Eidos Throws Down Just Cause
It's WMDs and gang wars in a South American sandbox.
Published: May 17, 2005
We have GTA3 to thank/blame for finally introducing the idea of a sandbox-type game environment where the developers create a world, characters and storyline, but leave the actual minutiae to the player, ultimately allowing them to go about completing a task as they see fit.
It's easy to see why the style caught on; just think of all the different stories you swapped with your friends after playing GTA3 about how you completed missions or what you did while just screwing around with the game world. Now think about how your friends would often counter with a "ohhh, I did it like this..." sort of response and you can see how presenting a storyline around a sandbox-style approach allows for an incredible level of immersion and interest from any number of different types of gamers.
Avalance Studios, the Stockholm, Sweden-based development house formed by team members that worked on EA's Battlefield games, as well as Headhunter the amazingly well-done Chronicles of Riddick, is working on creating just such a open-ended gameplay experience, dubbed Just Cause.
Laced into the shoes of undercover CIA operative Rico Rodriguez and dropped into the playground that is the fictional South American island of San Esperito, the game saddles you with a simple task: find out of the various warring factions are stockpiling WMDs and help push the infighting along until organization collapses enough to keep the weapons from ever being fired. Exactly how you do that will be entirely up to you.
"Our overall vision for Just Cause is to create a realistic game world where players can unleash their creativity in order to bring down a regime using any means possible," explains Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg. "We want to provide the player with close to endless opportunities to play missions, explore the world and perform stunts using land, sea and air transport."
San Esperito's gangs can be allied with, turned against rivals, have dissention stirred up in the ranks, just about any other dynamic players can think of to slowly collapse the tenuous bonds the militants have. Over 1,225 square miles of terrain has been rendered for the island, creating jungles, mountains, villages and beaches -- all of which can be explored by land, sea and aircraft. Publisher Eidos claims the game will boast "one of the most varied and exciting array of vehicles, planes and watercraft ever seen in a video game."
Avalanche's web site claims the game is in development for PS2, Xbox and PCs, but Eidos has listed only "gaming consoles" along with the PC as platforms, and with the size and scope of the game, it's likely that the PS2 version may end up scrapped or moved to the PS3 if the developers want to keep the same level of immersion intact. We'll let you know for sure when we know more.
It's easy to see why the style caught on; just think of all the different stories you swapped with your friends after playing GTA3 about how you completed missions or what you did while just screwing around with the game world. Now think about how your friends would often counter with a "ohhh, I did it like this..." sort of response and you can see how presenting a storyline around a sandbox-style approach allows for an incredible level of immersion and interest from any number of different types of gamers.
Avalance Studios, the Stockholm, Sweden-based development house formed by team members that worked on EA's Battlefield games, as well as Headhunter the amazingly well-done Chronicles of Riddick, is working on creating just such a open-ended gameplay experience, dubbed Just Cause.
Laced into the shoes of undercover CIA operative Rico Rodriguez and dropped into the playground that is the fictional South American island of San Esperito, the game saddles you with a simple task: find out of the various warring factions are stockpiling WMDs and help push the infighting along until organization collapses enough to keep the weapons from ever being fired. Exactly how you do that will be entirely up to you.
"Our overall vision for Just Cause is to create a realistic game world where players can unleash their creativity in order to bring down a regime using any means possible," explains Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg. "We want to provide the player with close to endless opportunities to play missions, explore the world and perform stunts using land, sea and air transport."
San Esperito's gangs can be allied with, turned against rivals, have dissention stirred up in the ranks, just about any other dynamic players can think of to slowly collapse the tenuous bonds the militants have. Over 1,225 square miles of terrain has been rendered for the island, creating jungles, mountains, villages and beaches -- all of which can be explored by land, sea and aircraft. Publisher Eidos claims the game will boast "one of the most varied and exciting array of vehicles, planes and watercraft ever seen in a video game."
Avalanche's web site claims the game is in development for PS2, Xbox and PCs, but Eidos has listed only "gaming consoles" along with the PC as platforms, and with the size and scope of the game, it's likely that the PS2 version may end up scrapped or moved to the PS3 if the developers want to keep the same level of immersion intact. We'll let you know for sure when we know more.
