Iain McNeil: The engine could definitely work for a medieval period and with modifications could work in the early gunpowder era. Fundamentally the engine would be adaptable to any period where formations were used. World War I and II are off limits because of the killing power of the weapons changed the fighting style and large formations just became juicy targets.

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ACG: I have to bring this up because it gave me a good laugh after seeing the "naked" fanatic units. Did you ever think you would be putting out a title which was rated M (for 17+ mature audiences) by the ESRB because it contains nudity?

Iain McNeil: No….. it was a bit of a surprise. In Europe and the rest of the world it was fine, and it would have been very simple to change had we been aware it was an issue.

ACG: It would be unfair to compare Legion Arena to full-blown empire-building games on the market today. However, it would be reasonable to imagine having the Legion Arena battle engine as part of a larger empire game. Are there any such plans lurking in the Slitherine bunker?

Iain McNeil: It is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. We’re still analysing the best way to combine empire building games & combat resolution. One school of thought is that people either prefer battles or campaigns but not necessarily both in one game and that a combined game only appeals to people who like both, limiting your market. The other is that a combined battle/empire game appeals to both groups, expanding your market.

Cult of Mithras – the dreaded Helephants!

ACG: Can you tell us a little about the add-on Cult of Mithras? How does that expand the Legion Arena universe and did you have any concerns about doing a mythical, rather than historical title?

Iain McNeil: We’ve been making historical strategy games for many years now with Legion, Legion Gold, Chariots of War, Spartan, Gates of Troy and Legion Arena. Games have to be fun and if the designers are getting jaded with the settings then you need to mix things up a bit to keep the morale and productivity going. If we started to churn out more historical ancient games you’d probably find the quality dropping, they would become repetitive, and the fun elements would disappear. To avoid this we just needed to take a break! With fantasy, the artists are able to let their imaginations run free and the designers are able to design missions that will be interesting and fun without worrying if they are unhistorical. It’s just something we as a team need to do! Don’t worry – we will be coming back to historical gaming!

ACG: Anything coming up with Slitherine you’d like to share with our community?

Iain McNeil: We have a lot of things going on at the moment. I can’t say too much about them as all are at a relatively early stage of development and will not be announced until we have something to show. As mentioned above we have one project we’re working on in conjunction with Osprey Publishing. We have our next core game already in production, which will progress the Arena engine in some really cool ways. There is also a more hardcore project we’re working with another independent development team that focuses on a different area of history completely. There has been some interest in porting our existing games to consoles and handhelds. Recently we worked with Mad Minute Games, helping with advice and negotiating their contracts for Take Command. Finally we have some experimental web based games in development. As you can imagine – things are very busy!

ACG: Thanks again for your time. Looking forward to see what comes next!

Learn more about Legion Arena and Cult of Mithras at Slitherine.

Armchair General reviews Legion Arena.

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