In Living Color
It's one man's struggle in the midst of the world's deadliest conflict, but Saboteur is anything but a WWII stereotype. We report back from a Q&A session with the game's director and producer.
Published: April 11, 2007
“Making open-world games for next-gen consoles is extraordinarily difficult.”
Pandemic Studios director Trey Watkins is painfully candid when it comes to the challenges his team have faced in making the leap to a new era of videogame hardware. But the company has plenty to show for its struggles. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, making its quadruple console leap this holiday season with the help of multi-SKU extraordinaire Electronic Arts, has already wowed with early impressions, and that’s not even mentioning the credibility that comes with having a “best-selling original IP of 2005” predecessor.
And then there’s Saboteur, the company’s daring next-gen stealth-action title and the latest to slip from its hefty yet largely anonymous portfolio. It’s set to the backdrop of a certain timeless 1940’s conflict, but don’t you dare call it a World War II game.
“We don’t consider ourselves a World War II game. We’re not storming the beaches of Normandy; this isn’t about defeating the Nazis,” clarifies Watkins. “Much the way people don’t think of Indiana Jones as a World War II movie, this isn’t a World War II game.”
What Saboteur is is a unique personal revenge story played out in third-person action across Pandemic’s trademark open world. And the game certainly has its inspiration. In terms of gameplay, Watkins calls it a “two-pronged” effort, where the marketing opportunity for open-world games meets undercover stealth action à la Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell. On a more conceptual note comes the game’s narrative, which takes its novel influence (literally – Pandemic CEO Andrew Goldman came a hero similar to the game’s -- a Bugatti race car driver circa Dubaya-Dubaya-Two – in a book) in crafting its larger than life hero, Sean.
Unlike many war-centric protagonists, he’s not in uniform, nor is he aligned with any specific group. Rather, Sean is an Irishman who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: Paris, on the eve of the Nazi invasion, when a few specific Hilter henchmen decide to off some people very near and dear to him. Thus spawns the core objective(s) in the game, in committing various vengeful acts of sabotage throughout the city to get back at those who wronged him. He might even join up with a certain unified resistance along the way, but be aware that Sean is one chap who won’t be playing by the books when it comes to settling the score.
“He’s an up close and personal kind of guy,” details Watkins. “This is much more a knockdown, drag-out bar fight style than it is anything else. You’re not going to see roundhouse kicks or anything through the air, invisible wires or anything like that. He’s going to pull up his fists, he’s going to grab the guy by the scruff of the neck and he’s going to pummel him.”
Headbutts, elbows, kicks to the groin -- all of the street fighting moves you’d expect from an Irish brawler are fair game here, and Sean won’t be afraid to be pull them out a Nazi soldier or two (nor will he hesitate to scale the walls and practice his rooftop free running when the going gets tough). What’s more atypical is the kind of reactions you’ll get with such roughhousing. Keep in mind that these Nazi occupiers are doing nothing more than, er, occupying France, meaning they aren’t necessarily abiding by a “shoot anything that moves” philosophy, as producer Phil Hong explains. That said, Sean will have to stir up a bit of a ruckus before the Nazi’s decide to address him as a serious threat.
“When you engage in a melee interaction, their (the Nazi’s) first take is to say, ‘Hold on, let me take him,’ as if they’re just going to play with you a little bit and just detain you… to kind of keep themselves busy in this occupied world,” Hong details. “But of course as you escalade the fight and take down a few more guys, well then they’ll say, ‘Enough already, shoot him’ and then it turns into gunplay.”
Pandemic Studios director Trey Watkins is painfully candid when it comes to the challenges his team have faced in making the leap to a new era of videogame hardware. But the company has plenty to show for its struggles. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, making its quadruple console leap this holiday season with the help of multi-SKU extraordinaire Electronic Arts, has already wowed with early impressions, and that’s not even mentioning the credibility that comes with having a “best-selling original IP of 2005” predecessor.
And then there’s Saboteur, the company’s daring next-gen stealth-action title and the latest to slip from its hefty yet largely anonymous portfolio. It’s set to the backdrop of a certain timeless 1940’s conflict, but don’t you dare call it a World War II game.
“We don’t consider ourselves a World War II game. We’re not storming the beaches of Normandy; this isn’t about defeating the Nazis,” clarifies Watkins. “Much the way people don’t think of Indiana Jones as a World War II movie, this isn’t a World War II game.”
What Saboteur is is a unique personal revenge story played out in third-person action across Pandemic’s trademark open world. And the game certainly has its inspiration. In terms of gameplay, Watkins calls it a “two-pronged” effort, where the marketing opportunity for open-world games meets undercover stealth action à la Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell. On a more conceptual note comes the game’s narrative, which takes its novel influence (literally – Pandemic CEO Andrew Goldman came a hero similar to the game’s -- a Bugatti race car driver circa Dubaya-Dubaya-Two – in a book) in crafting its larger than life hero, Sean.
Unlike many war-centric protagonists, he’s not in uniform, nor is he aligned with any specific group. Rather, Sean is an Irishman who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time: Paris, on the eve of the Nazi invasion, when a few specific Hilter henchmen decide to off some people very near and dear to him. Thus spawns the core objective(s) in the game, in committing various vengeful acts of sabotage throughout the city to get back at those who wronged him. He might even join up with a certain unified resistance along the way, but be aware that Sean is one chap who won’t be playing by the books when it comes to settling the score.
“He’s an up close and personal kind of guy,” details Watkins. “This is much more a knockdown, drag-out bar fight style than it is anything else. You’re not going to see roundhouse kicks or anything through the air, invisible wires or anything like that. He’s going to pull up his fists, he’s going to grab the guy by the scruff of the neck and he’s going to pummel him.”
Headbutts, elbows, kicks to the groin -- all of the street fighting moves you’d expect from an Irish brawler are fair game here, and Sean won’t be afraid to be pull them out a Nazi soldier or two (nor will he hesitate to scale the walls and practice his rooftop free running when the going gets tough). What’s more atypical is the kind of reactions you’ll get with such roughhousing. Keep in mind that these Nazi occupiers are doing nothing more than, er, occupying France, meaning they aren’t necessarily abiding by a “shoot anything that moves” philosophy, as producer Phil Hong explains. That said, Sean will have to stir up a bit of a ruckus before the Nazi’s decide to address him as a serious threat.
“When you engage in a melee interaction, their (the Nazi’s) first take is to say, ‘Hold on, let me take him,’ as if they’re just going to play with you a little bit and just detain you… to kind of keep themselves busy in this occupied world,” Hong details. “But of course as you escalade the fight and take down a few more guys, well then they’ll say, ‘Enough already, shoot him’ and then it turns into gunplay.”