Entropy is a very cool, very funky RPG you can play in early access right now. It's a turn-based ode to the likes of Final Fantasy 10 or Lost Odyssey, but it's also got some PC flair—lead developer James Wragg cites Fallout 1 and Games Workshop's tabletop Mordheim as major inspirations as well. I asked Wragg about the game's mercenary hiring and ambitious permadeath system in a conversation this past summer.
"A big inspiration for the randomly generated mercenary system was: I wanted to include permadeath.
"That's what I often miss in JRPGs. I love playing the old Final Fantasy games. I do find once you play them as an adult who understands how they work, you're breezing through the game so easily. I wanted to really ramp up the challenge and the stakes.
"One of the things that really raises the stakes in Mordheim is that you put all this character into these little guys. You make them, you give them names and you paint them and you lovingly create their profiles and loadouts and then they can just die from a mace in the face, and then they're just permanently dead. And you're just like 'Fuck, Jeff's dead.'
"I wanted to bring some of those stakes into the game, but you can't really do that by having a standard JRPG party that never perma-dies. I couldn't really think of a fun way to do it like that. I really liked this idea of finding these unique little party members who seem like they have their own little personalities.
"We needed a potentially infinite resource of party members so that we could then kill them, so that you could get attached to them, and then we could kill them. Although much like Mordheim, the chance of them actually dying isn't that high because they're more likely to get a severed body part or some sort of status injury if they get knocked out.
"But it's always a risk, which I think creates a really palpable sense of intensity to the game."
In addition to the injury system, Wragg was clear that you can get through Entropy with zero casualties via skilled play. But even then, the possibility of permadeath is still there, adding an edge to the proceedings.
I felt that acutely in this year's Star Wars Zero Company, which has a similar mix of authored snowflake squadmates and procgen mercenaries. I managed to get through that game without losing anyone, but the fact that they could have died lent the story and my achievement more weight.
I've loved what I've seen of Entropy so far, but haven't gotten super far into its latest, early access build. I'm curious to see how much more story meat its authored companions will have versus the mercenaries. If Wragg and the rest of Lovely Hellplace's stance on side quests (like em, love em, gotta have em) is any indication, there's probably a lot to chew on there. You can check out Entropy's demo for free, and the full early access experience for $12 on Steam.
