Be warned: End game spoilers for inFamous 2 are discussed within the article.
When inFamous: Second Son releases on the PS4 in February 2014, it will see series star Cole MacGrath being replaced with Delsin Rowe, and the game taking place 7 years after the events of inFamous 2. Following the reveal of Second Son, Sucker Punch detailed how Cole wouldn’t be returning, with the developers ultimately going this route after seeing the trophy data for inFamous 2, where 78% of people chose to sacrifice Cole.
In a conversation with Polygon, Game Director Nate Fox revealed how leaving Cole behind was “kind of a sad thing, but also great.” However, if people had chosen to save Cole, he’d “been thinking that the next game would be one where he’d stayed alive. And when I wrote the endings, that’s the one that had the coolest set up for another game.”
“But the vast majority of the people went for the sacrifice,” he continued. “We thought, well, in a game that has this strong connection to choice and consequence, that we’d honor that as a franchise. I’m glad we did it because… origin stories are the best part of superhero fiction.”
Game Designer Jaime Griesemer then brought up the original process of introducing a new hero to inFamous:
Maybe it had been suggested before, but there was definitely a pre-production meeting where I said, ‘I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, but what if it’s not Cole?’ We were at the point in the project where we could just do whatever [we wanted]. As we thought about it and talked to Sony, it made more and more sense. It’s going to be new hardware, a new platform and we’re going to have a new audience. This is going to be a different group of gamers than have played inFamous and inFamous 2.
Overall, Sucker Punch is happy with the decision of going with Delsin because “we want to make sure that it doesn’t feel like [PlayStation 4 owners] are tuning in for the final season of some show that’s been running for 15 years,” he said. “We needed a new entry point, and Delsin was the first step for that.”
Do you secretly hope we see Zeke in Second Son? Let us know in the comments below.
