Last July, IGN got an inside look at PlatinumGames’ upcoming action game called Scalebound. Creative director Hideki Kamiya and members of the development gave us a detailed look at the studios’ at the frenetic action it was planning for its fantasy world.

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During the Microsoft briefing at E3 2016, Kamiya and creative producer Jean Pierre Kellams showed off the massive scale of boss combat in Scalebound and how the titanic battles will play out in multiplayer. Afterwards, IGN caught up with both men to get a little more detail on what’s new in the upcoming action game.

Although Kamiya’s is a talented maker of action game (his resume included Bayonetta, Veiwtiful Joe, Okami, and Resident Evil 2) Scalebound action-fantasy game mechanics include lots things his team hasn’t done before. We asked Kamiya about the new boss he showed off at E3, how Dragon riding and partnering up with Drew’s dragon companion, Thuban, works and more.

On How Much Scalebound Has Changed Since IGN First

Hideki Kamiya: "When we last got together, we were at the point in development where we were focused on nailing that dragon scale combat. The past months have been focused on nailing large scale boss combat and making sure it’s good in co-op. Today, what we’re showing is everything we’ve done since that last time we sat down in July and showing off where that scale goes."

On the Unpronounceable Name of the New Boss Shown at E3 2016

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Kamiya: “The boss has a name, but it’s in a totally unpronounceable language. We named all of our creatures in a language that we built for our world, Draconis, and so he’s got a name in Draconian. Everybody online calls it a crab, which is cool, but no one on the team ever called it a crab. We always called it a scorpion because of the tail. So, to us, it’s an enormous crazy scorpion-looking thing.

“We’ve taken our inspiration for enemy design from biology. It’s funny because thinking back on it, you know, we’ve shown the Hydra, and it was obviously inspired by snakes, but we really haven’t shown many other enemies from the game. And there are enemies that are inspired by mammals, there are enemies that are inspired by birds. We’ve shown you the mantis, which is obviously an insect enemy. We’ve shown you the scorpion, which is obviously another insect enemy. It is much, much bigger! Yeah, but we’ve been taking inspiration for enemies from these guys.”

Jean Pierre Kellams: "One of the things that pushed the scorpion’s design were the tails. And one of the things we had to be thinking about is how do we create a big boss like this that can deal with multiple dragons and multiple Drews around it. They have to be able to do really wide, big attacks, especially considering the size of the world. So having the tail, in the second part of the premiere we had today, give a big swipe across, and a huge laser that shoots out. Having these wide attacks to deal with and all the chaos around the boss is one of the ways you can make combat at that scale interesting."

Kamiya on the Essential Elements for a Boss Fight

Kamiya: "For bosses in general, it’s really all about the interplay between the boss and the player. What does the boss do? How does the boss come at you? How does the player understand what the boss is doing? How does the player figure out how to deal with that and then counter or attack to damage it? And that kind of interplay and how those puzzle pieces fit together are really what make boss fights compelling. Then in Scalebound, we took those concepts and added enormous scale."

Kellams: "What we premiered today was obviously five minutes, right? A boss fight obviously isn’t a five minute experience. That’s something that we made for E3 to show you what something at that scale is like, but when we get into the actual game and you get that controller in your hands, and you’ve been playing for the few hours that it’s going to take to get to that boss -- and there’s stuff in that boss fight that we haven’t shown yet -- it’s going to be even more epic and even more crazy than what we showed today."

How Dragon Riding and Teamwork Between Drew and Thuban Works

Kamiya: "Dragon riding is something that you’re going to earn in Scalebound. Obviously it’s something that was a given in the fight today, but it’s something that’s going to develop in the bond between you and Thuban. Dragon riding is a feature. There’s no limit to dragon riding once you’ve earned it, but there are merits and demerits to doing it. So, it’s not just simply 'Okay I’ve earned dragon riding so let’s hop on the dragon and start spamming fireballs until something dies.' That’s not how it works.

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"In reality, if you’re teamed up with Thuban and you’re working together, you’re probably going to be more effective because there’s two of you. You’re going at it, and then you have to rely on Thuban to make his own decisions and to do what you’re hoping he’s going to do. Whereas when you decide to make the choice to go to dragon riding, Thuban’s going to do exactly what you want him to do because you’re directly in control of Thuban. You are together in that moment, but you don’t have that combination of the two of you attacking things in different ways. So it really comes down to what kind of choice you want to make in battle and how that’s going to work for you as your play style evolves."

IGN: Does the preference between the two play styles affect Thuban’s development over the course of the game?

Kamiya: "There might be a little bit of that."

IGN: During the demo I also noticed that Drew -- stop me if I’m wrong -- but it looked like he was launched by Thuban. The first time it didn’t look voluntary, but the second time it was to get to a weak spot. Is that something you can initiate, or is it something that Thuban would instinctively do at that moment?

Kamiya: "We’ve always talked about the bond between Drew and Thuban, right? So, in the second part of that battle where you mentioned that it looked like it was voluntary, that absolutely was. So what happens is, in that boss fight in particular there’s a big sweeping thing and if you’re successful in avoiding getting hit by it exposes the boss’ weak point and gives you an opportunity to attack. When you think back to the mantis, there was a lot of Drew asking Thuban to attack those weak points and do damage there, right? What you saw today was Thuban doing the same thing for Drew. It was Thuban understanding the situation and saying to Drew that he’s got a chance to do this thing, and I can help you do it. That’s where the tail launch came into play."

On How Multiple Drew and Thuban Fits Into the Story

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Kamiya: "So we really wanted to make a co-op game, but we didn’t want to just put the same character on the screen and say “Hey, it’s a video game!” and go have fun with it. We wanted to have a narrative reason that supported that idea. But we also wanted to tell the story of Drew and Thuban and their bond together, so… we’re not going into a lot of detail about what that idea is and how that ties into the story, but we did put a hint into what we premiered today, and that’s at the very end. If you look at the that, you’re going to see all four Drews collapse into one, and that’s our hint about how that narrative construct works on a multiplayer basis."

What Kamiya Has Learned During the Development of Scalebound

Kamiya: "It’s hard to say. And it’s hard to say because I’ve never been a game creator that gets an idea and quickly goes and makes the game and it’s fun. Right now the game is fun for us, but it’s not like somebody had an idea and now the game is fun. It’s this daily struggle of how are we going to make the game fun, what are we going to change today to make the game more fun, how are we going to make this character more fun? Every single day you go through this process over and over again, and that’s always been my style as a game creator. So in that year since we’ve talked, every single day has been kind of trying to make those baby steps forward to make the game more fun and that will continue until we’re finished."

Jose Otero is an Editor at IGN and host of Nintendo Voice Chat. You can follow him on Twitter.