NewsMay 13, 2004 - E3 2004: Darkwatch - Progress Report quoteTucked off on the side of the South Hall here at E3 is Sammy's booth and it's well worth the trip to check out the demo for Darkwatch. Showgoers will get to see the demo being done by one of the developers, but we got a chance to sit down and get a personal introduction to the game. Jeremy introduced this title back in January, but after seeing a whole level, it definitely deserves some more attention. We're going to have to wait until spring of 2005 to see it fully in action, but it'll be worth it.
The main character in Darkwatch is Jericho Cross, a train robber who robbed the wrong train and is living, sort of, to tell the tale. In an attempt to get some railroad treasure, Jericho jumped aboard a train where the prize in the last car turned out to the Prince of Darkness himself who rewarded his find with the gift that keeps on giving: an introduction to the world of vampires. With his release from the train, the vampire leader also unleashed evil upon the world that has brought the dead back to life to feast upon the living. Quite a pickle indeed.
Instead of turning to the dark side and hanging out with eternally nubile fellow vampiresses for a few hundred years, Jericho is taken on by the Darkwatch, a group that is dedicated to ridding the world of blood-suckers. Jericho doesn't want to be nocturnal jut yet so he throws in his lot with this new crew and helps in exchange for a serum that helps keep the onset of full vampirism at bay. This enables Jericho to both have some vampire abilities as well as access to some kick-ass technology that the Darkwatch have developed. In the fight against evil, they've created their own 20th century weapons and vehicles in a 19th century world.
This collision of the Old West with supernatural themes and a high-tech secret society opens up plenty of areas for creative exploration and from what we've seen, the developers have been having a field day. Each weapon is a modified version of an old-fashioned weapon with extra boosts in power. The six-shooter has been converted into a 24-shooter with four cylinders and the shotgun has gone quadruple-barrel. Each weapon also has a melee attack for some extra fun. The shotgun has a curved blade on the handle that can be slammed into zombies for some quick damage.
There has been some excellent design done to the weapons in their look as well. Our favorite is that the hammer on the shotgun is a cross. In the fight against the undead and the vampires, the gunslingers will need every advantage they can get, apparently. Every little detail fits in with the overall theme and it helps make everything feel just right.
This style has spread throughout the entire game and there's a cohesive feeling to the levels and monsters that makes the whole world feel more alive. Many games with supernatural elements just combine whatever monsters they could think of that have absolutely no relation to each other, but Darkwatch is keeping the world consistent.
In the level that was demoed for us, Jericho rides into a small town only to find that flesh eaters have been taking over. In fact, they're almost finished with a grand buffet and many of them are almost too busy eating the remaining survivors to put up much of a fight. Most of the zombies are out in the open and easy to spot, but just in case, Jericho has a handy "blood vision" that works like an infra-red view except that it makes only the undead glow while the regular oxygen-breathing folk are still dark.
To take care of business, Jericho has those cool weapons that we mentioned earlier as well as a slick combat system that makes the shooting and jumping and more shooting easy to pull off. We were told that the goal of the shooting system was to "make novices feel like experts and hardcore gamers feel like gods." The crew is definitely not resting on the cool fusion style to carry the game by any means. The guns look fun to use and the controls are being tweaked to provide a FPS experience that reduces the tendency for controls to easily overshoot the mark.
The improved controls make it easier to kill the enemies and get a better aim, but it gets better because there are rewards for shooting all the right places. The enemies have location-specific damage so that it's possible to shoot off arms, go for a gut shot, or get a good old-fashioned headshot. This makes it possible to take out an enemy's gun arm so that they can't shoot back and then take them out at one's leisure.
Jericho will be able to upgrade his skills and powers by absorbing blood clouds that emanate from anyone who dies, friend or foe. These clouds only last a couple of seconds, so it's important to absorb them right away. It's not like Soul Reaver where the souls hang around for a while so players will need to be quick on their feet.
The storyline will be heavy on long-term effects for Jericho as well. There was one character in the demo who could be saved from an approaching zombie. If Jericho kills him for the blood cloud or just allows him to be munched, then a vampire will thank him at the end. If instead Jericho goes for the human touch, then the potential victim will come back later to return the favor.
In the final version of the game, the reputation will become more complex as less obvious actions will be added to the equation. Not just a literal tit for tat like the one in the demo, but ones that depend not just on what Jericho does, but even how he does them. For all of his actions, there will be possible repercussions. So far we've only seen the blatant use of this technique and it will be interesting to see the intricacies.
There are so many different things going on in Darkwatch and it's amazing that it looks like they're all going in the right direction. It will be almost a year before the final version becomes a reality in gamers' hands, but we'll keep you updated on all the news as it happens about this title. Keep checking back for more information. [ source ]May 12, 2004 - E3 2004: Darkwatch Site Launched quoteSammy Studios announced today that the official site for Darkwatch has launched, providing a central place for news, details, screens, trailers, desktops, and discussion of the Western-flavored vampire title.
Darkwatch is on proud display right now in the craziness that is E3, and you can bet we'll have juicy details from you right from the show floor. Stay tuned.
