The First Berserker's Ben Starr and Studio CEO Speak: Tough Games, AI and More

I’ve been enjoying The First Berserker: Khazan, the Souls-like dark fantasy action game that was released on March 27. During this year’s Game Developers Conference, I sat down with some of the development team to chat about the latest game in the Dungeon & Fighter series — and much more, from difficulty in Souls-like games to AI in the industry. 

I spoke to Myeongjin Yun, CEO of developer Neople, and Ben Starr, the voice of the titular character Khazan and many other iconic gaming roles including Clive, the protagonist of Final Fantasy XVI.  

We talked about where the game fits in the larger Dungeon & Fighter universe, how they tackled making a new entry in the crowded souls-like genre and where AI fits within their respective fields. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sean Booker: What is Dungeon & Fighter and how does it relate to The First Berserker Khazan? 

Myeongjin Yun: So basically Dungeon & Fighter is an action RPG, it’s been in service for 20 years as of this year in Korea. And Khazan actually plays a very core part of the story. So there is this iconic class in Dungeon & Fighter called the Demon Slayer, and they have a cursed red arm. It’s part of the lore, and basically Khazan is at the core of like, how that came to be, why all Demon Slayers have that red arm.

Then with The First Berserker: Khazan, we wanted to go a little bit deeper into the story and into the universe about, like, you know, what role does Khazan play in setting up the Dungeon & Fighter universe. How does his story expand? 

SB: Ben, what drew you to this project? 

Ben Starr: Cool, cool project. I remember seeing the first ever glimpse of it, I think in The Game Awards a couple of years ago, and I just thought it was the coolest looking game and I’m such a huge fan of this genre of games, like hardcore action RPGs is something that I have a deep, deep love on. After I did a blind audition for this game, but I knew exactly what it was because I’d already kind of been keeping tabs on it as a fan. And then I just saw what they were doing with story — I think with most actors, all they want to do is tell good stories and be good characters and it was just really, really fun. And I love, you know, a brooding protagonist who’s on a path for revenge, but this just felt really different and cool and I adore the art style. 

And I really love that the key of this story is the dynamic with Blade Phantom, and I’m really great friends with Anthony Howell who plays Blade Phantom, and I think he’s such an amazing, amazing actor. To get to work alongside him is just this incredible gift.

SB: Would you say people need to be familiar with Dungeon & Fighter in order to play The First Berserker, and if not, and they wanted to, where in the IP would you point them? 

MY: You could definitely play and enjoy Khazan, even if you did not know the Dungeon & Fighter IP at all. The setting, the learning curve, and even the story was all made with people who are new to the Dungeon & Fighter IP in mind. Of course, if you know the original story, you would have a lot more fun like, oh, here’s an Easter egg here and there. For example, in the original Dungeon & Fighter, when Khazan gets exiled to the mountains, the story kind of ends there, and we don’t really go that much into detail about what happened to Khazan after that. But here it kind of expands on the what if setting, so what if Khazan didn’t die in that exile snowy mountain? What if he stayed alive? What if he just continued his revenge? 

SB: Dungeon & Fighter games are typically beat ’em ups, and there’s also a fighting game. Now with Khazan we’re going into a Souls-like action game. Why the transition to this new genre? 

MY: We wanted to find a way for everyone to get immersed in the story, for them to really experience what it means to play Dungeon & Fighter. But then if you look at the original game, it’s a pixel game. It’s also side scrolling and that’s not the most popular genre as of right now. And so we were thinking, if we think about genre, what would be the best way to reach these players?

And of course, you know, we want 3D and we have this specific art style. We did take inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Nioh because I actually personally love those games as well, but then, it does play a lot closer to the original Dungeon & Fighter, which is a hardcore action RPG at its core. So we really just wanted to emphasize, you know, that feeling of playing the original and being true to that, and so that’s what kind of ended up being Khazan. 

SB: There’s an ongoing discussion about difficulty settings in these more hardcore action games. Not only does Khazan have an easy mode option, but it also has this lacrima system, where you can keep going against a boss and still progress. What were your thoughts on difficulty?

MY: That’s a funny story because last year at Gamescom I was asked if we planned to add difficulty settings, back then I said no, we’re not gonna do that. But then winter, like in December last year, we actually did add an easy mode, right? And when we first thought about the difficulty settings and keeping it hard, we wanted players to really just feel the hardships that Khazan was going through, all the difficulty that he was going up against, but then we really thought to ourselves, like, what do we want from this? Like, what do we want the players to feel at the end of all this? 

