Persist Online: Tibia’s successor will be a sandbox with zombies, according to creators

Tibia fans were taken by surprise in recent weeks when CipSoft, the game’s developer, announced a new game: Persist Online. In the MMORPG genre and with a third-person view, the project seems to be quite different from the 1997 game – but it’s not that different.

This is guaranteed by the directors of CipSoft themselves. In an exclusive interview for VoxelStephan Vogler, co-creator of Tibia and the studio, and Benjamin Zuckerer, Chief Product Manager, told us a little about what it was like to embark on this new journey.

During Gamescom Latam 2024, the duo explained that the new title is inspired by games like Day-Z. The theme, however, is an apocalyptic world that has been taken over by zombies – who even guarantee that it is not a formula that has been exhausted.

Vogler and Zuckerer talked about whether Persist Online may be released for consoles, in addition to PC, and also about the expectations regarding the Brazilian community (which maintains Tibia standing to this day).

In fact, the two left a very clear message for fans of Tibia: the game will not be left aside and, in fact, there is great content coming soon. Check out the full interview below!

Voxel: What were the biggest challenges of creating a new game after 27 years?

Benjamin Zuckerer: Creating games is a very difficult task. There is the part of [nova] technology and you need to be a ‘jack of all trades’ because there are so many different things [atualmente] in terms of audio, visuals and art. And I think the hard part is having a vision and following that vision and not abandoning it, and making sure that everyone is really building the same game.

Voxel: In relation to other games, what were the main references you had for Persist Online?

Benjamin Zuckerer: Tibia is basically one of the biggest references, but there are also games like DayZ, Escape from Tarkov and even XCOMwhich influence the game’s design and core ideas.

Persist Online mixes elements of survival, crafting, RPG and more. (Image: CipSoft/Reproduction)

Voxel: And in what aspects are Persist Online and Tibia similar?

Stephan Vogler: I think both games share the same vision as they both offer a lot of freedom. Just like in Tibiaem Persist Online you decide what your goals are so you can go out and explore the world and there is a lot to see and do. You can develop your skills, try to reach higher levels, you can increase your power and more. And we thought the game so that it is not only PVE but also PVP as Tibia.

Benjamin Zuckerer: Modern games often take players by the hand and try to tell them what to do, what the next step is, and reward them for it. Tibia and Persist don’t do that. They just push you into the world and tell you to explore everything yourself and fill in the gaps with your imagination. We believe that’s what’s missing in games today.

Voxel: Will Persist Online be a kind of sandbox game then?

Benjamin Zuckerer: Yes, and in some respects [o jogo é] It’s probably about a very large open world and there’s a lot of stuff that you can interact with. There was a player in the pre-alpha who wanted to get plastic and what he did was he took a screwdriver, opened the cash box in the parking machine and got coins. He used those coins to go to a vending machine and bought bottles of water. Then he used the bottles of water and recycled them to get the plastic. That’s not something that we had designed, but the player came up with that idea. So the game supports all of that and I think Persist Online ends up being an example of a sandbox.

Voxel: And why choose zombies in the game?

Benjamin Zuckerer: So there is a backstory. But we don’t really want to reveal that and the reason is exactly what I was saying before: I think it’s important that there are certain things that are left to the players’ imagination. In the game, there are many factions of NPCs and these factions have different versions of this. [sobre o que aconteceu para que zumbis aparecessem]. Some factions believe it was an accident [biológico ou algo assim]that it was a government action, that it was a punishment from God, etc. Each faction will have its own idea and we will not reveal to the players what really happened.

Stephan Vogler: But you asked why zombies exist and there are many reasons for that. So first of all, we wanted something new that didn’t exist, since everyone is working with fantasy [em jogos de MMORPG]. The next thing is that we would like to have a big world with creatures, and that these creatures could not be intelligent, since that would require too much computing power. Zombies are perfect in this sense, since they can walk right past you and you don’t question their lack of intelligence. The next thing is that zombies are very popular. There are many games, movies and series with the theme. And we notice that there is no zombie MMORPG right now, so Persist Online It’s the first one that mixes RPG and zombies.

Persist Online will have a third-person view. (Image: CipSoft/Reproduction)

Voxel: And do you have plans to release Persist Online on consoles, in addition to PC?

Benjamin Zuckerer: We actually believe that PC is the best platform for an MMORPG game. Persist Online requires a lot of communication between players and PC is the best platform for that. And you have a keyboard, you have voice, you can switch between the game and Discord. And those are things you can’t do on console. Plus, we’re PC gamers. We just love PC and we love playing on a computer.

Stephan Vogler: And we really want players to communicate with each other. And I think the PC platform is the best platform for that kind of communication.

Persist Online will feature combat with firearms and melee weapons. (Image: CipSoft/Reproduction)

Voxel: Speaking about Brazil, which has one of the largest Tibia audiences in the world. Do you expect the Brazilian community to embrace Persist Online in the same way?

Stephan Vogler: Absolutely, yes! Tibia is very well-known in Brazil and people were interested in what we would do next. And one thing is that we can already see this interest. We just announced the game and we were collecting entries on Steam wishlists and we can see that the biggest nationality on the wishlists is from Brazil. So yes, a lot of Brazilian players are already interested in the game.

Benjamin Zuckerer: In fact, Latin America occupies more than 40% of wish lists [de Persist Online na Steam]. So it’s not just in Brazil, but we all see interest in Argentina and Chile, for example.

Voxel: And do you have an answer as to why Brazilians are interested in Persist Online? And mainly why they like Tibia so much?

Stephan Vogler: There are many answers to this. I think one thing is that Brazilian players love the gameplay that Tibia offers. As I said, the freedom and creativity that you can put into the game matches the mentality of Brazilian players as well as the possibilities of communication and working together. And I also think that a key factor for the success was that at the time it was [Tibia] was growing, most other games were distributed on CD and were free to play.

Benjamin Zuckerer: E [Tibia] runs on any PC.

Stephan Vogler: Yes, it runs on all hardware. So everyone could install it and it was a perfect match for Brazil.

Stephan Vogler (left) and Benjamin Zuckerer (right) were in Brazil to participate in Gamescom Latam 2024. (Image: CipSoft/Reproduction)

Voxel: And Tibia fans want to know: with the release of Persist Online, will Tibia continue to receive updates and new content?

Stephan Vogler: Absolutely! In fact, Tibia has been very successful during the last years and the development team is now as big as it has ever been before, so there are a lot of people working on Tibia.

Voxel: How many people are on the Tibia team at CipSoft?

Stephan Vogler: There are about 25 people. But that’s just the direct staff, so there are many other support staff, like systems administration or even graphics […]

Benjamin Zuckerer: About half of the company works directly with Tibia.

Stephan Vogler: Yes, overall, there are currently about 50 people working internally on Tibia. And there will also be interesting updates, so I think Tibia still has a bright future even after 27 years.