Unsheathing the Sword

An Interview with Peter
Cesario, Producer of Sword of the New World

By
Cody
“Micajah” Bye


Over the last few months, the ‘net has been awash
with content from the Sword of the New World: Granado Espada.
Everything from developer interviews to hands-on previews sprang into
the limelight. The art-style of the game caught the eye of many MMOG
veterans, who saw something familiarly fantastic yet altered just
enough to make the game feel new. Gun-slinging was just as prevalent a
combat style as swordplay, and the multi-character control system
stands as a brilliant gameplay adjustment on a tired old formula.

Yet when the release date came and went with little fan faire,
a few industry journalists raised our heads and wondered where the game
had gone and why the press hadn’t picked up on it as actively
as they had been previewing it. When I learned that Peter Cesario,
producer for Sword of the New World, was going to be attending
Comic-Con, I arranged for an interview at his earliest convenience.

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Although there was a bunch of PR before the release of
Sword of the New World, there wasn't much press just prior to the
release date.

The K2 Network booth was seated inside the PC Gamer / Maximum
PC gaming area, which sported the first public demo of Unreal
Tournament 3 and a few other tasty gaming treats. After I got
Peter’s attention, we decided to head back to a quieter area
of the convention center. Cutting right to the chase, I pulled out my
voice recorder and began my conversation with Peter, echoing the
thoughts that the video game media had been wondering.

Peter wasn’t surprised by the question regarding the
release of Sword of the New World, and he was fairly frank about the
whole situation. “It’s gone fairly well,”
he said. “One of the things that hurt us concerning release
was the fact that we launched the same day as E3. And E3 this year
garnered even more interest because it was in a new venue and the focus
of the expo had changed. When E3 hits, people shift their focus on to
what’s new and what’s upcoming, not so much
what’s just released.

“It’s hard to realistically gauge how much
that hurt us,” Peter continued. “But overall, I
have to say that we’re pretty happy with the response. People
that came on during beta or are trying the game now stick with it. Most
of them have played MMOGs before, but when they come into Sword they
find something new and different. Anything that releases around the
same time as E3 just gets lost in the shuffle, but we’re
doing well despite that and the retail boxes are definitely
selling.”

Unlike most free-to-play games, Sword of the New World has a
retail element as well, which gives a player one unique player
character (UPC) per box. Each of the retail outlets has a different UPC
in the box, and there are several UPCs to choose from when you download
the game directly from K2 Networks.

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K2 Networks was drawn to the graphics, setting, UPC,
and MCC system in Sword of the New World.

As a publisher of imported Asian-market games, K2 Networks is
in an interesting position compared to most other Western-based MMOG
publishers. Instead of picking a game that a developer is working on,
K2 Networks has, thus far, sought out games that have already achieved
some success in their various markets. In the case of Sword of the New
World, K2 Networks was quick to jump on the property and localize it
for the Western marketplace. From my standpoint, I could understand
that the multi-character control system was a huge draw for K2, but I
was wondering what other aspects brought K2 to an agreement with the
Sword of the New World developers.

“At first, we were definitely attracted to the
setting and the graphics,” Peter said. “On top of
that, we really enjoyed the unique player characters. There’s
really nothing that Sword of the New World compares to in the Western
market. The Baroque style is unique, the UPCs certainly are a draw, and
the setting is fantastic.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Sword of the New World Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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