14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Insomniac Games working on Sunset Overdrive has been revealing a lot of over-the-top and surprising features for the third-person shooter, and publisher Microsoft has placed a heavy emphasis on its innovative elements in the marketing for the Xbox One exclusive.
But according to game director Drew Murray, the core nature of the experience was initially much more conservative and was concentrated on the cover shooter mechanics.
According to an interview with Gamasutra, the moment when everything changed was when designer Cameron Christian suggested that gamers would be interested in grinding along telephone wires in order to get from one location to another, with a movement similar to that seen in the classic Tony Hawk titles.
Murray is quoted as saying, “We initially thought, ‘No, that's not what we're trying to do with this game.’”
Insomniac was aiming for a more realistic title, but slowly the studio saw the potential in the idea and tested out the core features and then radically changed the nature of the third-person shooter.
Insomniac is known for its weird weapons
The studio, which has previously worked on Resistance and on Ratchet & Clank, is known for its weird weapon design, but initially they were uninterested in delivering the same for Sunset Overdrive.
Once the changes to movement were introduced, the company chose to re-evaluate the decision.
Murray adds, “Honestly, we were sort of abandoning a lot of our initial ideas. We were abandoning the day/night cycle, giving players a lot more freedom to explore, emphasizing crazier movement.”
The current concept for Sunset Overdrive is to focus on giving players options for their characters and a vast world to fight in, allowing their free will to then decide how to approach the challenges they find.
Sunset Overdrive and the Xbox One
The development team is also keen to exploit the power of the Xbox One home console and will do this partly by aiming to deliver content updates as quickly as possible.
The exact pace has not been decided yet and more information will be offered as the launch date draws closer.
Apparently, the company is taking some cues from the process that other developers have been using on the PC in order to test core ideas and then deliver them to the entire community once a small number of players has been able to offer feedback on the initial design.
Sunset Overdrive will be offered on the Xbox One on October 28 in the US and on October 31 in Europe.