14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Spark Unlimited that’s working on the upcoming Lost Planet 3 believes that the game needs a bigger emphasis on the shooter mechanics in order to succeed on the Western market.
Andrew Szymanski, the leading developer on the game, told Gamasutra that, “We wanted to push the boundaries of a shooter. The premise of the first LP game was, ‘Let’s take a bunch of Japanese guys and make a shooter.’ Well, you use guns as weapons, but it’s not really a shooter.”
He added, “They take the Japanese, not-realistic, almost-ludicrously stylized aesthetic – ludicrous in a good way – and just happened to have guns. When we sat down with LP3, we realized that we weren’t beholden to the past games, as long as we gave our fans what they wanted.”
The team at Spark Unlimited is made up of a number of designers who have previously worked on the Medal of Honor franchise, which means that they have plenty of experience when it comes to the development of Western style shooters.
Their previous work includes Legendary and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.
Andrew Szymanski says that publisher Capcom has chosen a Western team to work on Lost Planet 3 for the shooter elements, but also in order to enhance the characterization and the dialog.
Lost Planet 3 is a prequel that takes place during the early stages of human colonization on E.D.N. III, which means that the planet is still covered in ice, and energy is crucial for the survival of the colonists.
The player will have to deal with both on-foot third-person shooter segments where he battles the enemies familiar to the series and with mech-based sections.
Lost Planet 3 will be launched on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 during 2013.