[ source ]May 11, 2004 - Games to Film: Darkwatch quoteGlen Morgan and James Wong, the writers/directors/producers behind Final Destination, are developing Sammy Studios' forthcoming sci-fi Western shooter, Darkwatch: Curse of the West, for the big screen. The game, expected to hit the Xbox and PS2 in early '05, is the first project by the U.S.-based internal development team at Sammy. The game follows unlucky cowboy Jericho Cross, a train robber who spots an unusual target racing down the tracks under the light of the full moon. He decides to pillage it as his final score before retiring. Jericho is shocked to discover that the unusually designed train is packed with rotting bodies with a humanoid-like appearance that he doesn't recognize. Cross soon finds himself in a battle for his life against a horde of vampires and other supernatural creatures. It could make for a pretty cool flick.
According to today's Variety, Morgan and Wong have developed a pitch based on the game's plot and action sequences and are currently writing a screenplay.
With synergy increasing between Hollywood and the videogaming realm, it isn't surprising that the rights to the anticipated title are being shopped around months before it even debuts. Morgan and Wong and Sammy reps are reportedly working with the Endeavor agency to pitch the project to studios.
The trade adds that the deal was helped along by the fact that Darkwatch creators Chris Ulm and Paul O'Conner are fans of The X-Files, on which Morgan and Wong worked.
The duo will also work with Sammy developers to tweak the final version of the game's creative elements.
[ source ]April 19, 2004 - Pre-E3 2004: Sammy Studios Lineup quoteSammy Studios today announced its official line-up of titles to be shown at this year's E3. Here are the titles we should be seeing at their booth:
Darkwatch: Curse of the West (PS2, Xbox)
The Shield (PS2, Xbox)
Spy Fiction (PS2)
Iron Phoenix (Xbox)
Guilty Gear Isuka (PS2)
As you likely already know, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is the biggest and baddest videogame industry trade show, and each year turns part of Los Angeles into a loud, flashy, and undoubtedly exciting epicenter of gaming geekdom. Of course, we'll be there, and we'll get you all the dish -- about Sammy's games, and everything else. Get ready for it.
[ source ]March 3, 2004 - SGD 2004: Darkwatch Media Update quoteThough Sammy didn't offer the press anything new in terms of information or gameplay for its upcoming Triple-A hopeful Darkwatch: Curse of the West, the publisher did release an all-new minute-long CGI trailer and a handful of new screenshots to whet everyone's appetite. Click on the media page below to check them out. [ source ]January 20, 2004 - Darkwatch Site Launches quoteIn a press release that hit the wire earlier today, Sammy Studios announced that it has opened an official website for its latest FPS project Darkwatch: Curse of the West. Located at Darkwatch.com, the new site features the same trailer and screenshots that IGN exclusively unveiled to our readers last week in addition to some smaller bits of information pertaining to the game's foundation.
"Last week's release announcing the game has stirred interest from gamers around the world," said Tim Pivnicny, senior vice president of sales and marketing, Sammy Studios, Inc. "While waiting for the game's release later this year, gamers will be able to get a taste of the experience Darkwatch.com. Initially with the help of a very hot video they'll get a first glimpse of Jericho Cross and this twisted world and be able to 'Join the Darkwatch' for access to exclusive content."
[ source ]January 16, 2004 - The Darkwatch Interview quoteThroughout the course of the week, IGN has brought you a ton of new information regarding the all-new Sammy-developed first-person shooter Darkwatch: Curse of the West. An interesting mix of old Arizona and classic vampire lore, Darkwatch is already turning some heads with its unique approach to the FPS genre. Though the game does incorporate several of the more popular elements from titles like Halo, Half-Life, and Medal of Honor, Sammy is still determined to help establish Darkwatch as a title with its own dynamic and identity.
In an effort to tell us their side of the story, the internal development team at Sammy Studios invited IGNPS2 to its brand new production offices in Carlsbad, California in December of 2003. It was an opportunity to see first hand just how much progress they had made on the game so far and to see it in motion for the first time. While build we saw was still pretty early, the general intent and thematic was definitely there. If anything, we were impressed by the game's formidable physics engine and distinct attention to gameplay variety; but then again, the team responsible can probably explain that a whole lot better than we can -- so that's exactly what we asked them to do.
Accompanied by some rather high-tech equipment and incredibly loud speakers, the Darkwatch team immediately had the distinction of being one of the more experienced and passionate groups that we've spoken to for some time. Individually the team had already been responsible for such established franchises as the Oddworld series, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Midnight Club II, and Doom 64. Vice Presidents Emmanuel Valdez and Chris Ulm were joined by creative visual designer Farzad Varahramyan, Executive Producer Brian Johnson, Senior Product Manager Steve Fowler, and Lead Game Designer Paul O'Connor for a massive sit-down conference over dinner for some revealing information. The results of which we now provide for our readers below:
IGN: So where did the inspiration for Darkwatch come from? Why this storyline with vampires and the old west?
