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THE ULTIMATE PLAYSTATION OFFICIAL MAGAZINE INTERVIEW BOOK
22
OPM: Did you anticipate that?
DG: I didn’t anticipate it - but in hindsight, now I’ve
seen why, it’s kind of super obvious. People don’t grasp
that they’ve got to get the Kraken out of the air. And
LITTLEBIGthey
can’t really do really effective damage at height:
PLANET 3
flamethrower is the way you’re going to really fry the
Kraken and it’s got quite a short range. When you get the
Kraken on the ground using the harpoon traps then you
really do damage really, really quickly because it’s just
not as strong. It’s just not as strong a monster. Whereas
Goliath’s right there in front of you, in your face, and
DAMIAN HOSEN
you’re just like, ‘holy sh*t man!’ So it’s very different and
you’re spending your whole time just trying to get away
DESIGN DIRECTOR
and swarm around him, but with the Kraken it’s like four
of you on a ledge all trying to spray bullets and trying
to pull it out of the sky. So yeah, in hindsight I think it’s
super obvious.
OPM: Out of all the characters and monsters, which are
your favourites?
DG: My personal favourites… I have two. I like [Assault
class] Hyde because of the sweary Britishness, which is
always a good thing. And he’s got a massive flamethrower
as well so it’s a lot of fun to play as Hyde, just to run
into the monster, pop your personal shield and just
standing there frying him. And he has some really cool
toxic grenades as well, which if you use effectively can
really push the monster round the map. When you work
properly as a team some of you will flank him, then you’ll
use toxic grenades to flush him into a set of harpoon
traps with sentry guns and all sorts of stuff. I’m really
enjoying Hyde and the new things he’s got.
And then previously, Val as the Medic. For me Val had
a really – and she still does – good set of three different
phases for the game. She has specific weapon supports,
which are really cool to just be cycling through. Early in
the game you’re using your tranquilizer darts to help the
team. Then you’ve got obviously your med ray: you’re
running around quickly medding everyone, making sure
everyone’s healthy. And then you’ve got the anti-material
rifle [for destroying armour]. I think Val was the first
one I picked up and I could immediately understand her
because I played a lot of Team Fortress, so she translated
real well.
There’s some stuff we’ve not announced that I’m
playing as well, but I can’t really talk about that. There’s
another character that I know that I’m really having a
blast playing as. That’s the really cool thing: I’ve gone
deep on just three of the characters. Some of the guys
just know them all inside out, and some of the guys just
play the monster. That’s part of the appeal of Evolve: it’s
a co-operative game and a solo player experience – a
lone-wolf sort of experience where you just go in and eat
hunters and it’s just rad for that reason.
THAT’S THE APPEAL OF
EVOLVE: IT’S A CO-OPERATIVE
GAME AND IT’S A SINGLE-
PLAYER EXPERIENCE ALL
ROLLED INTO ONE.
JONATHAN
CHRISTIAN
LEAD DESIGNER
OPM: What proportion of development time has been
devoted to the creation tools alone? Presumably that’s
the biggest job given that it’s also how you populate the
game with levels?
Damian Hosen: I guess we had a view of the type of
adventure we wanted to make. This being LittleBigPlanet,
in order to deliver a great adventure full of variety, more
rich 3D experiences, more playable characters, more
exploration and all these different play styles, that meant
we had to develop a large number of new tools that
allowed us to make that. So we really started with what
we wanted the game to be, then what tools we needed to
deliver that.
Jonathan Christian: It was all about building upon LBP
2 stuff as well. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle – everything
combines together. So it was really important that all the
new tools not only worked with the old tools but really
enhanced them. A good example is the Sack Pocket,
which is a new inventory system. All the old powers from
LBP1 and 2 can also be put in the Sack Pocket, so you can
create an experience where a player has the jetpack and
grappling hook, and can switch between them at will.