A love of video games has flowed through Hideki Kamiya’s veins since he was young, but it wasn’t until he purchased his first PC during his high school years that his mind was fully opened to their potential. His new machine took him on journeys beyond the simple inputs of the mid-’80s arcades and introduced him to a myriad of mythical creatures that would quickly become a life-long obsession.

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“ The spice Platinum is adding to this formula to make it truly unique is Thuban, a “dragon who is bonded to you,”

Concept art from Scalebound.

Brothers in Arms

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“ The bond between Drew and Thuban is, from every angle, the beating heart of Scalebound.

Live Together, Die Together

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How to Train Your Dragon

“ Unlike the majority of Platinum’s previous games, the fight doesn’t begin and end with each battle.

Concept art from Scalebound.

“It opened up a whole new set of games I could play; action games, adventure games, RPGs,” Kamiya says, sitting across from me in his PlatinumGames studio in Osaka, Japan. “Those games had a great influence on me.”“Also,” he adds with a smile, “they introduced me to dragons.”Dragons (and other giant beasts) have roamed the fertile fields of Kamiya’s mind since he started his career proper at Capcom in 1994. They’ve appeared in various guises throughout his games, from the griffin in the original Devil May Cry to the dragons in 2009’s Bayonetta and 2013’s The Wonderful 101. But their depiction in popular culture as fiendish monsters - prizes to take down with an earth-shaking thud - hasn’t always sat comfortably with Kamiya.“As soon as I was introduced to a lot of these fantasy settings and worlds there was something particularly striking about dragons. But dragons aren’t just strong,” he says, “they’re beautiful. Yet they only ever appeared as enemies. So even though I fell in love with them, there were these limitations in terms of my interactions with them. I’ve always wanted to create a game where the dragons were the main subject matter.”Kamiya is finally realising his dream in Scalebound , a game where a dragon is not a beast to be defeated, but a companion for your human character, Drew, to fight beside.The focus on a central duo is one in a series of firsts for Kamiya and his studio Platinum, which is side-stepping its distinctive combo-focused action style to build a sprawling, colourful action RPG under first time collaborator Microsoft.The spice Platinum is adding to this formula to make it truly unique is Thuban, a “dragon who is bonded to you,” and who behaves as an independent creature alongside Drew, rather than a strictly responsive vessel for your button prompts.Still a strong, majestic beast, then, but one that fits a young Kamiya’s vision of what a dragon could be. “There’s a level of intelligence to dragons to the point where they’re almost godlike,” he says.Again, that boyish smile: “there's something very special about them.”We’re first introduced to Thuban in a combat-heavy Scalebound pre-alpha demo. The massive beast, banded with fluorescent blue, soars through the air with a whooping Drew clinging to his back. They land in front of a clutch of startled soldiers with a graceless thunk, and Drew goes tumbling. “Use your words!” yells Drew at the snickering dragon.With headphones slung around his neck and an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place in modern day Tokyo, pretty-boy Drew stands out like a sore thumb in the enormous, fantastical world Platinum is calling ‘Draconis.’“I didn’t want it to be this typical, expected fantasy world,” says Kamiya, “so to put a twist to that, this human, Drew, comes from our modern world, which would allow us to tell a story that has maybe not been told before, but yet is still believable.”Kellams describes Drew as a regular 20-something year old guy, who, like many regular 20-something year old guys, considers himself pretty invincible. “When I was in my early 20s I totally remember that feeling of doing things and just not having any fear of the repercussions,” he says. But Drew is also something of a loner, which makes him a good match for Thuban, the last, lonely dragon in Draconis, when he is unexpectedly thrust into the world.“Through that sense of isolation they develop this bond.”The bond between the pair is, from every angle, the beating heart of Scalebound. They share the same life stream (if Thuban dies, Drew dies), and a soft, blue string that floats gently between them, while Drew possesses a scaly arm - of mysterious origin, for now - the colour of Thuban’s skin. And while the relationship between them informs the central story, it’s also used as the basis for multiple play mechanics. As you grow to understand your dragon, more complex interactions with him - across both land traversal and combat - will open up to you.As the story progresses, joint attacks will also open up, or in-game actions with a little more meaning: Thuban might have more of an interest in saving a flailing Drew as he topples off a cliff, for example, or be more inclined to lend him a helping tail to reach a high ledge.