Following on yesterday's Crackdown 2 hands-on here is an interview I did with James Cope, lead developer at game creators Ruffian. We talked about story, cranking everything up to 11 and why Crackdown 2 is the first true open world game.
Crackdown 2 seems more manic?
It is more manic! We wanted Crackdown 2 to have the core mechanics everyone enjoyed in the original but we wanted to turn it all up to 11. Bigger, better, more - basically. We fixed some of the issues we had with the original Crackdown, such as the repetive nature of some of the missions. And we've done a bit more with the story. But Crackdown 2 is a more manic game and that's the experience people enjoyed in the first one. In the original game we had a lot people play and lose interest in an hour so we wanted players to have a more engaging experience and see the cool stuff much quicker.
Why did some players lose interest so quickly in the original game?
We did a very bad job of introducing players to the original game. Players were just dumped into the middle of the city and you had no idea what to do. So now we've given people the option to be led through the initial parts of the game. But you don't need to follow this if you'd rather just get on with the go anywhere do anything experience.
Does Crackdown 2 retain the fantastic verticality of the original game or is it all about the combat now?
Absolutely yes. The 3D playground is still our world and everything is still there. We've gone to town on that. We've got an even higher tower than the Agency Tower in the original game. Also the Agency Tower now evolves as the game progresses. The whole city is an evolving playground. Crackdown 2 is such a broad experience. You can forget that everyone finds fun in different aspects of the game. Some people like to chase orbs and enjoy that growing sense of progression as you can jump and climb longer distances. You get to do more and more exciting things. The verticality is the core Crackdown experience.
How does the levelling up work?
Basically it's skills for kills. We have tweaked it for Crackdown 2 though. In the original game hardly anyone got to level 5 driving skill so we have changed that for the sequel. For the skills as a whole we have made it so that players get that sense of progression much earlier in the game. The Freaks exist largely so that driving skills can be increased easier by mowing them down. We used a lot of feedback and user stats from the original game to design a lot of the features in Crackdown 2.
How much customisation is there?
You can change faces and colours but we deliberately kept customisation to a minimum. The main reason for this was that we wanted online to be as close an experience to offline play as possible. The campaign game is identical if you are playing with one or 4 players. In order to get that we had to sacrifice customisation, but we feel this enhances the gameplay.
How does online work?
Your character is your character so whatever skills or orbs you gain you take back to your own game. The only thing you don't take are game world saves. This stops someone coming into your word and griefing before leaving your game messed up. If you do a mission you get the xp but you don't migrate the mission complete status to your game. We really think the online will be fantastic though. Some people will play together and do missions while others will get distracted by something shiny and find themselves doing something totally different.
How has game progression changed in Crackdown 2?
With Crackdown 2 we really wanted to give a better idea of a game ending. In the original game we did a really horrible job of telling the player that the story had finished. People skipped cut scenes as well so we have removed those from the Crackdown 2. But people felt lost and didn't know what their ultimate objective was and often lost interest. So we've changed that for the sequel and made it more obvious that you are working towards an ultimate goal.
What were the Avatar awards that popped up when playing?
These will be linked to some achievements and will go towards some Crackdown 2 inspired clothing for your Xbox Live avatar. We wanted to do it because people always remembered the off-the-wall achievements in Crackdown. We wanted to have that memorable experience again and give users a real reward for experiments. We have landmark achievements for getting to certain parts in the game but the more interesting ones are the ones that encourage you to experiment and play in the world.
What was the thinking behind the new visual design?
We wanted to go a bit darker and more cohesive. We also wanted to really leverage the day/night cycle. We didn't just want the Freaks to emerge from the ground. We definitely aimed for that graphic novel look and feel. Realism would break the credibility of the game but comic book made it feel more cohesive.
You showed a helicopter in the demo. Isn't that a game-breaker?
Yes, it is a game-breaker for Crackdown 2 but the helicopter is a reward for very late in the game. One of the interesting things about the original Crackdown was that the more you played the less you had to do. So now we wanted to reward players and give them the chance to truly go anywhere using the helicopter as they will have earned it. We've really sorted out the end game in Crackdown 2 and now feel we have made the game more approachable and welcoming in the first place. We do have a story now too, although it is non-linear and you can go anywhere. It is hard to marry these two but we feel that we have achieved this. In my opinion Crackdown 2 is the first really open world game and we can't wait for people to start playing.
Crackdown 2 is released on July 9th for Xbox 360.
