When the group behind the serene journey Alto’s Odyssey had been engaged on the sequel, they’d loads of concepts that didn’t make it into the ultimate launch. One of these was a vibrant metropolis that might be the sport’s fourth biome, becoming a member of the prevailing desert, canyons, and historical temples. For numerous causes, the town was minimize from the ultimate launch. But when the prospect got here to deliver the sport to Apple Arcade as a part of the streaming service’s current growth, it made sense to return to the idea.

The result’s Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City, which is coming to Arcade subsequent week. “We’re thinking of The Lost City as a special edition of Alto’s Odyssey,” says lead artist and designer Harry Nesbitt. “We’ve been able to go back to the drawing board a little bit.”

The core of the sport will stay the identical as the unique model. That means The Lost City is an limitless runner, the place gamers journey a sandboard throughout a procedurally-generated desert panorama. It’s a mixture of chill and problem that has made the sequence so enduring. The Apple Arcade model merely provides a brand new space — however one that actually adjustments the tone. “It’s very much a living, breathing city,” says Nesbitt. “It’s not a dusty ruin or empty wilderness like some of the other spaces we’ve depicted. It’s vibrant and alive, and has almost a party atmosphere to it.”

One of the challenges, he says, was ensuring that the brand new space wasn’t an excessive amount of of a jolt to gamers. The group didn’t need gamers leaping straight from a quiet desert to a bustling metropolis, which is the place the procedural side of Alto got here in helpful.

Photo: Snowman

“It’s definitely something we tried to be careful with,” he explains. “We don’t want it to be jarring in any sense. But because it’s a procedural game, we already have a natural progression for revealing new content to players. We try not to throw everything at them at once; we try to pace it out so that one thing leads to another. Just as you’re getting comfortable with one aspect of the game, a new thread opens up.”

The expanded model of the sport additionally provided an opportunity to construct on the storytelling, one thing that’s grown over the course of the sequence. While the Alto video games don’t have an express story with cutscenes or dialogue, there’s clear worldbuilding occurring. As Nesbitt explains it, the builders need gamers to really feel like there’s extra that “exists beyond the edges of the screen.”

And whereas the concept dates again a number of years, the present model of The Lost City was impressed partly by the pandemic, and the truth that so many people have been trapped inside, largely unable to journey or expertise the outside. “I think Alto’s Odyssey has always been a little bit about the idea of traveling and going outside of your comfort zone,” says Nesbitt, “and The Lost City is a natural extension of that idea.”

Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City launches on Apple Arcade on July sixteenth.