Explore 8 Swashbuckling Tales in ‘Crimen - Mercenary Tales’

Raise your glasses high, and prepare to embark on a journey through eight swashbuckling tales of grandeur, riches, and legendary feats! The latest game from Carbon Studio, Crimen - Mercenary Tales is now available on Meta Quest 2 + Pro.

In Crimen, you’ll travel through numerous breathtaking locations, become a living part of European folk legends, and enjoy sarcastic mercenary humor—all delivered in a cel-shaded arcade slasher of epic proportions. We sat down with Art Director and Project Owner Radosław Kurczewski to learn more.

Radosław Kurczewski: As a Polish studio, we’re naturally akin to Europe and its history. Let’s start with the fact that 17th-century Europe, especially our eastern homelands, was an incredibly turbulent place. Constant conflicts between feuding kingdoms, political intrigues, rebellions, rich folklore, shady accords, daring raids, and truly incredible deeds of legendary heroes are just for starters. Our entire team agreed that virtual reality was the perfect medium for recreating this amazing setting. We believe players will fall in love with this extremely colorful and interesting period and that they’ll soon share our fascination with this era. Our main goal was to make the folklore stories presented in the game accurately and authentically reflect the character of our beloved region and its history. Have we done a good job? Well, only time (and players!) will tell.

RK: When we took the first steps in prototyping Crimen - Mercenary Tales, we instantly discovered that this type of graphics would be perfect for our game. After making a few initial sketches and the first character plans, we were 100% sure that this was the art style we wanted to follow. The design was a lot of fun but also quite a challenge, as too much or too little realism could make the artwork look too lackluster or simply tacky. However, we believe that we’ve found a golden mean. In addition, the comic-like graphics allowed us to design an unconventional combat system and fit the overall humorous vibe of the title.

RK: There are actually two main reasons for our cel-shading approach:

First, when choosing standalone VR as our platform, we had to be careful that we weren’t developing something for a console or PC—we had a limited technical budget to work with, hence obtaining realistic graphics is pretty difficult. The comic-book style allows us to simplify the virtual space. For example: If we had done standard visuals of a brick, people would expect great detail in that 3D object (like scratches, imperfections, etc.), whereas the comic-book style allows for a level of simplicity where the player’s imagination will fill in the gaps as a “cartoonish” brick doesn’t need all the details for it to work its magic and serve its visual purpose to the player.

Second, comic-book/cel-shading visuals don’t age, or rather, they age like fine wine, with Borderlands being a fantastic example. It’s a graphic style that doesn’t require constant updates and even after years from its initial release will still look good and appealing.

We worked by trial and error to obtain a satisfactorily coherent image in VR. We wanted to get the full-color palette of a beautiful world, and to expand on our realistic endeavor, we brought in real places and objects like the magnificent castles Malaga and Niedzica, which we modeled ourselves in this cartoon style. Overall, we’re really happy with the approach we took and can’t wait to see players dive into Crimen to check out our visuals!

RK: Indeed, there’s no shortage of great combat-based action titles on the Meta Quest Store. Thanks to them, we have the opportunity to perform glorious deeds, immerse ourselves into grandiloquent plots, and fight against our archenemies and their henchmen. Now, take all that and add a good deal of humor straight from Monty Python sketches, crazy action known from super-hero movies, and add a mocking, ridiculous vibe. Welcome to Crimen!

During your struggle, you’ll have the opportunity to face dozens of enemies (all alone!) and chop them to pieces like there’s no tomorrow. You’ll encounter talkative, powerful, though sometimes clumsy bosses, you’ll climb, shoot, and explore, but most importantly, you’ll relive eight extraordinary stories told by eight distinct characters fighting for the title of the greatest hero. So what if they’re somewhat exaggerated and elaborated? This is how it is when you talk about your exploits in the crowded inn, right? Each scenario is completely different from the previous one and is narrated by another character—of course, not without comments from the other tavern regulars.

RK: That’s a very good association! We kind of leaned in towards Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for subtle references, but of course, we wanted to introduce our own stories and present the world of the 17th century to our players. We also decided to include authentic weapons from that period to further the player’s immersion in the world of Crimen.

RK: It not only allows us to engage in fights with hordes of enemies, but it also effectively tests our reflexes, foresight, and precision. As blade masters, we have to parry hostile attacks just in time and respond with our own accurate blows. Sounds simple, but when you’re surrounded by a bunch of hotheads, things can get pretty ugly. The fun thing is that our cuts can dislodge the limbs or heads of our foes and even launch them far into the air. Our paths will also intersect with several bosses, each of which can boast of its unique skills and way of fighting. Did I mention ranged enemies? No worries, sometimes we can finish them off with their own reflected projectiles. We can also use the environment itself by blowing up various types of explosives, loading and firing cannons, throwing clay dishes found on our way, or... cook some soup and play our favorite tune on the organs—all of this in a range of locations like eerie castles, ancient temples, forsaken shipwrecks, and so on.

