“One of our goals from the very start was to make sure that the player was never in the same sort of environment for more than one hour at a time and that a major thematic change occurred every three hours.”
There are a lot of shooters in the world – too many, perhaps. Many try to copy (PR lingo: “re-create”) the experience of Halo or Gears of War. But what we end up with as gamers, and overall as an industry, is less of a reason to be excited when a new shooter is announced.
That’s why it’s so refreshing to see a game like Damnation, which, if nothing else, aims to impress gamers on a different level. Wanting to know exactly what that level might be – and find out what this “shooter gone vertical” hype is all about – GameZone turned to Jacob Minkoff, Damnation’s Lead Designer and Katie McNamara, PA/PR.
Damnation is being referred to as a “shooter gone vertical.” Walk us through the transition and explain how this will change the way we experience the genre.
Jacob Minkoff and Katie McNamara: When development on Damnation began in 2004, we were playing games like Quake 3, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and ICO in our spare time. We thought “How cool would it be to have fast-paced, intense shooter combat take place in an open environment?” Shooters at the time seemed to limit environments to tunnels, small rooms and flat areas, so incorporating the vertical element gives new visual and game play possibilities. Players can use different acrobatic moves to maneuver through and you can see your obstacles laid out in front of you at the beginning of each level.
If your goal is to get to a bridge and blow it up, you’ll start the mission standing atop a tall cliff, with the bridge visible in the distance. Below you, you’ll see the city you’re going to have to make your way through in order to get there. You can really take advantage of the environment during combat to get a gain on the enemy. For example, instead of running into an open area towards a building filled with snipers, risking frontal assault, you can climb to the rooftops, smash through an attic window and drop in to take them out.
