A manager who slept badly the night before, a creative who has just been inspired by a movie, a designer wanting to explode in the middle of a meeting and keeping quiet to avoid conflict… There are key moments in this industry that they have marked the future of videogames.
It’s funny how a phrase at the right time can have completely changed the future of franchises and projects, and today’s, strange as it may seem, is one of the most radical changes on record: when inFamous was almost an Animal crossing.
superhero fashion
As luck would have it, while one saga faced its final stretch, another took off in an insane way. While Sucker Punch waved goodbye to the adventures of Sly Cooper with his third installment, Nintendo broke all schemes with the success of Animal Crossing upon arrival at DS.
Add the superheroes of The Incrediblesthe one of batmanbeginsthose of a promising MMO -remember when they became fashionable?- called City of Heroes and, to that load of people with capes, add also the hype for the arrival of the first Hombre de Hierro and the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a few years later.
We have lived many trends but, although nothing can ever beat the zombie trend, the superhero trend of the mid-2000s was one of the fat ones. It was the perfect breeding ground for Sucker Punch to be very clear about what their next project was going to be.
Well, not exactly, but that’s just what we’re going to talk about next. Because although we all know that sly 3 he followed inFamousIt really wasn’t like that from the start. Actually what they were cooking for more than a year was truehero.
inFamous Crossing
Long before Cole and his powers in that open world of great ideas that has aged regularly, in sucker-punch They decided to continue with what they were best at and continue with the cartoon aesthetic. It had worked to date and, based on what was seen with the competition, it could well continue to be a claim for all types of audiences.
“Initially we were building a superhero version of Animal Crossing. You wandered around the city, found criminals, helped citizens, and shed some light along the way with your work.”
truehero it clung to the idea of masks and hidden identities to bring you two games at once. On the one hand, the social component in which you meet other neighbors in a big city, the construction of buildings and the management of the happiness of its inhabitants.
On the other, that idea of being a superhero who must fight crime in the shadows to do the same from a different perspective. One just as nice and endearing, but more focused on the acquisition of new powers and abilities.
From inFamous to Ghost of Tsushima
After working for more than a year in that direction focused on the socialization of games such as the aforementioned Animal Crossing o The Sims, another hit of the time, in Sucker Punch they began to be aware of the risks involved in the project and, seeing that they could not find the key to turn it into something fun, truehero ended up transforming.
Let’s take wind visual style for all audiences, stealth and measured action. If they were going to make a superhero game, better make it big. One where you blow things up, cause chaos, and be the bad guy if you want to.
The rest of the story, albeit with several iterations in between to shape the plot, powers, and look of inFamous, you already know her. That socialization system became karma, it turned into something more GTA, and other ideas such as city management or character customization were discarded.
inFamous It went well, Sucker Punch didn’t get drowned in a development that didn’t seem to finish starting, and now they are an essential study after the coronation with Ghost of Tsushima. All’s well that ends well, but it’s always fun to let your imagination run wild and get a little lost in that what if…?