Chris Ulm: When we first started Sammy Studios and went through development projects internally, we went through a lot more ideas than just this: three that we really went into a lot of detail on. And one of them was a platforming idea, and one of them was a driving game idea, and one of them was a first-person shooter idea. In the end, we all sort of gravitated to this idea -- the first-person shooter.
Actually, in one of the illustrations that Farzad has on his wall shows a western town with a bank and a great big dollar sign -- well, that was the first piece of key art for all of our ideas and we realized that perhaps we could have a little something different on our hands.
Steve Fowler: We liked the west because nobody had ever really done it before.
Chris Ulm: Well they had, but nobody had ever done what we consider to be sort of a mixture of the horror and western genres and really pulled it off. And that was one of the things that attracted us to it.
Steve Fowler: Yeah. And two, we think the west is pretty cool. We think that horses and old western dusty towns and that sort of environments are the types of things that we like and want to do. I mean those environments are really great.
Chris Ulm: And then three, we had the whole Darkwatch idea because we wanted to do something with a really old "secret-society" that has been trying to protect mankind for all this time but turned out to be not what it seemed on the surface.
So all those things kind of came together into what became Darkwatch and the rest of it made for what we thought would be a really cool organization for more than just one game if we wanted to do more, a really cool central character that we like a lot, and wide expansive environments with play patterns that we could mold into something better than what you'd associate with a typical first-person shooter.
Steve Fowler: That's why we added all of the game's other elements to it: the reputation element, the leveling-up mechanic that we have, being able to adjust your abilities in a way that will let you play the game the way you want to play it, and great opportunities for really different kinds A.I. So we were really excited with this whole concept.
IGN: What do you think first-person shooters are lacking the most of in today's market? Specifically in the console realm?
Steve Fowler: In terms of the play there doesn't seem to be much there in terms of differences between each other. Not to mention the fact that there's a definite lack of story depth and character development.
Chris Ulm: With some exceptions, you know that we admire games like Halo (which is a great game) and there are other ones out there that we admire too each for various reasons. But we still felt that there was still an opportunity out there to pack this one well -- To have something with a rich story and deep gameplay.
IGN: Since the story is obviously so important, how exactly does it go?
Chris Ulm: We'll let Paul handle that one.
Paul O'Connor: The premise of the story is that you're the train robber, Jericho Cross and you've drifted out west to get away from your past. You've been working alone in the Arizona territories for several months and the year is 1876. One day you get a tip about an armored train that's coming to your neighborhood that's transporting millions of dollars worth of gold bouillon and you figure that it could be your last big score before you head down to Mexico.
When the game opens, you jump aboard the train and immediately notice that something is wrong. First of all, the train is designed like nothing else you've ever seen before and you can see signs of a struggle in one of the cars. Bodies of soldiers that are wearing strange attire (these are Darkwatch agents though you don't know that yet) and in the next car all hell has broken loose. There are vampires and skeletons everywhere, people have been ripped apart and they're remains lie all over, and there is all sorts of other mysterious problems too. Finally when you fight your way to the end of the train (as the only sole-surviving person on board), you find this massive vault that you blow open and, of course, you let out something really awful.
It turns out that there was somebody watching the train, a character by the name of Cassidy, and she has an agenda of her own. That agenda is that she's a driven, by the book, Darkwatch agent that kind of takes you under her wing because of how well you performed on the train. Since she believes in duty so strongly, her first mission is to report to the other Darkwatch members that evil has gotten loose from the train and she convinces you to help her with that task.
Your eventual objective on the whole is to find the bad guy you let out of the vault, destroy the evil around you, and recover the soul that was taken from you on the train; as a vampire bit you and has now transformed into a half-breed. Over the course of the game, both of these main characters will share some of the same goals but both of them will use radically different methods. Which makes sense Cassidy's by the book and Jericho is an outlaw. As it would happen, they don't really trust each other at first, but as the game continues they develop more of a relationship and find that both of them have their own fair share of secrets.
Over the course of the adventure, you'll find that it's broken into three parts. The first section teaches you about your abilities and your weapons while introducing the Darkwatch and some of the supporting characters. In the Darkwatch Citadel, for instance, you'll meet more of your fellow Darkwatch agents and learn more about the conspiracy that's unfolding in addition to finding out the true plans of the villains. The middle act sends you to a couple of interesting set pieces all across the west. We have a classical old western town, we have an Indian village where you have to follow the trail of the enemy and pick up clues to advance. And of course there's the final act that we won't really talk about yet.
Along the way we wanted to make sure that you'd come across twisted western archetypes. Remember this is an old west that's different -- it's not your father's western movie, it's different from what people will expect. There are other Darkwatch agents that are out there to complicate things too, and they're there in an undercover capacity for an unknown reason. We also wanted to make sure that your character had a past as an outlaw to contend with in addition to some serious father issues and other such plot points. Of course, we don't know how much of this will get on the screen but there will always be this subtext to the characters.