“Throughout that progression you’ll be able to definitely see how the characters play off of each other, and how things that you weren’t able to do earlier on might be something you can do later on.”The human element wasn’t always a part of Kamiya’s original vision, which he describes as “just these giant, beautiful creatures fighting each other.” But he eventually realised that the concept still wasn’t quite right if he wanted to feel a kinship with the dragon.“What happens to me if the outcome of this battle that I’m seeing goes in this direction or that direction? What happens if the dragon ends up dying? How does that affect me? So slowly but surely I started thinking: what is my role? How do I participate?”In combat, the dance between Drew, a very mortal human, and Thuban, an enormous fire-breathing dragon, needs to be delicately choreographed. How do you work with your dragon? Is he going to be aggressive while you take a step back and wait for an opening? Or will you be more proactive while he takes the brunt of the damage?Platinum is putting a great deal of stock into Thuban’s actions in battle as an independent character. As we watched the pair fight a giant praying mantis, Platinum onlookers murmured “I’ve never seen him do that before.” (To me, a newcomer, such intricacies were a little wasted, but their enthusiasm was delightful .)“Even though Drew can give orders to Thuban, the dragon can act independently,” says Kamiya. “You don’t always know exactly what the outcome of his actions will be. You can say ‘go there’ but you can’t always predict what is going to happen - you have to make your own assumptions. And I think that’s a big part of what makes fighting in this game fun.”Although Thuban may deal the brunt of the damage in any given fight, Drew has his own bag of tricks. During this particular skirmish, his multipurpose ‘dragon arm’ was used to scan the mantis for information on its properties, unleash pulse energy attacks from afar and, curiously, heal Thuban with the same energy. “If Thuban is close to death, Drew’s arm will change colour; it will notify you. You will know you’re not in the healthiest condition. So you’ll want to heal him.”We also saw Drew switch to ‘dragon form’; a super-charged ability that allowed him to scale the mantis and unleash a devastating attack with his sword. With the frenzied beat of The Prodigy’s “Wild Frontier” pulsing through his headphones and skill points scattering across the screen at every blow, Platinum’s pedigree was brought home with an industrial boom.“We want to give players a chance to show off,” says Kamiya of this ability. “It’s a bit of stress relief during this intense combat. So for a short amount of time - as long as you have enough energy - you can transform Drew... it’s like his superpower.”Unlike the majority of Platinum’s previous games, however, the fight doesn’t begin and end with each battle. Scalebound is less about pulling off combos with bleeding edge flair (“I’m not focused on that in Scalebound at all,” says Kamiya) and more about the long game. “It’s not just about that one encounter. There’s a lot of player management and dragon management that you have to do.”The scope of customisation Platinum is promising here is impressive. We saw a lighter Thuban with tiger-striped scales, and a heavier one, decked out from head to tail in armour. “There are a lot of customisation options that we’re planning for your dragon,” says Scalebound’s game designer Yusuke Miyata. ”It’s not just the armour, it’s broken down into several different parts of the dragon. The parts themselves have a transformation quality, and on top of that you can pick and choose the armour you can slot into these parts.”This all affects the way Thuban fights. A lighter Thuban with a spear-like weapon attached to his tail will make for a faster, offensive character, while an armoured Thuban with a weighted weapon on his tail will be a better damage-sponge. “There’s always going to be that kind of risk/reward balance,” explains Miyata. “How do I want my dragon to behave and will this be advantageous for me for the next battle? You’ve got to look at each situation that you’re in and assess.”Though multiple weapons will be available for Drew to use throughout his journey, Kellams says that he’ll remain a comparably static character. “We want you to play in the role of Drew, but we want you to customise Thuban.” So skill points gained in battle will broadly level Drew up, but Platinum has an unwavering eye on the story it wants to tell.“One of the things we found with our action games is that we’re good at telling the story of a character,” says Kellams. “So we want to tell this story of Drew, this character who’s really dear to us. But… Thuban is your source of investment. That’s the guy who’s on screen as much as you are. So when you’ve got two lead characters like that, we want one to be the focus of the emotional resonance, and one that’s the the focus of the gameplay resonance.”