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Divinity developer Larion Studios is working on two codenamed projects and one, designated 'E', will be unveiling during E3 next month. Founder Swen Vincke reveals it'll be an RPG.

He talks about how Larion's Divinity series was created to "recreate the feeling" he got when playing Ultima VII, but they "lost track a bit" after the first game. Vincke wants the "vibe back".

The studio boss has "happily abused" Ultima VII when describing Larion's Project E to the press, but the problem is many don't know it. They're the "best RPGs ever made".

In fact he goes as far as to say that "there's not been a single RPG since 1992 that surpassed them, including those now considered to be the industry benchmarks." Vincke is referring to Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Ultima VII: Serpent Isle. This lack of intimate experience with Ultima "didn’t dissuade me from talking about it though."

"...I was trying to explain that when making the first Divinity, my goal was to recreate the feeling I experienced when I played these Ultima games," blogged the Larion Studios founder.

"The Ultima games gave me a feeling I had never experienced before: that of totally being immersed in a world created by someone else. They were also the games that really got me into this business. I remember vividly the moment where I said to myself – right, this is what I want to do."

"Ever since I started making RPG’s, I’ve been looking to recreate for other people the same experience I had with Ultima VII – it really is my drive. Now, in my mind I never succeeded in this but if I can believe the reviews and the fanmails, apparently Divine Divinity somehow struck the same chord for a lot of people. Which was quite motivating of course."

Vincke acknowledges though that his Divinity series has strayed from the path, losing what connection it had to that Ultima VII experience, especially with Divinity II, which suffered the dreaded consolitis.

"...after the first Divinity, I lost track a bit – Beyond Divinity definitely wasn’t as good as Divine Divinity, and I always regretted making that one, even if it got ok reviews. Then the second mistake was made – the joys of console development steered Divinity II far away from the original idea, and so many compromises were made in that game that what shipped was but a shadow of what I had envisioned it to be," he explained.

"While some of that was rectified it with the release of Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga, in truth there are only a few gameplay moments in there that come close to the reason I set up this company."

"So I explained to the journalists that with project E, I wanted to rectify that. When I’ll be playing the final version of project E, I hope that I’m going to get my Ultima VII vibe back, the method being recreating all of the values present in these masterpieces, and then taking it one step further."

Exactly how Larion Studios will accomplish this goal with Project E will be revealed "soon enough," which translates to: "within a couple of weeks though I expect the news will break sooner." The studio founder admits he's "quite nervous" about the announcement to RPG fans because they'll be "taking some risks, but you’ll also notice that we’ll be on very familiar ground." It should have been Project D but that designation was taken already, he said.

Surely that means the 'D' would have stood for Divinity? It seems almost certain.

Source: NeoGAF