Sharky Games: What was the inspiration on the story?

Timothy Gerritsen: : We had several people here who were interested in Viking mythology. I myself, when I was a child, was really into that. Ted Halstead, our art manager and one of our concept artists, was big into it and when the six original members of Human Head got together to discuss what kind of games they wanted to do, they were discussing cool ideas, and Ted was drawing a really cool looking Viking. He said, “Who doesn't want to play this guy? This guy rocks! Let's think about it.” And everyone started coming up with ideas. We decided to keep it based on Norse mythology, because we think it is a very deep, cultural series of mythologies that haven't been tapped very much. A lot of games recently are based on movie ideas you've seen for the last 20 years or television ideas you've seen for the last 20 years and they are all just sort of variations on that, but very few people have really delved into the really old mythological sources. Greek mythology has been done but not done well and with Norse mythology there have been a few games, but they are usually something like “Norse by Norsewest” which is a little cutesy game. Playing a Viking can be fun and exciting as there is a lot of deep story and history we can use.

Sharky Games: How do you feel that the main character Ragnar compares to other Norse heroes, like Beowulf? What is it like to create a completely new saga and mythology?

Timothy Gerritsen: Well, Beowulf is considered one of the seminal works of European literature, and Rune is an action game for the computer, so it would be silly to put them in the same league, but we did draw inspiration from the original works of Germanic and Viking literature for the game. Ragnar is definitely a hero-type, fighting for right and justice in a world out to get him.