I am starting the process of gathering a team for the production of a 3rd person action shooter that has all the quality and hallmarks of something built by a big developer, but lacks the corner cutting, and general structure of such a development. Essentailly the idea is to build a game that takes everything that is great about the 3rd person perspective that you could get messing around in crysis 1 with console commands enabled, but that doesn't go down the route that Crytek ended up taking with Crysis 3. The game is to be an amalgamation of my personal experience of gaming from 1994 to 2016, starting off with Crusader: No remorse as the inspiration for the design of weapons, adding in some ideas from unreal tournament.
It will feature the idea used in half life with regards to using music to enhance experiences of certain gaming sections, coupled with the visuals that are a mixture between Remember Me, Mirror's Edge, And the Witcher 3, The moon base sections from Wolfenstein 3d. The aim of the game is to avoid procedural generation for things other than weapon effects,and graphics, so as to avoid the generic feeling that you get delivered by games that place their loot algorythmically, such as skyrim, as opposed to the manual placements of individual coins and other items that morrowind had. ie in morrowind when you find a sword tucked in a rock in a place you're amazed you could even reach, its got a lot more impact that say in skyrim when you find the same sword 6x, in a procedurally generated environment where the trees being placed by machines makes each of them feel generic.
It is very important that this project start out in the correct engine to take advantage of the need to the highest quality textures possible, and to mesh those textures with on screen effects so that the experience feels seamless. See
There is a very subtle structure that will be visible to the user via their experience of the game, and they will be able to work the pattern out if they've experienced the game well enough. but the ettempt is to have this be INCREDIBLY difficult to grasp, or even possibly makeit impossible to do so, since this will define the success of the game, based on it's desire to be completely un-condenseable, or unsumuppable. It must be the type of game that when a critics who has been bashed over the head with the same game 9 billion times gets to play it, they actually end up enjoying it, and if they dislike it it is only a reflection of their own current mental state causing the dislike, so all its reviews must be good simply because there was no other possibility.
The sound in the game is one of the big reasons for choosing cryengine, as it has very good locational audio cues. The game needs to have a soul. That soul can have NO repeats in it.
The combat in the game must be very reminiscent of FEAR, able to completely overwhelm the user if they aren't careful, but with the hope that even if this happens they'll luck out and maybe make it through by the skin of their teeth. It needs to pose the difficult level advertised by dark souls, but without the stunted pacing, and the lack of fluidity. And the AI must be able to taunt the player before taking him down, when he it knows that it has the upper hand.
There must be little to no character development other than in the player themselves. at no point must the player be talked down to, or have their intelligence insulted. They are a (cliche but who cares) hardcore killing machine, if they fuckup they die from it. They will survive the removal of their senses via deliberate in-game effects under which can be hidden load screens to transition between areas seamlessly during which multiple approaches can land you in multiple different areas. They are absolutely the most capable agent for the experience and no explanation is required.
Each room in the game must reflect a different art style, see the multiple worlds sections of the witcher 3, but without this becoming a pattern, or the rule. Ie there must be no possible way to condense the experience down to words that would accurately describe how amazing the experience of playing the game itself is due to it being completely non repetitive.
It needs to be:
System Shock (weapons/universe)
Unreal Tournament (weapons)
Crusader: No Regret (weapons/energy system/deaths/destructible environment)
Tribes Ascend (weapons/energy system)
Battlefield Bad Company (weather and atmosphere outdoors, weapons)
Half Life 2 (use of music, weapons, explosion ferocity)
Fallout: Tactics (energy weapons/grenades esp)
Coded Arms (Graphical effects),
Warhammer (Tau) (enemies)
Mirrors Edge (colors/light/momentum/movement system)
Battlefield Bad Company (weather and atmosphere outdoors, weapons)
Dark Messiah and Dishonoured (level design/combat/melee combat)
Soldier of fortune (combat,speed)
Remember Me (colours, focus on art/universe as inspiration without the dirt or dregs)
Battlefield 3 (Texture clenliness while still being dusty)
Wolfenstein Reboot (Sound, destructability model, AI similarity, Level design, enemies)
Deus Ex Human revolution (attention to detail and direct tie in with scientific reasoning(all ideas must fit within scientifically reasonable assumptions, art style, coloring, avoiding the blade-runner type universe))
Metro 2033 (Bullet physics, armour/hit detection).
Stalker (Bullet physics)
Witcher 3 (Different take on the stereotypical) He's not a knight he's a witcher, its not a dragon it's a wyvern, its not a vampire its an ekida. etc. but without the grossness)
Portal - (visual styling sans cutesiness)
Prey - Weapons, Mind-bending Environments
Vanquish - (I'm not sure how it relates, because its too clunky and not smooth enough, but its seemly futuristic industrial feel needs to be in the game. Too Japanese. not sure if racist or don't like jrpgs)
Journey - (The long pathway through the dry but beautiful landscape, mixed with the desert crash from uncharted. very important to include a few small desert animals and a few plants and trees on earth. to an unknown objective (I dont want to say anything because it has to be DARTH Vader is the dad level secret.
Borderlands The Pre Sequel - (Meteorites)
Shattered Horizon - (Low gravity mechanics)
Dead Space - (Hud elements, stoic stance of protagonist in certain locations, jumping from surface to surface, sound)
Alpha Centauri - Planet/Planet death disease
The game must contain no stereotypes while the main character is the stereotypical silent protagonist, yet viewed in third person, all communication must be via his body language.
