We sat down with Funcom's Martin Bruusgard (Lead Designer) to talk about the melee skills in The Secret World and how the team came up with all the different types... and more importantly, why hammering a guy in the face is so fun.

MMORPG: You have created skills around melee weapons and martial arts, tell us how you added these together?

 

Martin Bruusgaard: Well, we sat down and brainstormed cool fighting styles, and what identity  we wanted the different weapons to have. We came down to hammer-guy, being a brutish, powerful who knocks people down and beats the crap out of them. The swords-guy is a more elegant fighter, in a wushu-kind of style. Master of dashing into a group and do flourishes of fancy moves, which damages everything around him. And lastly the fist weapons, which is more like claw-weapon-guy. He has powerful multihits and combos he can use to suppress anyone, and he is also one of the three healers and specializes in healing-over-time-spells. 

Read more of Garrett Fuller's interview with Martin HERE.