Speaking an interview with VG247, game director Nate Fox elaborates on the new and improved morality system featured in Infamous: Second Son.
Fox details inspirations stemming from the "fear mania surrounding the hunt for terrorism. It’s not that terrorists aren’t real or they’re horribly dangerous. We should be worried, but to fear your neighbor, to fear every day society and not embrace people while keeping a watchful eye out is something we’re trying to talk about in the game.”
Seattle, in the case of this fiction, is a world of high-strung security checks and criminal apprehension influenced from the constant suspicions surrounding the hunt for Conduits. To the Department of Unified Protection (DUP), everyone is a potential Conduit, therefore everyone is a potential enemy. That’s where you come in.
“We’ve always said that the inFamous series is about an everyday guy who gets super powers and decides if he wants to use them for good or evil and that’s still true in Second Son – except – we’ve tried even harder to make the world relatable, true and grounded so that these super powers are plausible, you believe in them. The game world does react to you. You make choices throughout the game with pretty serious consequences, so that serious choice and consequence theme is still there. You matter in that world," Fox explained.
To personalize the experience further, Sucker Punch has expanded on the branching narrative, reshaping its effects on gameplay so that everything tailors to your individual playthrough. To get the full-fledged experience out of Infamous: Second Son, expect to play through the game more than once, much like its predecessors.
“The choices you make along the way will not only impact Delsin’s story, but also the way that his powers mature and evolve, and the way other characters around you evolve and change. It’s very, very different. You’ve got to play the game twice to see it all," Fox details.
“We try and make it pretty clear when you’ve done something evil, mainly because it really sucks when it’s nebulous. It’s not fun to feel like, ‘Well I think I did the right thing in that videogame,’ because there’s so much you have to understand about the rules of the world, your abilities, what the mission is asking you and all of that stuff. We try to cut down on ambiguity as much as possible, but at the same time we try to put situations in front of the player that are frankly tough, because that’s what games are good for; they can transport you to places you’ve never been and let you do things you’ve never done before.”
Look to VG247 for the full interview. Infamous: Second Son is scheduled to release exclusively on PlayStation 4 on March 21, 2014.
Will you bring terror to Seattle come March, or will you bring the smoke to a receding tide? Let us know in the comments section below.