Mix and Slash Through a Fantastical World in ‘Mixture’ for Meta Quest 2, Out Today

Most action games let you live out your fantasies as one powerful character. But Mixture goes a step further by letting you control two characters at the same time: one can devastate her foes with the swing of her scythe, while the other can come up with all sorts of alchemical concoctions that grant unique advantages on the battlefield. And you’ll need both of their abilities to survive the harsh world of the Wastelands.

Mixture is now available on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro for $24.99 USD.

The game follows the story of Sola, a Knight of the Fallen Order (and your melee combat hero) as she strikes a forbidden pact with Sephairos the Alchemist (represented as floating hands that can mix and throw potions). Despite the fact that Knights and Alchemists are sworn enemies, the two of them have to work together if Sola wants to return home to her native realm. But the journey won’t be easy: Along the way, they’ll encounter all sorts of deadly creatures and tricky environmental challenges that’ll test their abilities.

To celebrate the launch of Mixture, we spoke with Played With Fire Lead Game Designer Igor Hardy about the innovative combat system, the deep lore behind the game, and how they came up with this unique fantasy world.

Igor Hardy: The original idea for Mixture started with the concept of the game’s unique setting. It was a vision of a non-organic Realm of Matter that was devoid of biological life, but had living creatures and ecosystems based on alchemy.

Initially, we wanted to have one central hero character who’d combine the skills of sharp-edged weapons combat with alchemical abilities that’d allow them to change the properties of matter—down to their very structure and behaviors—making objects and enemies sticky, bouncy, fragile and so on. Throwing, shaking, and breaking fluid vials in VR felt good after doing a few prototypes, so we knew we had an excellent system for using alchemical mixtures. And that’s something we’ve retained in the first-person perspective with the Alchemist.

Yet after reflecting further on the striking contrast between the two skill sets, we started considering our love of a slightly different genre of games—single-player, but with two separate characters helping each other. This also made sense because we wanted to have a super fast and agile heroine in the lead. You’d be able to fully see her personality if you have a character that’s directly controlled and viewed from a third-person perspective. Hence, Sola The Steel Moth was born!

IH: We find the combination of traditional game controls and VR motion controls exhilarating when done well. It gives you an incredibly satisfying feeling of accomplishment when solving problems—often during intense action sequences.

As the concept for the game was shaping up, it became clear to us that we’re making the game for more experienced VR players who will appreciate all the cool synergies that are possible between the characters’ different skills. Part of the fun of the game is discovering the winning or extra effective strategies against your enemies, including the six huge bosses. Every enemy you fight will respond to every alchemical mixture effect, and when you combine that with Sola’s scythe attacks and combos, you’ll find that each enemy has their own special sensitivities. One of our favorites is throwing the Repel mixture at a Living Rock and then swinging the scythe at them, resulting in the enemy being shot out like a bullet against other monsters.

Overall, it wasn’t that difficult to achieve fun, tactical gameplay. But balancing and animating the amount of possible combinations—enhanced by several types of traps that can kill both Sola and the enemies, as well as the various upgrades for her and the Alchemist that you can unlock throughout the game—did cause us a few sleepless nights!

IH: Stargaze was a game about observing and tinkering with little planets and the quirky inhabitants who are almost as big as the planets themselves. It was a two to three hour—and largely stationary—experience built by a small five-person team. While it was all that we hoped it’d be, it still left us hungry to do a more hands-on exploration of a larger, interconnected world. And that’s the direction we went for with the next game.

For Mixture, our team grew to 16 people and our ambition was to create an epic, fully explorable and interactive world for around eight to 10 hours of gameplay. After Stargaze we knew that world- and character-building are our strong points. In Mixture, we wanted the player to maximally feel the huge scale of the landmarks and landscapes (and bosses!). We also wanted the player to be able to understand the consistency of the world and how the various regions connect, and provide lore that backs up the history of what the player sees.

IH: The two main characters’ relationship builds strongly on their presence in the gameplay. Sola and Sephairos are bound together despite their physical differences, their choice of weapons, and their completely opposing personalities.

Searching for the power to escape The Realm, Sola didn’t expect the alchemical powers coming packaged with a wraith of vicious, acidic disposition. Similarly, Sephairos—with his cold, scientific, and sometimes merciless approach—didn’t count on being paired with a being as feisty and impulsive as Sola. The two create quite an explosive combo of temperaments. But Sola, with her fully-physical presence, seems to have the upper hand on Sephairos—at least at the start.

What was particularly important for us was to have the evolution of the relationship be reflected in the gameplay, so some of the relationship breakthroughs unlock new reactions or layers of gameplay.

IH: In ancient times, the Realm of Matter was ruled by seven Alchemists of supreme skill and ambition. They’ve tried to transmute their material bodies to become Demi-Gods, and sought the energy from The Realm of Light to achieve that. This resulted in a Great War between Light and Matter that spun for centuries, and barely won by the side of The Light. The Alchemist spirits got imprisoned in the darkest corners of the four regions. The gate between realms was sealed off. And as an additional measure of protection, a huge fortress was built on top of it, as the realm was still overrun by dangerous, alchemy-powered golems.

The Gateway Fortress was not a popular outpost and ended up being run by the ones cast out from The Realm of Light—the Knights of The Fallen Order. To stay in the realm, they had to protect their inner light with full-body metal armor. Some of the group’s characteristics are a little nod to the Night’s Watch from Game of Thrones.

The relationships between Sola, the other Knights, and The Light (whom they all serve) are a huge part of the story’s main arc. Sola struggles with the authority of The Light, which is represented by the Order’s leader, Kane. She also has an evolving relationship with Fin—a friend, a pilgrim, and a skilled knight who’s always on the frontier.

Sola wants to escape from the Realm for good (and go back to The Light), but she also wants to redeem herself in everyone’s eyes. At the beginning of the game, many Knights were mysteriously swallowed by an awakening power of alchemy, and Sola has an opportunity to prove herself by venturing forth to discover their fates and confront whatever she finds—even if this means taking on the help of forbidden alchemical powers.

Within the larger story, the collaboration between a Knight and an Alchemist has a stigma attached to it because Alchemists were the Knights’ sworn enemies. This might potentially get Sola in trouble with the other Knights.

IH: We like to turn the seemingly impossible and surreal into a believable, consistent vision with its own set of rules—a brutalistic setting of rocks, gems, and metals. A huge realm where the only approximation of life comes from alchemy and survives on salt, sulfur, and mercury. This was a concept that felt unique and ripe for finding the perfect artistic form to express it.

Our ambition was to have a tactile, sculpted feel to the world—hence the metallic reflections, rock granularity, and acid-infused deformations. We wanted to have inorganic building materials organized to behave like organic growth, inspired by maquettes and stop-motion animation in their believable but otherworldly feel.

We believe that stylized art helps make a game feel timeless, hence some of the stylization and hand-drawn touches in the textures and epic combat moves. We wanted to have a darker, dangerous feel to the action, so the stylized exaggerations have an edge to them.

IH: The Realm of Alchemy is not necessarily what it seems. Sola and Sephairos follow surprising paths and discover the fates of the lost Knights. Perhaps they’ll manage to save some of the crusaders—but not everyone. They’ll confront twisted beings no one from The Light has ever survived laying their eyes on.

But at some point the question arises: What’s the price to pay for casting away all alchemy from the Realm of Matter?

Master the art of alchemy and deadly melee combat as you venture into the dangerous world of Mixture for Quest 2 + Pro.