Scott Krager: Evil Dead: Hail to the King is based on the cult classic movies Evil Dead 1 and [Evil Dead] 2. We're incorporating elements of the movie into a new storyline that sort of continues the ongoing saga of Ash and the Book of the Dead. The story starts about eight years after the events of the last movie. In this new story [Ash] actually goes back to the cabin that is the familiar location of Evil Dead 1 and [Evil Dead] 2 and the game basically starts there. From there the character, who assumes the role of Ash, moves from the cabin to different environments in the woods. Then about halfway through the game we bring in the time travel elements from the end of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. Ash actually goes back through a vortex to ancient Damascus at the time the Book of the Dead is written. There he meets the guy that created and compiled this book and he basically has to save the world again from the deadites.

From the gameplay side it's a survival horror game. It's similar to Resident Evil where you'll have a combination of action, puzzle solving, and exploration all in the confines of the Evil Dead universe. It's pre-rendered backgrounds [are] a step up from a lot of the previous survivor horror games because we have animated streams. Meaning that it is sort of FMV [full motion video] backgrounds. This allows you to animate curtains blowing or shadows moving or any sort of animations you want in your backgrounds.

The game is very true to the evil dead movies. First of all it's a scary game with all the pop out and surprise elements. But it also includes a lot of humorous elements that come from Bruce Campbell. It has one-liners and the whole character of Ash.

EP: How have you found working with Bruce?

Krager: Bruce has been great. Before he went to tape his new show, Jack of All Trades, he went down [to] the developer's offices and we showed him some earlier stuff and concept art. That was where we were at at that time. He gave a lot of feedback and anecdotes really about the movies. He's going to record the voiceovers this June.

EP: How did this whole project come about?

Krager: I've been wanting to do an Evil Dead game for a long time. And I'd say for the past four years I've been pushing the upper management of the places that I've been to do an Evil Dead game. When I got to THQ, I made my pitch again, and this time the company loved it. They got behind it and we got Renaissance Pictures in to talk about whether it was available and what's going on with it, and they loved the idea too.

I am surprised it's taken so long. I think part of the problem has been that all three movies are owned by three different companies. So it's not something that's been sort of easy to do on the legal side and from the licensing side. Once that got in place then we just went full force and went into production.