14 DAY TRIAL // The decisions taken by players in Infamous 2 prompted franchise developer Sucker Punch to create a new protagonist for the upcoming Infamous: Second Son, who'll take over from previous hero Cole MacGrath.
The Infamous games placed a big emphasis on choice as, depending on what the player did, his powers and the story evolved in different ways.
At the end of Infamous 2, players were faced with the ultimate choice, either sacrifice Cole and save the world from evil super-powered Conduits, or keep him alive at the cost of the civilian population.
According to Infamous: Second Son Director Nate Fox, fans leaned heavily towards self-sacrifice.
"When we got done with Infamous 2, we had given players this choice of whether or not they wanted to heroically sacrifice Cole or keep him alive at the expense of the human population," Fox told Game Informer.
"The game shipped and we started seeing trophy data, and 78 percent of players decided to sacrifice Cole and have him die. We wanted to honor their choice so moving forward we said ‘Let’s make a new hero’."
While Cole's sacrifice eliminated most of the super-powered beings called Conduits, some have remained and their malicious actions have prompted the government to create a Department of Unified Protection with the power to shut down cities while searching for the "bioterrorists."
"In Infamous 1 and 2, it hit the fan," Fox added. "The human population got freaked out by all the deaths. As a result, this agency called the DUP – Department of Unified Protection – was born. What they do is go out and round up anyone with superpowers and they put them in detention centers for the own protection, but really they’re doing it to protect the common man."
Second Son begins with the DUP invading Seattle after a transport of Conduits crashed and, according to Fox, the city is turned into a giant airport as all citizens need to be tested.
Infamous: Second Son is out this year for the PlayStation 4 next-generation console.