Afterworld director says studio won't judge players for terrible choices

Set in post-apocalyptic North America, Afterworld puts players in charge of building and managing their own community. Lind said the game’s design encourages players to create distinctive stories as they react to the wasteland. For example, he described finding a colony of only elderly people who cannot contribute work, saying, “So now we figure out ways where they can, say, jump off cliffs at a certain age for the betterment of everybody.” He also gave an example of making a resource illegal, which could turn the whole population vegetarian.

“One of the rules that we have is that we shouldn’t judge the player for their terrible choices,” Lind said. He explained that the game will respond to player actions: the population is not necessarily going to accept terrible behavior unless the player has built a society that does. “Maybe you managed to get them to that point, or you found some people like that,” he said. He added that there is an advantage to a society that avoids “too many crazy things” if the player wants to grow.

Lind described the broader political map, which includes “powerful, ancient tyrants” who rule large parts of the wasteland and can subjugate the player. Players might choose to betray such a tyrant and take control of a large area, such as New York. Lind said he expects these scenarios to become topics of “water-cooler conversation.”

The director said he is “super excited” to see what players manage to achieve after release. “For all our games, that’s the fun part. Someone’s like, ‘Whoa, you did that! That’s crazy!’ Right?” He said that in an apocalypse, people don’t expect others to behave with a normal moral code, and that this level of freedom helps Afterworld stand out.