In fact, we have pages and pages and pages of character background for all of them. We have deep psychological profiles of every character in the game. Luckily we're not going to hit you over the head with all of it over the course of your adventure, but it's something that we hope will be revealed and hinted at through the character's actions. The payoff is that we create a much more real, living and breathing place. We hope that Jericho's character arc -- as this desperate lone wolf that's robbing trains with a subconscious death wish -- makes a believable transition into this half-vampire hybrid gunslinger and will ultimately envelop the player in his destiny: which is a guy that can be either a hero or a terror. Basically, we just want people to care about this character and what happens to him -- and I can't think of a first-person shooter that's really made us do that yet.
IGN: Wow, that's a lot of dedication to the story.
Paul O'Connor: Well it's something we've really had to work on as a group. You know, that resistance to having a deep story in an FPS. But doesn't it make sense? I am that guy who's in the FPS. Do I hear myself think and do I hear myself talk? Well no, but it's still me. You can look at other games, you know, something like Half-Life certainly had a character (sure he was a bit of a psycho but he had a job that players understood) and people seem to react positively to the character in Halo and in the James Bond games.
But we think you take examples like that and really push it and tell a story well in a first-person environment. We don't think that it's going to be as big and heavy as a role-playing game mind you, but we want it to be thorough and effective and we don't think that it's been done to the extent that we've done it.
IGN: How linear is the story that you're telling? Is it already set from the beginning? Or are there variables that can change how it's told?
Paul O'Connor: Oh there are definitely variables. There are side paths; there are branching moments, stuff like that. There are decisions that you will make as to what kind of person you are going to be. Those decisions alter the storyline. There's a big twist in the third act that will test what you thought you knew about one of the characters in the game, and there are several other little surprises that we definitely won't talk about at this point.
But yeah, at its heart the western is a morality play. And we're going to try and deliver that as best we can. Because we feel that it's really important to have that element in the game. So don't worry, you'll be confronted with some choices that will force you to decide who and what you want to be.
IGN: Another strong aspect of the game that revolves around your character is the experience point system. We know that with it you can upgrade and improve Jericho into a better fighter, but will it be possible for a player to beat the game without the need to beef themselves up? Or is the experience system more of an automatic thing?
Paul O'Connor: Well what happens is, that when you kill the bad guys they spawn this soul cloud. It's resonant in the air for a small period of time and it doesn't come to you automatically -- you have to go collect it. That's the crux of the upgrade system and the experience points. If time is an issue or players just want to challenge themselves, then yeah, it's definitely possible to get through the game without collecting them.
It's important to us that players get rich fast, but also get rich slow in a way. If you're a highly skilled player, then you can take the high road and blast through the game with high style and get it through it more rapidly or whatever your goals are. But if you're a player like me, who's not necessarily that skilled, you can kind of slog your way through it and grab those experience points and get to those same places that skilled players reached more rapidly. So if you're the kind of guy who wants to kills every last guy, collects every last soul, and unlocks all the mini-games and reward badges then you can do that; if not, then you don't have to.
IGN: Can you talk about the mini-games at all?
Paul O'Connor: There will be derivations of the core mechanics but not much else. The thing people have to realize is that we're doing a shooting game -- that's what the game is about. Your primary interaction with the world is shooting the things in front of you from self-involved view. It wouldn't be fair for us to create a game that schools the player in shooting skills, riding skills, and hand-to-hand skills, only to say "okay, now it's time to precise platform jumping or dance rhythm action.
What our game is all about is shooting, riding, throwing things, hitting people in the chops, and having fun. That's what our game is about. So our mini-games will reflect that. There will be training missions, side-missions, and personal challenges too -- we just want to find ways to encourage the player to use the skills they learn as much as possible.
IGN: How about the reputation system? How does that work?
Paul O'Connor: Well when we say reputation, we concentrating primarily on your reputation as a gunslinger. In the historical west, you had Billy the Kid and you had Wyatt Earp. Both were feared gunslingers, but one was a psychopathic killer and the other was a good guy/lawman. Either way, they had reputations as dangerous men with a gun. So with that in mind, Jericho's reputation is directly linked to how dangerous you are and how rapidly you dispatch enemies. The types of shots you take, whether you make a lot of headshots, whether you fire off a lot of lead in a fight... all these things play into the courage system of the game that influences the way the enemy reacts to you. The shots they take, the things they say, when they run and when they charge, these are all things your skills will influence.
The other aspect of the reputation system is experienced more on a local level. It influences how human people and the townsfolk react to you. The thing to realize is that in our story, Curse of the West, all hell has broken loose and evil has blanketed the west. This is no longer a war in the shadows, it's perfectly out in the open and everyone can see it -- there's no denying that the dead have risen. Basically, it seems like the end of time.
This means that the people in the game are scared out of their mind. They're locking their doors, they're hiding, and they're waiting for a good man to come and rescue them. But when you come to town as Jericho Cross, you've got these fangs, glowing red eyes, and putrid flesh. People are going to think that you're one of the bad guys. Their presumption is that you're not one of the people there to save them, you're there to eat them and at first they'll treat you as such. Not to mention that when you were human, you were a wanted outlaw -- so there are people out there to get you anyway.
