now we’ve announced a number of artists from Victory Records, including Emmure, Bury Your Dead, Taproot, Destrophy and Within the Ruins. We’ve also been working with Sumerian Records with a number of their bands for our trailers, including one of our all-time favourite progressive bands ever, Periphery, as well as Born of Osiris and After the Burial. We’ll be making more announcements as we get closer to launch.
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What multiplayer modes can we look forward to, and what are some of your favourite modes?
Im a huge fan of Battle Royale and Survival. Battle Royale is three matches with persistent damage, winner takes all. Survival is like a full blown KUMATE!!! It’s like a 12-match tournament ladder where the damage is still persistent with each round, surviving to the top is about as difficult as completing the Mile High Achievement in Modern Warfare.
