D.I.C.E. 07: Factor 5s Julian Eggebrecht Q&A
Factor 5 has undergone quite a transformation. Once synonymous with Star Wars games and Nintendo consoles, the developer has moved onto original titles and a tight working relationship with Sony. We sat down with the companys co-founder and president, Julian Eggebrecht, and discussed the Nintendo split, controllers and what goes into making the best possible dragon simulator.
Game Informer: Prior to Lair, Factor 5 worked very closely with Nintendo. Why did you decide to split apart, and was the split amicable?
Julian Eggebrecht: Yeah, the split was extremely amicableyoull see me drinking as much with the Nintendo people as with the Sony people (laughs). Its a small industry, after all, so no bad feelings. It was at the point in time when we saw that we wanted to move on to next-gen. Quite frankly, Nintendo hadnt made up their plans yet completely. For us, it was simply something where we already saw the initial direction of the Wii slightly, and at the time they hadnt really completely figured out yet the extent of the motion control and the extent of how much they would be doing with the wand and everything. So it was more about, Were going to keep the specs for graphics and sound on the same level, and then were going to do something else which is cool. Quite frankly, if you dont have the complete stuff in front of youwhich they didnt at the timethats a scary proposition for a developer, whos looking for, Well, we should go high-definition and 7.1 audio and all of these things. And so, in 2004, when all of that happened, it was just logical for us to move on there. And thats how it happened with Nintendo, end of story. We talked to them openly back then, we talked to Sonywe also talked to Microsoftand Sony really had the whole package. I was blown away, because initially, I was hoping for the motion control that would also be in the PS3. When we had our early talks with Sony, it was basically about our dream system. The dream system included high-definition graphics and definitely larger storage media, which at the time was Blu-raythat was pretty clearbut also motion control. I was like, Yeah, theyre probably not going to do anything with the motion control, but oh well. Well have to live with that. That was kind of the final perfect dream come true when it finally happened with the PS3. But yeah, were still good friends with Nintendo.
GI: Some would say the GameCube was a failure. What do you think?
Eggebrecht: (Laughs) Was it a failure? You know what, those GameCube games that we did make a hell of a lot more sense when you put them into a Wii, just because theyre not in a GameCube, visually, and I think that says a lot about the system. I think in terms of the design, it certainly was a failure, because Nintendo wasnt ready to step up to the plate of basically saying, Were going to embrace also more adult contentand were not talking GTA necessarily here, but other thingsjust like a Star Wars Rogue Leader, thats as adult as it went at the time, or Resident Evil. But they delivered a system that, in the end, was supposed to be like Apple had, but what it really was was just a weird mixture of design styles, which in the end were geared too young. (Laughs) Yeah, I love to play my games on the Wii, because its finally on a system that I was hoping would look like that than the GameCube.
GI: What are your thoughts on the Wii?
Eggebrecht: I love it, absolutely. I mean, I love it as much as the PS3. When I read all of those things about how you have to buy a 360 and a Wii, thats not true. You have to buy a PS3 and a Wiithats the perfect combination.
GI: So why Sony and not Microsoft?
Eggebrecht: On the technology front, there is simply more vision at Sony. By now, theres now moreif not more, at least equalvision on the online front. I have to say that. When we talked to Sony and Microsoft at the time, Microsoft was very determined and they delivered very nicely on what they wanted to do with the 360. But even back then, there was the, Well, 1080p? Well, we dont know about that. Real high-definition? You know what? Lets do 720p for the games, mostly. And theyre doing catch up right now, and theyre doing it quite cleverly. But nevertheless, in the early days you had that as a vibe of the system. What was a killer for me was no HDMI. We had huge fights with Microsoft basically going back and forth about, Please, please, please, please put an HDMI port in there, because only then can you really see the graphics, and they said, No, were designing the whole graphics chip around being analog. And theyre retrofitting it now, trying to catch up with the PS3. But all of that vision was there, right from day one, with the PS3. That was very encouraging. Kutaragi-san, in that sense, is on the technology front, and I dont think anyone would contest that its still the greatest visionary in the industry. So, it made it easy. Sony was the clear-cut, perfect match.
GI: At Factor 5, are you guys Sony second party, or are you free to do whatever you want?
Eggebrecht: Were an independent, closely aligned with Sony developer. Lets put it that way. Were not owned. Were completely independent. So, were like Insomniac, I guess, if you want to make a comparison.
GI: You announced your first game for GameCube when it was still the Dolphin named Thornado. Is that project completely dead, or is it something that you still have in mind?
Eggebrecht: I should stop the tease about that. Thats completely dead. What we are thinking about is basically with the PS3 is going back to our old Turrican games, and basically, finally doing something like that but in 3D. Thats finally going through.
GI: The old Commodore crowd is going to be so happy to hear about thatthats awesome.
Eggebrecht: Yeah (laughs).
GI: Lair is your first title in a while that isnt based in the Star Wars universe. Would you ever make another Star Wars shooter for next-gen?
Eggebrecht: It depends on the platform. Id love to do one for the PS3we have the wackiest thoughts about when people were saying, Oh, it would lend itself to motion control and the Wii would lend itself so perfectly for doing a Star Wars. You know what? We have been playing around with the motion control on the PS3 controller actually, and you wouldnt believe what you would be able to do there. Having said that, though, last I remember, some guy named George Lucas owns the license, and unless he dumps it onto Sony because hes so sick of it, I dont think thats going to happen.