Through your actions as the player, however, you can take care of the townspeople. You can avoid killing innocents or be needlessly cruel, and reactions will be adjusted to reflect that. Additional quests and treasures can be rewarded in this way, but no one will give you the benefit of the doubt until you give them a reason to. They're going to assume that you're a monster until you prove otherwise. It's a little bit different than your typical game with a reputation-like setup.
In Grand Theft Auto, for instance, the world assumes that you're a decent guy until you start killing people. You can walk around indefinitely as just "a guy." But we want to turn that inside out. We want the world to think that you're dangerous right off the bat so that you have to earn that right to walk around as just "a guy"
IGN: In terms of the game's technical aspects, what steps is the team taking to keep Darkwatch competitive in terms of visuals and sound?
Chris Ulm: It's running on a modified version of the Renderware graphics engine. On top of that we're running our own proprietary animation system and we're using HAVOK physics. As you saw in our demo earlier, we have objects and barrels moving around the environments pretty realistically and we also have the ever-popular rag doll characters and shred damage to round things out. Vehicles will also be pretty realistic.
Our goal when developing the game was not to use technology for technology's sake, but to use the engine that will give us the most bangs for our buck. We also wanted to find something that allowed us to produce content as quickly and effectively as possible. What we like about Renderware is that it's a very fast engine and it's great for PS2. Plus it's multi-platform, so it would make it easy to port it Xbox and even the PC if we ever decided to go that route.
What we like about HAVOK is that it's very efficient and it's also just plain kick-ass -- there's a lot you can do with it. It also allows you to do great things with the terrain. You can destroy bridges and knock down certain parts realistically, for instance, and then allow the player to interact with whatever pieces of that bridge that you like.
IGN: Is it safe to assume that Darkwatch is eventually coming to the PC also?
Paul O'Connor: We haven't really come to a decision about that. It's a possibility and is under consideration, but for right now the focus is entirely on the Xbox and PlayStation 2.
IGN: Any particular reason you'd want to concentrate on the console version first before coming to a decision as to whether or not you should do a PC edition?
Chris Ulm: Well for one thing, we feel that consoles are where the action is; especially for shooters. It's just that this is a great opportunity for us to do something really unique and fun for the PS2 audience as well as for the Xbox. Personally where I'm coming from, I really like console controls and I'm sure I'm a minority in that decision. But I like having a controller with a thumb-pad and face keys instead of a keyboard and mouse. No, really!
We also believe that over the last three or four years, the audience for shooters on a console has been growing pretty steadily. So for all these reasons, it's a no-brainer to go for the consoles first. Plus, our game has an in-depth storyline, great characters, giant bosses, and a lot of things from the console world that we think they're more likely to enjoy and identify with. And finally, we want to put out a product that's more mainstream rather than develop something for the hardcore PCV market.
IGN: With that in mind, why not go for the entire console audience and aim for the GameCube as well?
Emmanuel Valdez: For the longest time we were debating whether or not to bring it out for GameCube, but it came down to looking at the marketplace to be honest. There's just not a lot there in the GameCube market right now and we're not sure if our product would do well there. It was a hard decision for us to make, actually.
Secondly, we're developing the Xbox and PS2 version simultaneously and that's using up a lot of our resources. If we were to allocate even more of those resources to doing a third conversion it would take us a lot longer and be a lot harder to make something we're not so sure would do well in that market. So again, this all came down to making the best business decision possible.
But you know, it's not entirely out of the question somewhere down the line. We could always go out of house and give it to another developer to do if they were interested and if the demand from the GameCube audience was strong enough to want it. We could still end up doing that, who knows? But for know it's all about the Xbox and PS2.
Chris Ulm: And as we mentioned before we sat down, this game will likely end up getting a Mature rating. For a game like that, the numbers say that the Xbox and PS2 markets are the audiences to cater to in that regard. In short, we wanted the best stage possible for the kind of story we wanted to tell.
IGN: Since the game will likely get the M rating, what type of adult content could we be looking at?
Emmanuel Valdez: Well for one, you can blow peoples limbs off, you can blow people's heads off, and you can do really violent things like that. It would be really hard for us to get a teen rating with something that extreme. If it were only skeletons we were doing that to, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but since the majority of the things you'll kill have blood and flesh, you can expect lots of adult-oriented violence.
Chris Ulm: I don't want to spoil anything, but there could be some nudity in the game. [laughs]
Paul O'Connor: There are adult themes, characters, and situations that will be happening that we don't want to give away right now.
Steve Fowler: It has a lot to do with the intensity. It's not just violence for violence's sake; it's what's actually coming at the character. I worked at Microsoft previously and when we submitted Halo to the ESRB initially we first thought we were going to get a teen. And we actually did get a Teen the first time because there's really not that much red blood in it. You know the humans are in it, but you don't actively shoot at them and you have purple-blooded aliens.
But then when we gave them the second round submission, we got the mature rating. It's because we sent a flood in. It was just waves and waves and waves of bad guys coming and rushing at you. What they explained to us was that the frequency and intensity of the violence and action of the game was on a mature level. Our game is going to be action-packed like that, so we can't anticipate anything other than an M. It's going to be intense; you're going to have major adrenaline rushes every 30 seconds in every corner of the game.
