MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya spoke with 10 Chambers in Los Angeles during the Video Game Awards, the developers of Den of Wolves. For the first time, a gameplay trailer of the new heist co-op shooter on Steam was shown there.
In a meeting room of a hotel in Los Angeles, the developers from the Swedish studio 10 Chambers are waiting to present the first gameplay trailer of their new heist co-op shooter. Den of Wolves can be seen as a spiritual successor to Payday, the famous heist shooter with clown masks.
10 Chambers is a relatively young studio, founded by Ulf Andersson, the creative mind behind Payday, in 2015. We have reported on their first game GTFO, which is characterized by its extreme difficulty and is hardly achievable alone. It belongs to the horror survival genre and was released in Early Access on Steam in 2021.
This is Den of Wolves: The cooperative first-person shooter for 4 players aims to evolve the heist game genre by playing in a dystopian future and combining traditional infiltration gameplay with a neural hacking element. The sci-fi genre is supposed to bring new impulses to the genre.
In the new gameplay trailer from the Video Game Awards, you can get a glimpse of the futuristic Den of Wolves:
Den of Wolves resembles Cyberpunk, but is supposed to be different
Before we see the trailer, there is a presentation by game designer Simon Viklund and communications director Robin Björkell, who explain more about the background of Den of Wolves.
The two emphasize that Den of Wolves is not Cyberpunk. Later when I see the trailer, the word Cyberpunk pops up prominently in my mind, though.
This is the background to Den of Wolves: You live in Midway City, a corporate-free zone that was established in 2035 through the HOPLON project. In early 2030, the world economy was nearly brought to collapse by AI-driven cyberattacks. Midway City was supposed to serve as a high-security zone for corporations to protect financial and technological infrastructure. However, that backfired, and now you live in a dystopian metropolis where corporations vie for power and control.
You must somehow survive in this swamp and take on contracts from different corporations.
Den of Wolves has been labeled as a “techno-thriller” genre. In the later conversation with Simon and Robin, I address the avoidance of the term Cyberpunk. The goal is primarily to prevent false impressions.
We were afraid to say Cyberpunk because people would think: “Oh, it’s Payday in space.”
Or people think of the Cyberpunk game where it would be like: “Oh, I can get a neon-colored mohawk and a robotic arm.” Or a third leg or whatever.
So it came from us that we didn’t want to say Cyberpunk because I could already see the headlines: “Payday space is coming and you will have a pink mohawk.”
Interview excerpt with 10 Chambers
Techno-thrillers are characterized mainly by the emphasis on real or plausible technologies of the near future. You can see this in the trailer, as there are no neon-colored influences. Just like in GTFO, Den of Wolves is supposed to remain more realistic and dark.
Therefore, it is already stated in the presentation that you are not the shining hero in Den of Wolves who wants to take down the evil corporations. When I ask why we are not the shining hero, Simon connects this to the aforementioned realistic approach:
Well, I think it would be somewhat preaching if you were to say: “Oh, these are the villains that you are now doing something against. You are this Robin Hood who robs the rich or whatever. They deserve it.”
We believe it is better to be some kind of anti-hero. That’s more complex and not black and white, because that’s how the world really is. You can come up with your own backstory for your character and say: “I’m doing this to avenge my wife who was killed, or whatever.” That’s up to you.
The game itself doesn’t tell you what to think, what backstory you have, or what your motives for your actions are.You are just trying to make a living in Midway City, and that’s a dirty place, morally corrupt. And then you just have to, I don’t know, accept that, I guess. Den of Wolves is a reflection of how the world really looks, you know, and there’s a lot of darkness and evil people out there.
Interview excerpt with 10 Chambers
You see, in Den of Wolves it’s supposed to be quite dystopian.
Preparation for heists plays a big role in gameplay
Another aspect in which 10 Chambers wants to develop its heist gameplay compared to GTFO or Payday is the preparation for a heist. This will play a bigger role and go beyond the usual “Take a job, start the mission, jump in, go out.” This is supposed to help present the story in the game better and bring in new interesting strategies.
Right away, I ask myself whether this could potentially disrupt the gameplay loop and prolong the co-op rounds. I share my concerns with Simon and Robin, who place their idea behind it in context.
Well, it’s not a new concept to have something like a macro goal. There are micro goals and macro goals in games. So I think players will get used to it even if Payday games don’t have that. There is a mixture of things you can do. You can just start the game and if you want, you can just do something quick that isn’t part of a narrative, which doesn’t require a big investment or set something in motion that you have to finish. There will be snack-sized content, but the plots are [through the larger heists] somewhat more ambitious than what you would expect from the game.
Den of Wolves will be more complex than Payday 2. It’s more ambitious in storytelling and interesting. Because in Payday 2, there’s no storytelling in the game itself. The story is told through trailers and if you don’t watch YouTube, you have no idea what’s going on in the game. With Den of Wolves, we want to have more storytelling that takes place in the game itself.
Interview excerpt with 10 Chambers
So when you prepare for a heist, the game will take you to locations that explain more of the world and background. However, what that looks like in detail remains a mystery.
Too early for a judgment, but it looks promising
10 Chambers does not go into too much detail yet about what the gameplay will ultimately look like. The trailer and the conversations I had provide an impression of the direction things are going.
It’s clear that fans of the Payday series or GTFO should keep an eye on this game. Currently (as of December 12, 2024), GTFO has an 88% positive rating on Steam and 10 Chambers knows how to create a good game with a fan base.
In the conversation and presentation, it sounded as if GTFO was initially the game to find themselves as a new studio and team. Den of Wolves, on the other hand, feels more like an actual end goal. According to Simon, the concept for the game has been lingering in founder Ulf’s mind for 10 years.
I assume that a high-quality game will emerge here again. One risk is definitely an over-ambitious setting that allows for many possibilities and also many pitfalls.
However, since everything is still quite vague, I will take an observatory position for now and eagerly await the moment when we go beyond trailers and can get our hands on it ourselves.
The complete interview with Simon and Robin will be available soon on MeinMMO.
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