We speak to Resistance 3 writer Jon Paquette and lead designer Drew Murray about the upcoming title.
Can you give us some idea of the time frame for Resistance 3? How much time has passed since the events of Resistance 2?
Jon Paquette: Resistance 3 starts on 9 August 1957 – approximately four years after the end of Resistance 2. The game takes place over several days as Joe Capelli and Dr Malikov journey to New York City.
Has Joe Capelli changed significantly in the intervening years?
JP: Yes (spoiler alert for those who didn’t finish Resistance 2). When Joe Capelli killed Nathan Hale, he became a pariah. Of course it was something he had to do – he saw Hale turning into a Chimera, and he knew how powerful Hale had become. In a way, it was a heroic choice for Capelli. But the rest of the military didn’t see it that way. Capelli was dishonourably discharged and cast out.
No longer was Capelli the brash, muscle-bound tough guy of one of the world’s elite fighting forces. He became a common survivor, and found that there was more to live for than just fighting a futile battle against the Chimera. He fell in love, got married and had a son. When Resistance 3 starts, Joe Capelli is a changed man, both physically and mentally. He is much thinner, and he survives not by fighting, but by hiding. But he still has a mean streak.
Capelli always gave the impression of being a reluctant hero when compared to Hale. Was this one of the reasons why you chose him as the main focus of Resistance 3?
JP: That is certainly part of Capelli’s character. But in Resistance 3, his reluctance to fight has more to do with the events around him. In the past four years, the Chimera have essentially won the war. Humans no longer have an organised military force. There are no ‘safe zones’ left. The Chimera have stopped trying to convert humans – now they just outright kill. The only way that Capelli can survive, and also keep his family alive, is by staying away from the Chimera. So when he’s forced back into action, like an old gunslinger, it is natural that he is reluctant to not only leave his family, but to take on a seemingly unbeatable foe.
Would we be right in thinking that Nathan Hale’s foster sister Susan will have a large role to play in the game?
JP: If you read the Resistance novel A Gathering Storm, you know that Nathan Hale’s parents died young, and he was brought up in a foster family. His foster sister, Susan, played a large role in the novel. And she returns in Resistance 3 as Joe Capelli’s wife.
This is a very different form of ‘resistance’ to the first two games. Has that impacted on the gameplay at all?
Drew Murray: With human industry and manufacturing nonexistent, players will be using a lot more Chimeran and improvised (read: exotic) weapons than they did in the first two games. Certain Chimeran species have ‘gone native,’ creating unique ecosystems within the ruins and rubble of destroyed America that are separate from the organised Chimeran military.
And we’ve put a lot of time and effort into prototyping and iterating on unique scenarios for the player to break up our core combat – there will be a lot more variety to the player experience in Resistance 3 than there was in the earlier games.
Watching the teaser trailer from gamescom, the first comparison point that sprung to mind was Left 4 Dead. Are you looking to capture a similar feeling of survival at all costs?
DM: We definitely share some thematic similarities – small groups of survivors in a hostile world, battling against overwhelming odds – although that one-line description could apply just as aptly to Half-Life 2 as well. I think it’s a key difference from the first two Resistance games that Resistance 3 isn’t a military story, following best-of-the-best super-soldiers on their military campaign.
Resistance 3 is the story of one man, fighting against nearly impossible odds for purely personal reasons. It’s also the story of how ‘normal’ people are surviving, and the myriad ways that different groups are coping with the fact that their world has been utterly overtaken by a malignant alien force. In any event, we’re huge fans of Valve here at Insomniac and consider the comparisons nothing but flattering.
Can you tell us a little bit about the way co-op works in Resistance 3? Will you be playing as some of the other survivors?
DM: We’re bringing back two-player co-operative mode through the campaign for Resistance 3, which you can play split-screen or online. We had a very vocal group speak up when we didn’t have campaign co-op in Resistance 2, and there is something very special and unique about playing back-to-back with your buddy through the campaign. There will be several unique co-operative mechanics to allow you to assist and rescue your co-operative partner that won’t exist in the single-player campaign. The second co-op player will play as a character from Haven, Oklahoma, Capelli’s adopted hometown where Resistance 3 begins.
To what degree do you consider the main story to be a solo affair? Will it be as potent when played with others?
DM: The campaign is one man’s story – the story of Joe Capelli and the lengths to which he’ll go in an attempt to create a future for his family. That said, a significant theme of the game is that, now that the war against the Chimera has been ‘lost’, the remaining survivors have to help one another or no one will survive. From that perspective, playing co-operatively is a literal manifestation of ‘we fight together or we die alone.’
Managing to release an entire trilogy of games in a single generation is also a great achievement. Was this an aim you had set yourselves?
DM: It wasn’t an explicit plan, but given Insomniac’s history with the Ratchet & Clank and Spyro franchises, it’s not too surprising that we’re releasing a trilogy within a console generation. Resistance: Fall Of Man was a significant departure from what Insomniac had been doing for the previous eight or nine years, both thematically and genre-wise, and our focus was on putting out an amazing launch title. We’ve been deeply honoured by the fan and critical response to the Resistance franchise and couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to continue telling the Resistance story.
We get an exclusive look at Resistance 3, detailing all the must-know features of the sci-fi shooter
Insomniac Games treat us to an exclusive look at the upcoming shooter, showing us four proof of concept segments of the currently alpha-stage game.