Paul O'Connor: And the other thing that puts us in the mature category is our horror theme. There are aspects of Halo that do fall under horror. The sequence where you find the lost marine, you pick up the helmet and look into to find that monsters have attacked -- that's very effective, and we'll have cool things like that. But we'll have a lot more than that too. We're going to give you a world where everyone is under attack by the living dead. Ugly things are going to happen. [laughs]
IGN: Outside of the obvious Halo influence, what other inspirations did the team have coming into Darkwatch?
Emmanuel: Valdez Half-Life!
Paul O'Connor: Well if we had to pick a movie that really captured our tone, that was our dead-center, we'd say that it would be Blade meets Men in Black in the old west with the accessibility of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a high adventure kind of story, or at least that's what it started as. As we've gone on, though, we've kind of moved to toward a darker story.
Chris Ulm: But Blade is still a fair assessment.
Paul O'Connor: In terms of games, though, all the shooters. Half-Life as Ed mentioned, and Halo or course; Medal of Honor is another one; we played Metroid Prime and we played TimeSplitters. There are things to like about all of them.
IGN: Since Darkwatch is a story-driven game, how much of the game is actually made up of plot devices and cut scenes rather than action?
Paul O'Connor: It's going to be pretty fast-paced. As you saw earlier with our cinema preview, we're not going to do these huge pre-rendered sequences that go one for 15 minutes without an interruption or something.
Chris Ulm: We could talk about the psychological development of the character and the back-story and so on, but it's really not our intention to create these incredibly long dialogue sequences. It's going to be about telling the story through the gameplay with minimal in-game cut scenes.
When we set up the story it's like a movie in the sense that we have a three-act structure. The first act is a little more linear while the second act is much more wide open and longer (more than half the game), while the third act drives it to a real hardcore ending.
IGN: Going back to the gameplay, how important are the vampire abilities in the game? Is the Vampire vision and vampire jump really integral to advancement or are they extra powers tacked on as bonuses?
Paul O'Connor: Those are core abilities to the character and the player. You have to be able to use those and we want to make it as fun and realistic as possible. There are no power-ups or things like that -- these are your basic abilities that must be used if you want to do well.
Steve Fowler: Here's the distinction. We're not going to have anything in the game that forces you to make a pixel-precise jump over a death ball with your Vampire Jump. That's not the game we're making. But we are going to make a game where you need to jump like a son of a gun through objects and hiding places while enemies are shooting at you; because if you stay down on the ground, you're going to get killed. So that power is key for this tactic, it's not a puzzle element, it's another tool for your benefit.
You should also remember that we did multiplayer first, so the vampire abilities will come into play even more so in that regard. It was deep inside our subconscious when we were building the levels in the first place. I think the player will find them all second nature too.
Paul O'Connor: I think the best thing that can be said about the Vampire Jump is that when we've all played other shooters, it's the ability that we've always wanted. We always try to do it even now in older games since we incorporated it into this. [laughs]
IGN: Will the multiplayer portions of the game follow the single-player's lead and integrate plot-based elements as well?
Paul O'Connor:oh yeah. Each multiplayer level has a story associated with it. The Killpit, for instance, will only allow you to select certain models and characters that fit in with the theme for that stage. We hope that experiencing the multiplayer in this way enhances the story elements of the game further. But in terms of streaming together actual plot threads or something like that, no -- the multiplayer doesn't go that deep into plot.
IGN: You mentioned to me earlier that you think that Darkwatch has a legitimate shot at becoming the premiere FPS on the PlayStation 2. Can you explain why? With upcoming games like Killzone, Jungle Storm, and Invasion coming down the pipeline, that's a pretty tall order.
Paul O'Connor: I think that the cost of entry for all these FPS games out there is immediately this: Solid controls, blistering framerate, awesome enemies, and great weapons. Those are all important in this genre, and we have to have those all to begin with. So I can't tell you that our versions of that are going to be what makes the difference. What I do think is the difference for us is that we have a fresh property in an amazing world with a memorable character.
On top of that we have rock solid gameplay elements and I believe that when these other games you mentioned --- well, actually I'll go out and buy them because I'm a nut and I love this things. I'm happy to go back and play World War II again. I'm happy to go into the near future with my space armor and shoot aliens. Yeah I can do that -- But I kind of want to go someplace that I haven't been before and I want to do something I haven't really experienced before. And that's what Curse of the West will give us. It'll give us a character that's going to challenge people. It's also going to give us a big twisted world with awesome enemies, big bosses, and multiplayer elements. It's going to be the full package.
Chris Ulm: And then also, you have the depth of gameplay aspects that we brought up earlier. The reputation system and RPG-like experience system especially. The story will have twists and turns too, and the A.I. will be really good, and the world will definitely react to you. Plus we have a few tricks up our sleeves that we haven't told you about yet.
