So what’s new? I mean, what have you been up to? Cool. Us? Not much. Just a new character, new city, new powers, and all designed especially for the new PlayStation 4.

I hope you’re excited – because we really are! Actually, for us it’s probably one part excitement and one part pure terror, but that’s just the way of things I guess… But here we are at last to break the months of silence: All of us at Sucker Punch are very pleased to introduce you to Delsin Rowe, and our new title Second Son! Let’s cut to the chase!

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Hey all, it’s Brian Fleming from Sucker Punch. It’s been a long time since my last PlayStation Blog post, and today’s entry is a little different… I’ll start with the marketing facts (inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood available today!!!! €9.99/£7.99!! 20% discount if you are a PlayStation Plus member!!!)

But really, I thought I’d give you a little insight into why and how we ended up making a vampire based spin-off of inFamous.

For us, we’d been working for two projects and 5+ years on the main storyline of inFamous. We wanted the DLC to be a chance to take all that work (art and technology) and do something fun and different for players.

We knew we couldn’t just release some more missions or a skin pack, so we took a bunch of pitches from all the departments here at the studio for what we might do… We wanted something that fit our game, would be fun to work on, and ideally would be unexpected, too.

One of the strong pitches we got was originally called “Vampire City” (a play on “Empire City” from inFamous 1). The pitch was that Zeke was trying to impress a girl with a tall tale about Cole, Vampires, and the origins of Pyre Night. There was a lot to like about this pitch, some important ones were: finally getting to add flying to inFamous, the strong “Pyre Night” set dressing we could add to New Marais, a solid supernatural basis for new powers, and of course having a launch date in the days before Halloween didn’t hurt either. So it was decided, and work began!

About the same time, we had some promising PlayStation Move prototypes running… We’d initially thought we would use move to support UGC authors–but as we progressed, we became convinced we could make the game fully playable with Move. So Move shifted to become a core gameplay feature, and our UGC team decided to tackle our next big wishlist item – “speech bubble” cutscenes. Like making narrative missions? Now you get set-up camera shots and add speech bubbles to characters!

So that’s the story behind “Festival of Blood”… We all hope you enjoy this little ‘what if’ detour in the inFamous universe… From all of us at Sucker Punch, Happy Halloween!!

P.S. I can also confirm the new cutscene tool and PlayStation Move support will appear in the main inFamous 2 game any day now!

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Today I’m here to talk about everyone’s favorite topic: powers! More specifically, how does Cole manage to improve on is already impressive set of electrical abilities?

For those of you who don’t know the original inFAMOUS story, Cole’s electrical powers appear when he’s caught in the blast of a mysterious device called the Ray Sphere. Cole gains more and more abilities, becomes more and more powerful, and survives the gauntlet of Empire City… but he also is given a glimpse into his future. He realizes that even at the height of his powers, he is no match for the challenge that awaits. A battle with a great Beast looms, and Cole isn’t ready to face it.

So in inFAMOUS 2, Cole travels South to New Marais to trace a path to the man behind the Ray Sphere technology, Dr. Sebastian Wolfe. With buddy Zeke riding shotgun, they set off to find the key to the next step in Cole’s evolution and a new level of power– powers that will be necessary if Cole hopes to survive the upcoming battle.

When Cole and Zeke eventually track down Dr. Wolfe, he explains that over years of experimenting, he had isolated the specific type of energy responsible for all genetic mutations. Dr. Wolfe’s technology—like the Ray Sphere—was all created to concentrate and manipulate this energy. To most people a dose of this mutative energy is fatal—but for a small fraction, the energy unlocks their untapped potential. These rare individuals are called Conduits, and of course Cole is one of them.

Wolfe has also developed a device—called a Blast Core—which can store this type of energy safely for an extended period of time… Over the years, he’s built and charged six of these Blast Cores. So to continue his evolution, Cole will need to locate these all-important Blast Cores, and absorb their energy into his body. But Wolfe fears the Blast Cores will fall into the wrong hands, so he has moved them to safe locations around the city — and Cole will have to hunt them all down.

