Creating Threat & Antagonists - Ideation Part 5

When looking at most online multiplayer games with a stong narrative core there's a theme of needing purposeful antagonists for players to battle against together. As this project intends to be a narrative focused online multiplayer game, I've started to think about what threats the player will face and what the antagonists will be:

Central Antagonist

Casius is the Archon of the Gzelmath Imperial 5th Hellenic Force. He is a strategic and military genius however has been historically prone to fits of megalomania, despite his deep loyalty to the high empress of Gzelmath. His views on other races is highly negative and will happily work to enforce the Empire's rule over the entire continent of Althemisa.

His ruthless approach to warfare coupled with his strategic mind have led to him commiting myriad atrocities in the name of the emperor.

When thinking of the narrative, I want to really create a villain that players will all despise, therefore I've purposefully crafted a deep narrative for him that sets him up as an irredeemable character from a moral and ethical stand point. As I continue to develop the narrative I intend to pack out more information on Casius, his goals in the narrative along with characterisation ideas for voice acting. The aim of these ideas will be to craft a villain that players will want to actively beat.

Dungeon Bosses and Large Overworld Threats

Throughout players journey through the world and story, they will encounter a number of the empires Automata. When thinking about ideas for the dungeon bosses etc, I wanted to try and embarce the more clockwork/steampunk aesthetic that I've been working on for the Empire at large. To that end I've decided to remove any form of human enemy from the empire and instead players will battle against large clockwork robots that will look like different ferocious animals.

My thinking here is that players will be able to further want to battle the antagonists as they will not be defeating living organisms, rather robots. This should further help to show the empire as a nation that does not focus on the needs of it's people, but rather the need for aggressive expansions.