Emmanuel Valdez: Artistically it's going to be one of the best PlayStation 2 and Xbox games out there. Farzad has done a great job and the graphics are going to be really strong when we're finished with them. The genre definitely has room for improvement and I think we have a lot to offer; particularly with Farzad's character designs, which I think are terrific.
We have an extremely creative and imaginative game here.
Steve Fowler: It really is the total package. We deliver an experience that nobody has ever seen before (vampires in a western environment), we've got tons of gameplay variety -- jumping and melee attacks, horse, vehicle shooting, trains, vampire powers -- and then you have this immensely interesting character whom you want to know and end up caring very much about. It's a nice big overall box that you're going to want to pick up and open with a rainbow inside.
Paul O'Connor: And there's one other thing that we haven't hit on, and that's the passion of this team. This new building we're in and everything in it was built to make Darkwatch. Ultimately Sammy Studios is going to make many games and many successful franchises, but the first game out of the gate is Darkwatch. The whole team knows that and we've got a go-for-broke mentality about it too.
Furthermore, the people that are making this game love this property and they love shooters. They're not burned out industry vets that are just kind of milling about. We have LAN parties every other Friday that have between 12 and 30 people that show up to these things and all we do is sit down and play shooters. Artists, programmers, designers, marketing guys, you name it -- we're all playing. Everyone on this team understands what they games are about and love them as fans in addition to being creators. I think that that passion and commitment will definitely show its way through in the final game.
IGN: Thank you for your time guys, we appreciate it.
[ source ]January 14, 2004 - Darkwatch Deathmatch quoteAs we're sure you've noticed by now, Sammy's new first-person shooter Darkwatch: Curse of the West has been one of the more popular subjects on IGN this week. Over these past two days we've explored several of the game's planned features, profiled its main characters, and shown some of the weapons and vehicles being prepared for the final version later this year. One aspect of the game that we haven't touched on, however, is its planned multiplayer support (which is considered one of the top priorities) and the stages in which they take place.
So dedicated to creating a solid multiplayer experience, Sammy Studios actually designed all of the multiplayer stages before it even tackled the story-heavy single player game at all. Broadband only and planned to support 8 to 16 players for both versions, Darkwatch is hoped to also support several classic multiplayer gameplay conventions (like deathmatch, capture the flag, and the like) in addition to a myriad of original options created specifically for this title. There's even going to be LAN play for link-up capabilities (on Xbox at least, still no word on whether it stays in the PS2 plans).
For our feature today, we'll be taking a quick look at three of the first known multiplayer environments: The Killpit, The Darkwatch Asylum, and The Donner Pass (complete with exclusive screenshots). As an added bonus, we've even included the concept art to a few other stages to be revealed at a later date, so be sure and check those out too. We'll see you again tomorrow with another Darkwatch surprise.
The Killpit:
The Darkwatch "danger room," where new agents can practice their combat skills. Shallow trenches criss-cross the arena floor - when these trenches are flooded with blood, the captive undead released into the room are disoriented, making them perfect for target practice. The iron gates at the north end of the Killpit are large enough to admit giant-sized abominations for special occasions. Killpit competitions are a full contact sport and fatalities are common. Note: the "danger knob" goes to eleven.
Darkwatch Asylum:
Darkwatch Agents going off the deep end can look forward to gentle "rehabilitation" in this forlorn madhouse, which doubles as an interrogation chamber for captured vampires. Here you'll find isolation chambers, torture devices, and cells damp with unmentionable fluids - in short, everything that made 19th century mental health care such a joy. Dead vampires hang from chains in the middle of the room like a grisly chandelier, while the inchoate babblings of the insane and the dying fill the air with a discordant serenade.
Donner Pass:
High in the Sierra Nevadas, a snowbound settler caravan turns to cannibalism to survive the winter. Treachery, long pork, and back-shooting are all on the menu. Blood-spattered snow, dying lanterns, and frozen corpses locked in a fatal embrace of battle provide mute testimony to the horrors that have transpired here. A ghost wind whistles through haunted caves, while a frozen waterfall towers over all, eerily beautiful in the storm-grey light.
[ source ]January 12, 2004 - First Look: Darkwatch quoteThe first-person shooter category has been a staple of the PC gaming market since the advent of Castle Wolfenstein in 1992, and has seen perhaps, the most colossal leap in technology of any other genre in the 12 years since. Further illustrating this shooter dominance, sales numbers in the PC market are almost always lopsided in that direction, with only the real-time strategy group coming close to touching FPS' in terms of units sold. Interestingly enough, the console user base hasn't latched onto the genre with as much passion or success as the PC crowd has (and come to think of it, it hasn't really embraced the RTS mentality either), and other than a few isolated success stories (Halo, Medal of Honor, and SOCOM to name the few of them), has seen little consistency in its stream of quality shooters. If anything, it's definitely an area of opportunity for anyone with strong ideas and a stronger gameplay engine.
