007 makes his videogame return with a fresh face and new attitude. Adam Gascoigne, Co-design Director of Treyarch reveals some classified information on the new James Bond title, Quantum of Solace.
How do you capture the essence of a 007 James Bond game?
Creating the essence of Bond is tied in by us being so tightly involved with the people who made the film. We have a fantastic relationship with them. We were worried that they were going to be very specific about what they wanted regarding the game – they’ve been creating Bond for 46 years, they know what they want and you don’t change their mind – but that was so good for us. We could ask them how Bond does certain things and they’d refer to their bible and tell us, which was really helpful. So the essence was already there. We just have to make sure we create a game that’s intense and energises players, and really reflects how athletic Daniel Craig is.
So how did having Daniel Craig in the game change your approach to having another actor, such as Pierce Brosnan?
The first thing is athleticism. In a cheesy action movie, a fight will last 15 minutes. Daniel Craig’s Bond doesn’t do that. If someone comes out to fight him, they are either dead in three seconds, or Bond’s shot. It’s in and out, fast, really intense and realistic. The only change to that is when he’s fighting a special agent. The Bourne movies have done that as well, and it’s very indicative of what the current audience expects. They want that realism. So we reflect that in the way our melee combat works. With a gun he’s absolutely deadly.
What is it like developing a game that is generally kept under wraps because of the importance of the film license?
The biggest challenge is making sure you stay inside the universe the film makers have created. For example, one of the levels is outside the Science Centre, and you’re in an alley. Our first attempt at doing the alley had dumpsters, trash, cockroaches, all the kind of stuff game developers like to put in for that sort of scene. But when we showed it to the film makers, they said “Bond doesn’t walk through trash filled alleys. If given the choice of walking through a trash filled alley or a door, he’ll walk through a door. And then he’ll say ‘my name is Bond’”. [laughs] So that’s what we did – he still walks down the alley, but we took out the trash. And it’s a challenge to get into that mindset.
They have a phrase they use, which is “Bond lives in an elegant world”. That’s why people are attached to it. Bond’s world is so beautiful. It may be filled with evil people, but it’s full of beautiful women, the Martinis are made just right, his suit is perfect… they want that perfect world. So although it’s a challenge getting into that mindset, it’s good because you have a parent-like figure looking over you to tell you when you’re getting it wrong. And they don’t touch the game – we can do whatever we want, it’s just the nature of the content they look over.
How much of the violence did you have to watch out for when making Quantum of Solace?
We’re not really a violent team. You shoot people in the head, they’ll go down, but we don’t have blood puffs or spurts - there’s a white puff which kinda looks like dust, but it’s more to tell you that you’ve hit the enemy more than anything else. Our hand-to-hand combat is also very quick. I think gratuitous violence is when you hang on that violence, and if anything I’d say ours is a little more toned down than the movie.
I’ve heard the quote that Daniel Craig’s Bond is much more violent – I don’t think that he’s more violent; he’s more efficient, more direct. If he decides that someone is in the way, he doesn’t set up a trap to get around that person. He just walks through them. So we tried to make sure our character’s actions were direct.
How difficult was it to get a balance between action, spying, gadgets and other elements that make up a Bond game?
It’s difficult because the audience is much more sophisticated now. You need to find your niche, something that works for your game. So to find a balance you have to follow what your team is capable of doing, because that’s a game decision and not a licence decision, and then secondly what the licence is and realise what kind of stuff is in the movie we can use.
We’ve taken the gadgets because they’ve done that in the movie – Bond is still high-tech, but he doesn’t have laser watches or stuff like that. So we’ve avoided the stuff they wanted us to avoid and made sure we focused on what our team is good at doing.
What were the main challenges in making the multiplayer mode?
You have to establish what you’re capable of doing and where you can make the most impact. Our multiplayer is a little more casual [compared to some other multiplayer first person shooters]. Core players will still get a lot out of it, but you can just jump into the game. We have an economy and class system, but it doesn’t unbalance the game; it’s not hard to play someone who has the best weapon.
We also have game types such as the Golden Gun, where you pick up the best weapon of the game and become super powerful like Bond, and we also have a Bond VS. mode, which is fantastic – one person in every round gets nominated as Bond and you have to perform a couple of actions, while everyone else is against him. It’s super intense.
What was the decision to make it a mixture of first and third person, rather than keep it fully in third person, given the permission to use Daniel Craig’s likeness?
The only agenda we had to reach on that was that the character looked like Daniel Craig. Other than that, we wanted to make sure that you saw Daniel Craig a lot. It’s not just an aesthetic thing, it’s also character attachment, to give you that connection and see who you are, but it also adds some really good gameplay elements being in third person.
How much of the two films do you play and how did that change your approach to making the game, compared to doing just a straight adaptation?
The game is split around 40 per cent Casino Royale, 40 per cent Quantum of Solace and 20 per cent new content. The new content is from the movies, but not seen in them. For example, one of the levels is set on a train for the Casino Royale section, and you kill and replace a card player called Mr Bliss. In the movie it was left on the cutting room floor, but we did it, so we have about 20 per cent of that sort of content... stuff you’ve not really seen before.
Anything you’d like to add?
We have an extremely dedicated team who are all games players and we’re very proud of what we’re putting out and I’m very proud of the team. There’s more to come and we hope players will appreciate what they see, and see that we can go somewhere with this.