1. Stand And Fight
The first passage of gameplay we were shown was also the most familiar. Essentially a pitched battle among the wreckage of a bombed-out street, with Joe Capelli and a small band of rebel fighters taking on a wave of Chimeran hybrid soldiers and airships, it served as a reminder of what makes the series engaging, if not the ways Resistance 3 is attempting to remedy its flaws.
The action was gratifyingly fast, and the combination of air and ground targets provided an effective showcase for the game’s excellent weapon-set: the Bullseye, which lets you tag enemies and sends all subsequent bullets directly to the target; the Auger, which can shoot through hard, dense substances like brick and metal; the Marksman, which fires a burst of long-range bullets, or a drone that fires electrical charges at a selected target.
Few studios have a genuine knack for inventive weaponry but Insomniac is one of them, and Resistance 3 will feature a number of additions to its arsenal, as well as proper iron-sights – surprisingly, a series first – and an upgrade system that rewards players for effective use of individual guns.
2. The Enclave
Perversely, the most radical change Resistance 3 is making to the established formula is also the one element that Insomniac is keen not to shove in players’ faces. By adopting the first-person, in-game storytelling established in Half-Life and its sequel, Resistance 3 will offer depth and nuance in direct proportion to how much attention you pay to the details.
This was exemplified by a sequence in which Joe Capelli visits a small, intensely religious community in the mountains. It is a scene of pure domesticity, and a world away from the carnage and destruction taking place in the cities: the log cabin is bathed in the subtle glow of candlelight, children play games on the floor, a man cooks a stew made from the flesh of fallen Chimera at the stove.
The atmosphere is reminiscent of the friendly stations in Metro 2033, full of telling details and revealing conversations, but only for those with a desire to take it all in. Resistance 3 is still an action game first and foremost, but this time Insomniac wants to give you more.
3. Death Squad
Another facet of Resistance 3’s more focused and detailed story is a more intelligent use of pacing. Players simply won’t have the chance to look around and drink it all in if they are constantly besieged by enemy forces, which was often the case in the previous two games. This time, however Insomniac has deliberately conceived set-pieces that allow for periods of inaction or down-time – concepts that are used very effectively in games like Half-Life 2 and Modern Warfare.
This idea was given form in a sequence where Capelli and a small band of resistance fighters had to follow a Chimeran death-squad through the city streets. Their orders were to observe rather than intercept, so there was a long stretch of gameplay where Capelli simply followed the commanding officer through ruined buildings and subterranean tunnels. The confluence of the rumbling sound of the Chimeran machines, blood traces on the walls, ruined posters from before the fall, and the hushed, frightened whispers of the rebels created a palpable tension.
The segment built to a climactic moment where a Chimeran hybrid smashed through a boarded-up window, pulling a terrified victim through just as he was giving Capelli the reassurance that the enemy was nowhere to be seen. It’s a little cliché, sure, but that didn’t make it any less effective, or the resulting battle – one of the epic, open skirmishes that Resistance is known for – any less rewarding.
4. Up River
The preceding three proof of concept sequences felt as rough and unfinished as the term implies. All of the vital elements were in place, but some lacked proper character animations, some had placeholder dialogue and sound effects, some had no music. With about a year to go before Resistance 3’s release the lack of polish is understandable, but the fourth sequence was not only far closer to completion, it also encapsulated all of the ideas articulated by the others.
Joe Capelli and his comrades are on a boat, sailing through an abandoned town, shrouded in mist and half-submerged in water. Chimeran plant-life has started to grow on the buildings, long tubes covered in ice protrude from the surface, rotting Christmas decorations provide a glimpse into the moment the town succumbed.
The boat idles past the corpse of a Kraken, Chimeran Leapers feasting at the cavernous hole in its stomach – if Capelli opens fire the Leapers will attack, if not they will remain oblivious to his presence. The atmosphere, the pacing and narrative detail: everything is in place, everything feels right.
Silence of this kind simply begs to be broken, and before long Grims emerge from the houses on either side. Climbing onto the rooftops, they variously hurl objects or themselves at the boat, many of them landing in the water and frantically swimming in its wake. After the attack is quashed the boat arrives at a vast bridge, both ends disappearing into the thick fog. A Goliath – a siege engine, 150-feet tall – emerges from the water, firing a barrage of rockets at the boat that send it spinning across the water as the bridge is torn asunder by the blast.
The proof of concept sequence ends, and we have been given all the proof we need.
5. Trimming The Fodder
While multiplayer details for Resistance 3 are a little limited we were given a few clues as to what to expect. For a start it was suggested that 60 players was a little over the top for multiplayer and that very few people actually took advantage of such numbers in online games.
Insomniac also described MP as progression based, offering upgrades and unlockables as you level up. Then there were the maps, which will all be unique to the multiplayer game and set all over the world. No settings from the single-player will be repeated in online play.
As for co-op, Insomniac appears to be making the full campaign playable in co-op with no separate co-op mode, but the number of players has yet to be revealed.
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![[beer]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/brindando.gif "brindis")
![[+risas]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani3.gif "más risas")
, ya que Hale a mi parecer se va para el otro bando (no creo que haya muerto)![[poraki]](/images/smilies/nuevos/dedos.gif "por aquí!")
![[buuuaaaa]](/images/smilies/nuevos/triste_ani3.gif "a lágrima viva")
![[carcajad]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani2.gif "carcajada")
