Neil Jones tells us about his “Afro-Medieval” follow-up, Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield
8.7.2024
By Ade Adeniji, Contributor
But when the doors seemed to keep shutting for him, he took matters into his own hands and created his own indie gaming company to tell the stories he cares about. We Never Yield centers on the story of two brothers, Wally (from the original) and his twin Lone, who fight through a fantastic version of Detroit to reclaim their kingdom. Notably, in the game’s standard solo mode, players have to perform the sleight of hand of controlling Wally and his twin brother Lone at the same time. On PC, this translates to each hand being used to control one character.
We recently caught up with Jones over Zoom to find out more about We Never Yield, what inspired him to dig deeper into his unique runner parkour world, the game’s awesome soundtrack, the state of diversity in games, and his biggest hopes going forward.
Origin story
After bouncing around Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Texas, Jones found himself back in his hometown of Detroit, but struggling to find inroads into gaming. “I kept applying for jobs all over the game industry, but no one would give me any type of opportunity, no matter how much I made stuff… the skills I have now are the skills I’ve always had,” Jones said. In order to stay afloat, he worked retail jobs, getting home at 11 p.m. and working on Never Yield for several hours each night.
The first game was a labor of love; We Never Yield, Jones says, is about “finishing off” that story. He clarifies that while the first game was rooted in Afrofuturism, set in a Detroit maybe 10-15 years ahead in time, his new game is more “Afro-medieval,” having Black characters play in a heightened historical setting. One reference he makes is to the 2001 film Black Knight, which has Martin Lawrence become an unlikely hero in 14th century England.
Our heroes, Wally (with his prosthetic leg) and Lone (with his dual sabers)—as well as antagonist Karmic—are all backed by voice actors which bring added energy to the world. Jones mentions bringing in castles and drawbridges from medieval times, but somehow making it feel like you might be in an alley somewhere in Detroit, too. As always, giving love to the Motor City is at the center of Jones’ games.
Solo versus chill
We Never Yield definitely has a learning curve, and you’d be wise to jump into the tutorial mode first to get a handle on how to control Wally and Lone using different sides of your keyboard. “Once you play it, you’re immediately bad at it,” Jones says with a smile. “And then you’re like, ‘oh, OK, I get it. I just have to rewire my brain to be like this hand is this character, and that hand is that character. Now let me kind of move that way.’” Similar to the first game, your character is always moving, running away and running forward. Sometimes the camera is at your back, sometimes the camera is out in front. Besides constantly running on foot, sometimes Wally and Lone climb on horses and motorbikes to get around.
Jones says this kind of control scheme was pretty hard to design for—especially when tackling next-gen platforms like PS5 this time around—but says he can’t think of many other games that have attempted this at scale. Jones is also proud that the four main characters in the game are all voiced and written by Black people. “I don’t know of another case where that really happens in the game industry.”
Even after Never Yield made waves, Jones was still working with a limited budget this time around. In an ideal world, he says he would have loved to have spent another year making it “100% perfect,” but that’s not yet in the cards. He is glad that this go-around he had enough resources to tap BetaJester Ltd in the United Kingdom, which dealt with functionality while Jones got to really focus on artistic decisions. Earlier, he often felt he was operating on an island.
Jones again brought in his trusted music composer Daniel Wilkins, whom Jones has known since middle school. The two creatives went through a similar struggle of having to work other jobs while working on their passion projects on the side. The first game had a vibrant soundtrack on Bandcamp, and We Never Yield continues that tradition.
While Jones says Never Yield brought together jazz and hip hop, this game mostly uses orchestral hip-hop sounds in its fantasy setting parts, with jazzy hip hop back in Detroit. “Dan has always been amazing…And we work really well together. Because we kind of grew up around the same stuff [as far as] music, cartoons, environments and things like that,” Jones says.
We Never Yield’s soundtrack is already on Bandcamp and Jones says they may do a vinyl as well. He says this leads to some players discovering the game after hearing the music.
Looking ahead
Jones doesn’t mince words when he talks about the state of diversity in games today: “The game industry is gonna do what the game industry is gonna do. It prioritizes money,” Jones says. But this is also why the developer put the onus on players and fans to vote with their wallets. “At some point, people who want these types of games got to come out and support these types of games, you know. You gotta go buy the games so that publishers and big platforms have to take notice."
Jones started Aerial_Knight precisely to address this underserved market and thinks the first game hit a lot of right notes because it unabashedly leaned into that. He hopes for similar results with We Never Yield. “I try not to exclude anybody, but at the same time, I'm making something really specific. And I think that's why it works,” Jones says.
Right now, Jones is still in the thick of promotion for the game, which without a giant team means all hands on deck. With each game release, he follows a formula promoting the game, dealing with patches, and then taking the profit from the game and pouring it into his next project. He makes it clear that his next game will move beyond the world of Never Yield and We Never Yield.
Jones ended our conversation by mentioning that his name is one of the few to pop up when you Google “Black game developer.” But he knows that there are other people out there, too, who don’t always get the recognition or attention they deserve. “If you want more games with different types of characters and characters that look like you, then go support those games,” he emphasizes.
Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield is available on the Epic Games Store.