Remedy Entertainment’s upcoming third-person shooter title Quantum Break has already made a bit of name for itself after it was revealed that the game will run parallel with a television series of the same name that will be impacted by the way the player goes about the game, while also informing the player on how to play the game. Now the developing team has revealed even more on that feature of the game and explained why it needed to make a game and a TV series of the same title.
Speaking recently to Develop in an interview, head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen explained: “It was during that time that the big series started to come out with HBO and whatnot, Lost for instance was one where people were buying the boxsets, and then watching the episodes at their own pace.”
“Some are binging through it, some are watching one a day, some are watching one every other day or once a week, but all at their own pace.”
He added: “The great thing about it was each episode had its own three act structure and ended on a cliffhanger, which kind of prodded you on to see what happened next. Sam got the idea from that, that this would be a fantastic fit for a video game, especially a video game that has very strong narrative, because we're telling the story over ten plus hours.”
"With Alan Wake, having a very high completion rate was partly to do with the structure we built,” he explained. “What we read on our forums and from media and fans was that some people played through the whole experience from start to finish - the bingers - but some people, folks that didn't have the time to do that, they'd play one episode. It was a perfect cut off point, and they'd know that the next chunk would take an hour to an hour and a half.”
As revealed earlier, episodes of the corresponding TV show will be included in the game disc itself, with players having the opportunity to alter outcomes with the choices they make in-game.
“The game and the show are designed to be built as one experience, to be experienced as one package. So you play an episode of the game, then you can unlock an episode of the show, play another episode of the game, and unlock another episode of the show, and so on,” Hakkinen added.
“Without telling too much, you'll be looking at two different sides of the coin from a story perspective. In the game you'll be following the story of one theme, in the show you'll be following the story of another theme. These are meshing together to form the whole experience.”
While a specific release date for Quantum Break is yet to be disclosed, it's widely expected that the game will be out by late 2014 exclusively for Xbox One.