Of course, there’s a sense of achievement from going through all these challenges and just getting better, but then we also wanted to make this experience a lot more accessible to players and for more people to know what it feels like to be immersed in Dungeon & Fighter.

There was a lot of internal discussion on whether we should be adding the difficulty settings or not, but then in the end, we decided to do so. Personally, I like Souls games, but I wouldn’t say I’m an expert master player in Souls games. Keeping that in mind, we wanted players who may not be that good at controlling or dodging to also be able to progress through repetition, and for them to really feel a sense of progression so that they can enjoy the game also. 

BS: I’ve just been massively impressed with the way the team has constantly engaged with players and interfaced with the team. Considering this is a single player hardcore action RPG, the fact that you as a team have constantly gone, here is a version of the game to play, please go and play it, give us feedback — that kind of really great conversation you’ve had with the public and how you’ve listened to people and what they want and what they don’t want, is really interesting.

When you think about how we use the word hardcore, instantly what you think is “this game isn’t for me.” But actually going, “it can be, and actually you can choose to play the game however you want” [has] been really lovely. 

SB: As someone behind the scenes, what are your thoughts on AI growing in the games industry? 

MY: Definitely we’re aware of what AI can do and also the ethical arguments that we’re having around it, and definitely around voice acting and all that as well. Personally, I feel that in the space of game making, in the space of developing games, AI definitely increases accessibility and allows smaller teams to come up with great ideas and develop new games in many different genres and just really bring their ideas to life.

But then we also need to be very aware of the fact that we’re in this very chaotic middle ground here. There are a lot of arguments about whether this is ethical. We see a lot of cases of copyright infringement, so we really need to learn where to draw the line and how we need to operate within a safe boundary. So definitely it has a lot of potential, but then it also involves a lot more discussion as well. 

BS: Yeah, it’s kind of the same thing, which is that AI isn’t inherently bad, it’s what the human fingerprint that holds it does with it. AI is also a very toxic word to use because it’s almost like it is no longer about AI, it’s about all of the things around it. You walk around GDC right now and you will hear many conversations about the importance of machine learning and how valuable that is. 

I’m an actor and obviously it’s a very hot topic right now for what we are doing. I think what SAG-AFTRA are doing right now, what the actors are fighting for is incredibly important, and it’s very good that they are elevating the importance in the public sphere. Ultimately AI isn’t the problem. AI can be a wonderful, wonderful tool for people to use in the right hands, but it’s like every single dystopian apocalyptic movie from the 90s. It’s like Skynet, man, is it coming? And it needs to be in the right hands. In the right way it can be used and useful and wonderful, but as you said, there has to be regulation. 

Technology is moving so fast that regulations cannot keep up and we need to make sure that we are putting things in place so when this technology does advance to a level where it’s doing some kind of crazy things, we already have those regulations in place and we are not reacting [by] preventing those things happening in the first place.

SB: When you’re not working on Khazan, what are you playing right now? 

MY: As a developer, I first came into the industry because I love games and I love playing games, but then it’s been ironic because I haven’t been able to play much. You hear a lot of other developers say “oh, I love to play games,” but then nowadays like gaming is actually more research, and so you would hear a lot of developers saying that. I don’t want this comment to sound too businessy, but I actually have been playing Khazan, and it’s wonderful. 

BS: I recently bought myself a Steam Deck. I have been a PlayStation kid since I was very, very young and that was my primary and still is my primary gaming machine. But I found myself traveling so much that I was like “I need to get a Steam Deck.”

On the way here I did 4 hours of Vampire Survivors. I did about 3 hours of Half-Life 2, which still holds up. My word, does that game hold up. And I think they’ve got like RTX there that just came out. The game series that really caught me in the past couple of months are The Case of the Golden Idol and The Rise of the Golden Idol. 

I just think they are wonderful, and even in those three games that I’ve listed they are in the same idea of video games, but they tell stories in completely different ways. Vampire Survivors doesn’t really tell a story at all, but it’s just wonderful how we can interface with that and stories can be revealed to us in all of these ways, and I think the Golden Idol series is really, really, really special.