Of course our story will take some important twists and turns along the way, we’ll meet other Conduits, and as in the original inFAMOUS game, your choices about what kind of person you are. But no matter which path Cole follows, one thing remains the same: without the Blast Cores he won’t survive.

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I think most of us at Sucker Punch have noticed the days starting to blur together a bit. So while I had a quiet moment here on Southwest Flight 651, I thought I’d put the time to good use and give you an update on our progress with I2 (inFAMOUS 2)… Ken’s post from last week got the ball rolling, let’s see if I can spill some more beans on the Karma system…

When we took a look at the Karma system in I1 (inFAMOUS, the first game) we wanted to keep the successful stuff, but also make improvements … As a top line, we knew we wanted to continue to offer players the choice and responsibility that comes along with having powers. This is one of the central themes of many archetype super-hero stories, as well as an interesting exploration of the relationship between power, responsibility and the test of character that powers bring. So, that had to stay.

But on the flip side, we got feedback from fans that some of the choices felt too mechanical, and they wanted their choices to have more meaning in the narrative and in the world. So, our challenge with I2 was to make these choices more real, more believable, and yet still keep them visible and clear to the players.

When we spent time thinking and designing the improved Karma system, we ultimately concluded that there was a way to make these choices both clearer and much more believable: to make your Karma decisions more about relationships and less about the specific choice at hand. So instead of a question that really didn’t relate to our primary gameplay (e.g. “should we take this food or give it away?”), in I2 we let the player decide who to ally with on a quest, or choose between Kuo’s surgical strike or Nix’s no-holds barred assault. You aren’t just choosing a mission, you’re choosing an ally and alienating another person. This was both clear for players, and more real.

Here are a couple videos which demonstrate what I’m talking about, but let me set them up a bit…At this point in the game, Kuo has been captured by the local Militia that’s taken over New Marais. We find out that Kuo is being held at a makeshift prison (a converted old mansion on the edge of town). Cole needs to mount a rescue, but the fortified target rules out a frontal assault.

Cole’s buddy Zeke proposes a rescue plan. He has seen a convoy of captured police officers being paraded through the city. He wants to bust up the convoy, free the officers, and then lead the -police on an assault of the old mansion/militia stronghold. Turns out other cops are being kept there as prisoners, if Cole helps bust them free he’ll get Kuo out at the same time… of course that also means there’ll be more cops on the street (which is sometimes uncool for vigilantes). Cops love us, Kuo goes free, all is good! Okay, let’s have a look:

Nix’s idea? Well as you know from Ken’s piece, Nix is more of a chaotic personality. Her plan? Load up a streetcar with explosives and run it down the tracks at full speed towards the mansion. It’ll derail, crash through the front gate and explode in a huge fireball… Great diversion, and tons of collateral damage on the Militia, even if a few prisoners might become collateral damage. After the explosion, we team up and slog our way through the remaining resistance and get Kuo back. Nix, of course, has some super powers of her own, and they are particularly useful in combination with Cole’s arsenal. Just another bit part of the plan! Let’s take a quick look:

So in the case of these two choices, you end up rescuing Kuo along either path, but that won’t always be the case. Sometimes the implications of your choices will be clear (like above) and sometimes they will be murky. The choices you make will affect the world itself, the citizens’ reaction to you, and of course the ending of the game in an important way. What we hope is that you all find them entertaining, occasionally thought provoking, and lots of fun.

Before I go, I want to wrap up with a few more answers to questions we received after Ken’s post. #1. YES, a lot of content is backing up the Karma system, not just different cut scenes–in fact the example above is all gameplay, There are NO differences in the cut scenes. And saving Kuo is just the beginning— there are going to be a very sizable number of missions set up in choices like this, and plenty of unique content on either side. #2. YES, the game should be more balanced for those of you who want to play more “Neutral” or switch sides.

So there you go, I’m about to land and the flight attendants are eyeballing me. We’ll have more on the Karma system later this month. Until then, choose your friends carefully!

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