Yesterday, we let you know what Nate Fox thought of the PlayStation 4 and how great it is to have the extra horsepower. Well, he wasn’t remotely done talking on the PlayStation Blogcast, as he spoke about how they’re approaching the PlayStation 4 for inFamous: Second Son:
Man, it is really nice to have the hardware be powerful enough for us to do just silly, stupid things.
In inFamous we really get into superpowers – we think that that’s the reason that people are interested in the game. And because of the hardware we can unleash just a ton of particles and lighting effects to make your moves feel epic, and we couldn’t have done that in the past.
That goes along with the city as well. We can go in for much finer details so that you believe that the city exists and has a sense of reality, and then, when you add superhuman abilities to that, you kind of believe that they can happen.
Nate then talked about how they’re bringing Seattle to life:
We wanted to make the city feel really realistic and to do that it’s all about the details. About the sounds,what it’s like to be on the street or that kinda trash you see in the corners, or shops… the quality of light coming through the leaves. It’s those things that when add them all up and you have the horsepower to bring them into the product, that suck you into the game and make you feel like you’re there.
On top of that, it’s nice that we have the ability to do things like facial motion capture so that we can get more subtle performances from the actors that bring the story more alive. But in general, us being Seattle means us knowing – not making up – the details so the game world just has this voracity to it.
After Fox discussed the advantages of having facial recognition, he then talked about Fetch, who you can see in the above trailer:
Part of the joy of the game is getting to know her, so I don’t really want to say too much, other than that she is a conduit, she has these superhuman powers and she lives inside of this world where anybody with powers is kind of hunted down as a threat to the state, and so both her and Delsin live in this world of fear.
In order for Delsin to help the people that he cares about, he needs to hunt down more of these super humans, and so as he gets to know her, as he confronts her, he kind of gets to choose in a way how her story goes, how it changes. The player has a lot of choices and lives with the consequences inside of the game. Suffice to say, you get to kind of influence how Fetch reacts to you and the rest of the world. And on top of that, the best part is, Delsin can drain powers out of other super humans so, when he finally meets up with Fetch he gets her power over Neon.
Probed about what exactly neon is, Nate continued:
It’s a gas.
A lot of the details of how it works – we’re not sharing just yet – the thing that we always try and do with the inFamous games is make the power source – the element that you’re kind of dealing with – part of the urban landscape. So it’s not like Dungeons & Dragons where I have the power over Earth crystals or something like this that you don’t really know about.
[After going on about he hates Earth crystals…] Things like smoke, and electricity, and even neon, look at how many neon signs there are in the world around you and just imagine if that was the source of all of your fuel for ass kicking. You’d be excited, because they’re plentiful.
He was asked if we’d be seeing more conduits, replying with a definitive, “There’s certainly more conduits in the game.” The focus turned onto the environment and how that will play into Second Son:
First thing we do is we build out what his powers are, what are the super moves he uses to get around, because we really think that defines the character. And then we make the environment to work well with those powers so that you have this landscape of opportunity – it’s a huge jungle gym. The city is just there as this exploration oasis, it’s everywhere.
Fox continued this thought by likening Second Son to Metroid and how, when you get a new power, “the space takes on new meaning to you.” Next up was the inspiration for Delsin’s powers:
We really try and draw from the urban landscape. We try and make the power source something that you see in your everyday world. Also we try and pick powers that frankly aren’t things you’re extremely familiar with, right? Like I don’t know of a neon hero. As a result you’re like ‘well what does that do?’ and I can’t wait to show you, but it’s definitely Second Son. It’s not anything else, because we went with power sources that are a little bit different.
Finally, Nate talked about what he’s most proud of with the game:
I am very excited for people to get a chance to play it and really revel in having superpowers – just go nutsy when they have them unlocked. It’s an open world game where you have choices and these choices have consequences. And that kind of ripple effect of you getting to know what you can do, you’re this overpowered demigod of a person and you kinda learn that it’s not always… there are some times costs to your actions.
How excited are you for inFamous: Second Son in February? Let us know in the comments below.
