Insomniac’s well-larded blockbuster shooter Resistance 2 is even now filling North American living rooms with the whiff of scorched mutant flesh (Europe’s turn comes on November 28). What better time, then, to stop by Insomniac Towers and get a little post-match analysis?
Speaking to Gamasutra among other ardent fans at the developer’s Burbank, California headquarters, lead Insomniac staff have divulged a few of the key decisions underpinning their fourth PlayStation 3 project. Apparently the game’s downbeat finale wasn’t set in stone: the writers were making changes "right up until the wire".
Company CEO and Resistance 2 Creative Director Ted Price and his staff even toyed with the possibility of a more conventional, uplifting conclusion. "Every story’s going to have an up or down ending," Price observed. "At one point we did discuss more of a Hollywood ending, and it… felt like we were lying to ourselves. The story couldn’t end this way, believably."
"We did talk a lot about creating a bleaker world and a greater sense of despair," Price continued. "Because if the stakes aren’t raised, it’s not compelling to the player. Our goal was to push that as far as we could to make players feel really overwhelmed. We wanted it to have an emotional impact on players."
Audio director Dwight Okahara chipped in to point out that the game’s colourful soundscape somewhat counters its deadening premise. "[The developers] created this bleak dead world, and we can’t do a lot with that, so we added a lot of atmosphere into that with this Americana."
Co-op Lead Designer Jay Biegel insisted that traditional two-player support for the main storyline would have been disastrous. "All of the superficial add-ons you have to do to gate in a second player would detract from the personal story. Imagine playing BioShock in two player — it would be horrible."
There’s plenty more through there.