With inFamous: Second Son taking place in the hometown of Sucker Punch, Seattle, you can expect to see a lot of familiar architecture traveling around with Delsin Rowe. As Brand Development Director Ken Schramm told Capsule Computers at EB Games Expo 2013, you won’t be getting the “commercial” Seattle:
We wanted to get certain sections… that Post Alley, we got the Elephant Car Wash in there, we got Lincoln’s Toe Truck in there. So you can start to understand the kind of businesses we went after – you’re not gonna see Starbucks, you’re not gonna see McDonald’s or anything like that…
[…] We’re getting our Seattle, not the commercial Seattle. The Crocodile’s in there – which is a local bar – that’s where one of our boss battles happens. So, you know, the owner of the Crocodile was like ‘this is awesome! Yeah, go for it!’ It’s just exposure for them, it’s not like we’re making a terrible game or anything.
After Ken revealed that other cities they thought of for Second Son included Las Vegas, Chicago, and international cities, the interviewer hypothesized that the draining mechanism Delsin uses to acquire different powers would mean you’re cycling your powers out, with only one being equipped at a time. Schramm confirmed this by replying:
That’s absolutely how the mechanism works. And you can pretty much bet that our level designers are gonna put you in situations when you probably have smoke, and you go ‘shit, I really wish I had neon right now’, and you go to find neon. You can definitely bet we’re gonna put you in situations where you’ll want to switch out your powers.
Of the many staples in the inFamous franchise, karma plays a huge role, and will return in Second Son. Since Sucker Punch is still working on its implementation, Schramm couldn’t confirm how exactly it will work, just that “in our development processes, we’re building up all the stuff that’s going on in the missions and stuff like that and then we’ll decide how it flows from there. Gotta get that storyline, those missions, all that stuff correct and then we’ll worry about all the ‘fluff’ if you will.”
You can expect side missions and collectibles though, with Ken saying, “It’s an open world, so yeah, you’ll have your collectibles – what they are right now, I can’t tell you – but yeah, you’ll have your collectibles. Will you have your side missions? Sure, of course.”
With inFamous: Second Son tentatively scheduled for a February 2014 release date on PS4, you’d think that development would be wrapping up. When Ken was asked how big the map would be in Second Son, he revealed that there’s still 4-5 months to go:
Well, we’ve got about 4 or 5 months left in development I think, so right now I couldn’t tell you exactly how big it is, but you can tell your fans and let them know that it’s gonna be similar in size to the first two games. I think inFamous 2 was very similar to inFamous 1 in size and scope – it’s gonna be along that scale, if not bigger.
What do you think the collectibles will be in Second Son? Do you think it will slip past the planned February 2014 release date? Let us know in the comments below.
