For a lot of people, Watch Dogs is the true herald of next-gen gaming. At E3 2012 there was a feeling that the console generation had run its course, but when Ubisoft teased its open-world hacktopia many of you sat up and got excited. And for good reason - this actually felt like something new.
But it wasn't just about the graphics or how big Ubi's version of a hyperconnected Chicago was. There was something fascinating about a game where your most powerful weapon was your smartphone, where you wouldn't just roam the city but control it. What's more, there was something awfully real about it all.
Ubisoft's intention was to make something that was authentic, enjoyable to play, and also served as a comment on how smart cities could come back to bite their creators.
"Everything we've done was based on reality," says Thomas Geffroyd, the game's content director. "Everything you do in the game is feasible in one way or another."
You only need to spend a small amount of time with Watch Dogs to see how unnerving those words are. Sure, having everything accessible in one place - in this case the Central Operating System, ctOS - is perhaps less feasible in reality, but Geffroyd reckons that even that idea isn't too far away. "I'm sure that in the next five to ten years we'll have a centralised system in most smart cities. It's the most efficient thing to do."
Hack 'n' slash
Taking the role of grey hat hacker Aiden Pearce, you as the player progress through the game to earn more hacking abilities, gradually transforming Chicago city into your own manipulatable playground.
You'll start with basic hacks like traffic lights (good for causing obstructions during those hot pursuits) and move your way up to more complex maneuvers such as raising drawbridges and causing street pipes to explode.
While hacking is fluid and accessible enough for any player to pick up and immediately have fun with, Ubisoft tells us that it carried out three years of research into the game's hacking systems to imbue a real sense of realism - even if it's only appreciated by the real Aiden Pearces of the world.
"We spent the first three years working on research because the hacking and security community are very adamant about sharing everything on the internet, so there was already a wealth of information," says Geffroyd.
"We went to Defcon, we went to Blackhat, the big conferences, not only for the technical knowledge but also for the culture and the identity of hacking."
Ubi did a lot of its own invesitgative work, but when it came down to the more granular aspects it was time to call in the real experts. So the team brought in specialists from Kaspersky to run through the game's script and features and help give Watch Dogs those important tweaks.
"What we did from day one was make Watch Dogs a true medium about hacking. The hacking community is very diverse. There are black hats, white hat, grey hats. Sometimes it's the same person doing the three things at different times of the day or the night.
"We wanted to have this ability for the player to experience the world of hacking just as anyone with technical knowledge and the will to test security could have in their hands. Am I going to do good or am I going to do wrong? Am I going to use this power to steal things?"
Of course, calling in the good guys would mean only half of the story was being told properly, so the studio also spoke with various hacking groups - though for the sake of protection wouldn't tell us who. Very rapidly, the development team found that a lot of the ideas in the game weren't as radical as they were first intended to be.
"Every two weeks we'd discover something new and go 'Whoa, that's nasty'," says Geffroyd. "Over those three years one of our main aims was to be as authentic as possible, but occasionally we'd say 'is this too much? We know it's feasible but is it too crazy?' But it was so fun we actuality kept it. And then a few weeks later it was popping in the news."
"I'm glad we're going to release the game because we're going to look outdated in three months," jokes Geffroyd
Hotline Chicago
Having a centralised system was a convenient way of watering down the act of hacking itself but Ubisoft needed something more relatable for the player, not just for the sake of practicality but to drive the message of surveillance closer to home. The answer was a smartphone tucked into Aiden Pearce's leather trench coat.
"Phones have been giving us so many amazing things for the past six, seven years and we've been accepting terms and agreements without thinking for a second about that. It's all accept, accept, accept," says Geffroyd.
"So having this phone that we've had as a trojan horse in our private life - and for good reason because the tools they're offering are great - was the perfect symbol for us."
The end is finally in sight for Watch Dogs, which suffered a six month delay so that Ubi could refine its hacking playground. The realism the development team strived for went right down to the way the game's AI reacts to all of the unusual occurrences taking place in the city, and according to creative director Jonathan Morin, improving the AI was the biggest improvement those extra six months afforded.
"The AI between the police and the mobs, when they started interacting with each other and we started mixing three or four elements, it was not providing the experience we wanted to give the player," he says.
"Some situations mean combining a lot of different acts in a small area. And in doing that we had targeting system mistakes. You'd end up using stuff you didn't want to use, so we did polish that. It was important to make sure that all the systems would connect with each other, even when the most unlikely scenarios cases would arise. There were also moments when you would manipulate something while in stealth and it would expose your position."
Watch Dogs could become Ubisoft's next big franchise, or it could end up being a one-off title that the studio grows through DLC and multiplayer features. Whatever happens (and however good the final game actually is) right now it stands at a fascinating look at the terrifying potential of technology.
"We ended up [predicting] every news piece of the last two years. That wasn't expected, it just turned out that way," says Morin.
"It was part of the goal to make a game that would be relevant to today's world. We just didn't expect it would be so relevant."
http://ift.tt/1rcALdW
No comments:
Post a Comment