That art style must embrace corporate artwork, while rejecting corporate structure. And there must be seamless blends between the natural world and human constructs.
There must be little to no visible loading screen or HUD, any visual impairment should only ever be used to steer the story though blindness in a single eye will be a feature of the story line. as well as other visual impairments, all beautiful in their own right.
The story will effectively be an accurate description of the means by which the human mind processes information, and the mathematical models by which this occurs. The ID tech 5 engine would have been perfect for this however I do not foresee bethesda warming to a project such as this given the progression of the engine used in skyrim/fallout.
There will be a mixture between 2D, 3D, Isometric, First person and 3rd person elements. Changes in perspective must be a BIG deal in the game. The player will be able to both voluntarily change camera angle, including in the multiplayer, and in certain cases be variably locked into the changing perspectives, all of which will include smooth transitions through the visual impairments. It will primarily be 3d person.
Momentum will be a big theme in the game. and transpire through all actions.
The sound design needs to follow the the action happening in the game. There is some very specific music selected for certain scenes.
The communication of the ideas must be INCREDIBLY SUBTLE, even in the middle of a firefight. ie oxygen level, health, damage taken. Incoming damage must influence mobility
The shields in the game are a big deal and will work the way they did in crusader, but ported to a 3D environment. There will be a toolbelt approach to how much you can carry, and you will have a smartphone-type device for shopping and will be able to buy equipment via differing delivery methods in different parts of the game.
You will be limited in what you carry and it will affect your movement speed REALISTICALLY BASED OFF ACTUAL MASSES BEING CARRIED, and will be calculated ACCURATELY, to ensure that the numbers in the game reflect numbers in reality.
Ie you'll be able to order equipment in one part of the game and it will arrive at the end of the mission, this will be scripted, as it adds a choice pathway, and you will be making choices that will force you to have to replay to experience certain environments differently based on your purchases. There will be a few very rare options possibly only discovered by the very lucky, that will effect certain parts of the game, but not in a 'this game ends 123412342 times type of way.'
So yes, there will be shopping, for guns, and you'll find money along the way to pay for it,
There will be a hyperloop. It will be in the game. It will be part of the story. technology is a huge theme and any new or exciting technology that exists in the world that seems exciting or emerging will be included in the game, its basically going to try to be the vision of the nuclear future that they had in the 50s of the future, but for 2016, so its going to be wildly fantastical, but its also going to be very wrong when it comes to predicting what is going to be happening.
The level of detail taken must be at american psycho business card level.
When people leave their homes after playing it they must only be able to say that they just did something very very cool, and whatever it was its almost impossible to describe, but it was incredible and they must show it to their friends.
Games such as antichamber have the right type of mindset, trying to challenge creative people, but while lacking action and the graphical quality and addictive nature of online fps gaming, or GTA V for instance.
GTA V is pretty much mindless (that's not entirely true, but its not exactly cerebral) though incredibly fun, and BF3/4 is just shoot over and over beat the other dude faster than he can beat you as something super simple but very very fast, while ignoring the fact that a lot of the people playing are actually incredibly intelligent, even though they are twitch gaming and are just playing it because there isn't anything else that's quite at the level of quality they'd wish to expect. So this will likely appeal to anyone wanting something that is REALLY NEW. And not a cough cough Moleneux.
The means by which I am communicating means it may be difficult to understand what I am gunning for, unlike a certain microsoft man, i know that all these concepts work, because they have all been done before in one way or another, unlike the stuff he'd been trying to pull off. Some of these might require the launching of multiple processes and some other computing trickery, but its all definitely doable because its literally all been done before, except no one was controlling it, and they didn't make the transition smooth. Something which isn't a big issue considering camera controls in a engine
This game wants to aim to remove the semi-stagnant nature of gaming, that while evolving keeps going down the same path multiple times, while also going down the old familiar pathways, except that something new and exciting happens on thoe familiar paths every now and then that they'd never expect, and suddenly they are swept away to somewhere new and exciting, that holds something REALLY new down the same old tired pathway or something old that they expect down a pathway that they have never traveled before but brings back good memories and seeing how to get there via a new route just blows their mind at the next order level of complexity or scale that had to be taken int account to achieve that same old simple thing that they loved so much.
If you are interested in this project and you have any ideas on the matter, and can help. I am currently based in Cambridge in the UK and would like to begin slowly putting together a team of people to help accomplish this goal. Anyone here who can help is welcome to join. This will be a collaborative effort, and ANY artwork that you can make, 2d or 3d, is absolutely welcome to be added. Even if it is a shitty stick figure, all it needs to be is unique and we can use it as part of the texturing process.
The point of this porject is uniqueness, so every tiny little detail that can be added, must be added, and should be added, every picture that can be made that is different should be included, so long as it is placed in the correct position, fits the right style in that spot, and adds to the overall aesthetic of the space. See Dishonored's mansion interiors mixed with Human revolution mixed with mirror's edgefor the type of feeling we are go for for interiors. Every single picturesque buttery smooth landscape you can think of.
We will initially need people with a very good artistic flair especially in psychedlic art, followed by fine artists. I am capable of easily explaining the use of photoshop and other modelling software to people. I am also relatively competent at programming in python, though LUA scripting skill is most likely going to be useful knowing gaming.
I need to speak to several people who are well versed in UNITY, UNREAL Engine and also take a personal look at Cryengine, to begin deciding whether this is going to be possible, and in which engine to pursue this. Infinite detail would have been my first choice, but I am neither well connected enough, nor rich enough to be able to chase down that dragon, beautiful though it may be.