With that knowledge planted firmly within their minds, the new U.S.-based internal development team at Sammy is ready to make its mark with the studio's first-ever in-house project Darkwatch: Curse of the West. Officially announced for winter on the Xbox and PlayStation 2 earlier this morning, Darkwatch is being described by the team as "A cinematic FPS with explosive action and great gameplay variety framed by a story and visual design that delivers a frightening re-imagination of the Wild West." Now usually we take statements such as those with a smile and a grain of salt, but after visiting Sammy's new Carlsbad studio for ourselves last week we're happy to report that the team is well on its way to living up to that promise should it continue down its current path.
Best described as Halo meets Silverado, Darkwatch tells the story of the unlucky cowboy Jericho Cross. A train robber by trade, Jericho spots an unusual target racing down the tracks under the light of the full moon and in what can only be described as the worst decision of his life, decides to pillage it as his final score before retiring. Played out as the first level of the game, Jericho is shocked to discover that the unusually designed train is packed with rotting bodies with a humanoid look he cannot recognize. As he continues to progress, Cross soon finds himself in a battle for his life against a horde of vampires and other nasties before reaching the locomotive's main vault. Opening it hoping to discover countless treasures and riches, what Jericho really finds is the ancient lord of the vampires who proceeds to bite him and flee with his minions from the train.
As it turns out, the train belongs to the Darkwatch: an older-than-dirt organization that's dedicated to fighting the forces of evil (kind of like the Watcher's Guild in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only with less tweed and coffee cups). Transporting the Vampire Lord for reasons being kept secret as of press time, The Darkwatch find themselves impressed with the imagination and ability of Cross and decides to enlist the newly transformed half-vampire into their ranks to retrieve the evil he just unleashed. After a deal a deal is struck and terms agreed, Cross begins his mission to cleanse the countryside of evil and the real meat of the game begins.
The developers made it to clear to us that Darkwatch is no Halo-killer, while it shares similarities with the multi-platinum title on several levels, Sammy wanted to create a game with its own identity that served as a strong companion piece to an FPS fan's favorite software. Rather than make claims as to why the game will be better than this and better that, creators Chris Ulm and Paul O'Connor (formerly of Oddworld fame) have been focused on ensuring that Darkwatch will be revered and respected by the same crowds that play games like Combat Evolved and Unreal Tournament.
But that's not to say that Sammy hasn't found inspiration from those other success stories. From what we could tell by the stages sampled to us, Darkwatch moves and works a lot like Halo in a myriad of ways. Each weapon, for instance, (like the pistol, rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher) has a melee attack function that can be used in close quarters and there are vehicular combat missions not unlike Combat Evolved as well. Some of the more entertaining stages we saw involved third-person horseback shooting, which took Cross through a populated canyon of bad guys that were shooting him from all angles at a high speed pace. These stages will be scripted and unscripted and depending on the situation, offer up different kinds of objects every time you play.
One of the more intriguing aspects of Darkwatch, however, are the vampiric powers granted to Jericho once he's become a vampire. Among the myriad of abilities still being kept under wraps by the development team are the Vampire Jump (A double jump that allows you to attack from the air), Vampire Vision (adds an auto-zoom to any weapon and allows you to see things you cannot in normal vision), and the ability to drain the souls from fallen opponents. Drain enough of these souls and use can use them Devil May Cry-style as upgrade currency; which can then improve your alter ego in plenty of different ways (accuracy, speed, strength, health, etc, etc). It's designed to rewards players who go in and fight battles as often as possible and can change the difficulty of a mission quite noticeably.
If your style of play is more along the lines of sneak and destroy, however, Darkwatch will allow you to do this too. Though your character may not be as powerful as he would be should he go the commando route, each level is littered with multiple hiding and sniper points that will allow you to play the way you want to play. The only real exception are the boss battles, which in a nod to the games of yesteryear, feature gigantic towering monstrosities that attempt to crush you under their massive frames while sending scores of lesser minions at you simultaneously.
The aspect of Darkwatch that caught out attention the most, though, is idea that Jericho is immersed inside what the team is calling "a living world". While missions have story-related aspects to them (in fact, the game as a whole is very story-centric), all of them are non-linear in nature and boast multiple paths and possibilities. And though Sammy designed the multiplayer segment of the game before they did the single-player, the NPCs and characters react to everything that you do. If you wrong one character, their family and friends will remember it and react to you accordingly. If you establish yourself as a ruthless killer, the townspeople will run in terror whenever you come close and your enemies will be more cautious during battle. The whole thing is based on an elaborate reputation system that constantly changes depending on every action (big and small) that you do. Being able to shape the game how you want to is always a welcome feature, particularly in a first-person shooter.
Alas it's time to go, but there's still plenty to talk about concerning Darkwatch (location-specific damage, stage design, and the character-driven storyline to name just a few) but we'll be saving that for another day. Tomorrow in fact, when we' return with our extensive feature on the world of Darkwatch that includes a close look at the storyline and characters that make Curse of the West so interesting. See you soon with more. [ source ]-----------------
All information found on IGN.com and Darkwatch.com, as well as the game's Neoseeker Profile.This message was edited by Fifth Column on Aug 19 2004.
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Topic: Darkwatch Full Information Thread
Cartel
Aug 20, 04 at 1:14am
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