Crimen’s iconic weapon is the saber, which was the most popular weapon used by the heroes of the era. However, that doesn’t mean that other equipment won’t fall into our hands. We’ve made every effort to ensure that the entire arsenal available to players is as historically accurate as possible. Axes, bows, firearms, different types of swords, and others were thoughtfully designed and based on historical research. Another element is the strong emphasis on the story—each scenario has its own theme and is full of amazing events, breathtaking views, and plot twists. And it’s not just about the level script itself. During our adventure, we’ll encounter numerous Easter eggs and references to pop culture. We can’t wait to see if players will be able to “catch them all.” The cherry on the top is the fact that some of the stories take place in places present in our real world, for example castles located in Poland. Just imagine the feeling of visiting and exploring a virtual representation of real locations straight from Medieval and Renaissance Europe.

RK: Absolutely! Although humor is relative and everyone laughs at something different, you can be sure to see, hear, or experience many cult-classic scenes from the world of music, movies, and gaming. The brave heroes, whose role we play, approach any kind of danger with humor and sarcasm, trying to prove that they’re totally unimpressed by a challenge—after all, they’re all fighting for the title of the greatest of mercenaries. We believe that a balance between action, story, and humor is a recipe for really good fun. What’s more, some of the scenarios have a funny ending, which will be extra motivation to get to the end of them all. The characters themselves are also of great importance. Cutting comments, clapbacks, jokes, and sarcastic remarks will accompany us throughout the game. Thanks to them, it gets even easier to recognize individual heroes who differ significantly in their characters, origins, clothing, and even accents.

RK: Crimen is complemented by a great musical score from Arkadiusz Reikowski. The moment we got acquainted with his work, we decided that it would be very difficult to find an artist who could better handle the task of breathing musical life into our game. Just as with weapons, character appearance, and locations, we took care to ensure historical accuracy. Arkadiusz made sure to use rhythms, motifs, and instruments characteristic of the era. Therefore, if you’re bored with typical musical backgrounds, you want to find out what the melodies characteristic of 17th-century Europe sound like, or you’re a fan of folk music, you will definitely not be disappointed!

RK: Creating VR on mobile chipsets is a huge challenge, so throughout the game’s development, we had to watch out for the memory and computing budget. At every stage and step of the game production, we had to take care of technical and optimization aspects. Our team has 10 years of experience in VR games, which is tremendously helpful as this brings a lot of valuable know-how and specific tools that allow us to create great games such as Crimen and avoid potential issues early on.

RK: We’re really happy with and proud of our VR games as each published title contributes to a better know-how and experience of our team, and that allows us to create even better projects. For years, our R&D department has allowed us to obtain high-tech solutions and tools that we incorporate into our games. This is especially important to maintain the consistency of projects across all VR platforms.

RK: The word’s etymology is from Latin, which translates to “crime.” And there was a Polish TV show in 1988 based on Józef Hen’s novel of the same name that actually helped in originating the idea behind our game. Combined with a reference from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we envisioned a VR adventure game that would try to tell eight stories from eight different characters in a tavern, and we always wanted to create a game filled with humor—so it all fell into place from that point, and we decided to give it a go!

RK: The game started its development in November 2021, so it was roughly one-and-a-half years of production overall. As far as anecdotes go, Jakub Stychno (our Lead Designer) has one.

Jakub Stychno: You’ve probably heard many times that developers often start making a game that’s supposed to look a specific way and eventually it turns out that, at the release, it’s a little different from the original assumptions. Not worse, just different. That’s because during production, ideas are verified and a “fun factor” is carefully searched for, what works in this game and what does not, and the design veers in the direction where gameplay “works.”

In Crimen, more or less in the middle of production, we realized that the greatest pleasure of the game is when different powe-rups fall out from opponents—Something that was not in the original idea for the game.

We added this during development because players wanted to pick up swords falling from opponents. Then came the time when first-aid kits were falling out of opponents, and one by one we kept on adding power-ups, until over time we realized that this is one of the ingredients that distinguish us the most from other slashers—that in the fight every now and then, the player gets something new that they can play with.

So the decision was made: Let’s make it rain and do as many power-ups as possible.

RK: I believe my favorite part of the game is the last boss fight. I’ve always enjoyed unconventional boss fights in games, and I’m really proud of how we went through the idea behind the boss fight, the mechanics, the visuals, and I hope that players will enjoy it just as much as we enjoyed creating it.

We encourage everyone to try their hand as a saber master and daring adventurer in search of fame and glory. Although Crimen - Mercenary Tales belongs to arguably the most popular genre among VR games, it has so many unique elements that you’ll feel as if you’re rediscovering something totally new.

Head to the tavern and check out the swashbuckling action of Crimen - Mercenary Tales on Meta Quest 2 + Pro today.