Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship is an ultimate horse simulator video game developed by Aesir Interactive. It follows the storyline of a girl, Mikka, and her exhilarating black stallion, Windstorm. The game features incredible thrills and creative exploration of the world as the story unfolds around the character.
Additionally, the game is based on the famous Windstorm movies and books, allowing players to experience the adventurous storyline of the black stallion. Apart from the famous characters, the game allows players to roam around the beautifully designed world and groom the stallion with their choice of items. With so much more to do and experience in the horse simulator, we reached out to Aesir Interactive to share more details on what is next for the all-new Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship.
Aesir Interactive: Aesir Interactive is a dev studio based in Munich, Germany. The whole company consists of over 105 people working on multiple games parallelly. Our biggest project is currently Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori, the 3rd part of the Whisper IP.
Aesir specializes in Open World Games, with their key genres being simulator games such as Police Simulator: Patrol Officers and Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator, and of course horse riding games like the Windstorm franchise and Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch.
For the remaster, we’ve teamed up with the dedicated and talented team from Sleeprunner to get our remaster into a 2nd life.
Greetings! We are Sebastian and Andreas from Sleeprunner Studios. Our tasks on the Windstorm Remaster were in the areas of producing, level design, and programming.
Aesir Interactive: The original release of Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship was in 2017, which is now 7 years ago. The game generated a lot of excitement back then and is still.
It seemed like the right decision to bring the project up to a current graphic standard. The remaster also serves as a good introduction to give fans a better understanding of the roots of the story surrounding Mika and her horse Windstorm, before the new part, Windstorm: Legend of Khiimori, is released.
Aesir Interactive: The upgrade to the latest Unreal version was relatively straightforward. The main reason for the change was the new systems, such as Nanite and Lumen.
These powerful tools allow more complex 3D environments to be rendered, and with Lumen, the global illumination of the level is completely dynamic.
Aesir Interactive: The remaster is based on the original and, therefore, includes all the content that was included in the original. This is the typical approach for developing a remastered version of a game.
You work with the existing code base and project files and then process them further to improve the look and feel of the game and raise it to a new standard.
Aesir Interactive: It felt right for us to add a photo mode to the game so players can capture their best moments with Mika and Windstorm, especially with the Remaster’s updated graphics.
Aesir Interactive: Almost every 3D object in the game has been remastered. This means that most objects have been retextured, and many have even been remodeled and replaced.
This also meant that large parts of the game world have been completely adapted and reworked. The day and night settings, as well as the weather settings, have also been completely reworked. In addition to the visual aspects, some controls and game-feel elements have also been improved.
Aesir Interactive: The story surrounding Mika and Windstorm remains true to the original, and nothing has been changed in this regard. However, we have included a small interaction between Mika and Ostwind in which she lovingly pets her horse.
Aesir Interactive: We’re getting mostly positive feedback (92% positive on Steam), which makes us very happy! As developers, we’ve already read a lot of comments and watched Let’s Plays, and people seem to really enjoy exploring the area around Gut Kaltenbach in its new splendor. We’re also trying to respond to the feedback we get as best as we can.
Aesir Interactive: We started the full development in October 2023 until the release with the team of Sleeprunner and a couple of people from Aesir as support. Beforehand, we ported the old game to Unreal Engine 5. In general, between 12-15 people were working on it.
Aesir Interactive: We believe remastering games play an important role in game development, especially if you have a successful, strong IP where there is still room for more players and target groups. Some older games you might want to replay won’t run on modern systems. There are also games you can’t buy anymore because they were released before platforms like Steam, GOG, and other marketplaces.
Even if these games can still run on modern systems, you might wish they had a more updated look. While not every game needs to be remastered, there’s a desire in the gaming community to relive favorite games, and having a remastered version enhances the replay experience.
Aesir Interactive: A remaster is the re-release of an older game. While we improved the game’s feel and the visuals, we didn’t alter the missions, story, or progression. Nevertheless, we believe that the remaster has taken a big step forward and brought many improvements so that the core story of Mika and Windstorm can be experienced in the best possible way.
A big advantage is that if a Remaster is done properly, there may already be an established player base that might already be interested in a remaster. Additionally, you have a solid foundation for development and don’t have to start from scratch.
Aesir Interactive: We are particularly proud of the complete overhaul of the world map and the improved horse controls compared to the original. Also, we’re very happy that the game is a new release on the PlayStation 5 and that it is playable on the Xbox series for the first time!
We are very happy that so many people are enjoying, reinventing, or discovering the adventures of Mika and Windstorm, and we hope you continue to have fun on all your rides. Enjoy and keep riding.
Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship is an adventure simulation game, developed by Aesir Interactive. The game was released on June 20, 2017 for PC.
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Laiba is a passionate writer who’s been covering the gaming industry for more than 2 years now and has a deep understanding of how this industry is evolving and what gamers love to read.
