14 DAY TRIAL // The team at developer Radical Entertainment working on Prototype 2 says that they have high hopes for new protagonist Sargent James Heller and are trying to make sure that he never comes off as morally empty as Alex Mercer from the first game in the series.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Dave Fracchia, the vice president in charge of technology at Radical Entertainment, has said, “Some people literally came out and said, ‘Man, Mercer was a d**k!’ For me, Mercer was still pretty cool. I’m an ex-scientist myself and a thinking kind of guy. Maybe not so much a socio-path like he was. I like characters that are interesting.”
He added, “They don’t have to be good. In fact, most interesting characters are conflicted good and bad. Even Heller, he’s gone to the point of wanting to go after Mercer, so it’s almost like to the point with post-traumatic syndrome that it’s unhealthy how much he just wants to go after Mercer.”
The trauma that sits at the core of the personalities of both characters is similar, but the team made sure that Heller had more depth and offered more potential connection to the players themselves.
The fact that the perspective moves to Heller does not mean that the development team at Radical Entertainment is abandoning its quest to keep gamers interested in Mercer.
At various points during Prototype 2, players will be able to better understand him and the motives behind his actions, presumably making some wonder whether he is inherently bad or is just reacting according to his values to the world around him.
The game will deliver a more streamlined experience than the first one, with a new set of powers based around mutation.
Prototype 2 launched on April 24 in the United States and on April 26 in Europe on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, with a PC version set to arrive in late July.