GI: Was it refreshing to work with a fresh IP?
Eggebrecht: Yes. After Rebel Strike, I think it was a little of a been there, done that mentality. Its really interesting at our place, because we are still right next to Skywalker Ranchwe basically still have all of our friends within the Lucas empire, of course, and we do get our new guys asking, So were only working on new IP? Why arent we doing some Star Wars? And all of the senior guys are basically saying, Why would you want to work on Star Wars? Are you crazy? (Laughs) Its a strange thingcompare it to always having a childhood dream, and you have fulfilled it, and then you fulfill it twice. You then get stuck into something like, Can I really put the passion in that I put into the early things? After Rebel Strike, really the answer for me was, Its tough, no. Ive done what I wanted to do in Star Wars, and it applied to a lot of the other guys in the company, and thats why we said no. Now we want to create our own things again. Childhood dream fulfilled, it was great, move on.
GI: One thing we dont know much about with Lair is the story. Where did you guys come up with the concept and who created the story. Is there anything you can say about that?
Eggebrecht: The story almost developed at the same time as the basic concept, because when we pitched Lair to Sony, first of all it was about game mechanics. It was the, Lets take the strengths that we have, build on a couple of them and apply them to something that hasnt been done beforewhich is a good dragon game. As far as I know, there isnt one out there in the 25 years of video games.
GI: Panzer Dragoon?
Eggebrecht: Yes, but, that was a straight linear shooter. By the same token, you could have said when we did Rogue Squadronwhich was the first free-flight, mission based shooterbasically we said, We need to take that genre to the next level, because Nintendo at the same time was doing Starfox 64. It was a gorgeously done 3D shooter, but nevertheless it was the old way. With Rogue Squadron, we said we had to reinvent this genre the same way that Mario 64 was also inventing free-form. So, with Lair, we thought aboutand Panzer Dragoon did come upthe only well-done dragon game ever was Panzer Dragoon, but it was linear, and it didnt take into account a lot of things. Because a dragon is constantly flying there, it doesnt land on the ground.
When you think about dragons, then for me the first thing that came to mind and it was one of the initial takes in the concept of how our dragons look was, OK, lets not go the mythical route, but lets go dinosaurs. More Jurassic Park than Tolkien, and that was the first take. I think when you look at our dragons, theyre very lizard-like and have all of these influences to make them look more realistic. But in gameplay terms, its like the most powerful horse or riding animal that you ever imagined. Lets go through the list. And then you do checkmarks, and you quickly realize that no other game has ever realized even half of the potential of whats just inherent in a dragon and you riding a dragon.
So that was the first part. The other thing was that we wanted to write a story that actually lived up to probably a little bit higher ground than most of the stories being told in video games. We knew it would be violent, but at the same time we didnt want to deliver violence just for the sake of being violent. Early on, we said, Why dont we also try to be a little more clever about the story? Where we twist and turn, where you think youre one thing but then it turns into something else. And there are interesting twists and turns and complete turnarounds in the story that youre not expecting. Were starting as an almostand maybe thats just a snippet of the story I can talk about right nowthe game really starts out in our world, the 9/11 moment of the world, where basically the enemy is coming in and is completely surprising society and youre in the air force, youre in the military, and youre completely blown away by it. You dont know why, and we were playing it relatively straight in the beginning, and youre thinking, These are the enemies, I need to take them down, and then boom boom boom, what you would expect. But then very quickly throughout the game, it develops that its not really the case, and there are completely different motivations here working on it, and theres quite a complicated character arc for your character. That was a huge motivator to the team. Over the last month, actually, when we were putting together the story and the game and really weaving it together, a lot of the guys whod been working only on the game parts basically saw some of the story elements for the first time playing out and said, Wow, this is actually much more clever than I expected.
GI: At Tokyo Game Show, you said control of the dragons could be completely gesture basedyoure not going to use the analog sticks at all. Has that changed?
Eggebrecht: I did? So I guess this is my John Kerry flip-flopping moment (laughs). No. You are controlling the dragon with the Sixaxis. So, lets probably preface it with we analyze every single game mode in the game for basically where does the Sixaxix motion-control part give us a better control and a more-refined control than an analog stick. Then we sat down and took a hard look at the thing and said, Is this a gimmick? Does it make things worse than stick control, or does it enhance it? In flight, the interesting thingand I think it would also apply to racing games, though we havent tried that yetthe complete range of motion that you get with a controller gives you a significantly higher amount of control over your turn angle. If you remember, for example, in the Rogue Squadron games, you had the tight turnyou had the too-tight turns, oftentimes, which made people wiggle around, or when we tweaked it into the other round, which you never saw, but internally we had, oftentimes it felt too sluggish. And it was, because an analog stick for a flight game really doesnt give you the range that you need, and arguably so for racing games it could help more with the whole wheel feeling. Thats actually why in air the Sixaxis controls way better. On the ground, thats where Im actually doing the flip-flopping.
At Tokyo Game Show, we had a very first implementation of the ground Sixaxis. We got a lot of flak for itrightfully sobecause it wasnt as good as analog-stick control. Weve been going back and forth, and in the end we mightbut thats a strong mightwe might have the option to switch back and forth between the two, but if we in our last focus testing now find out that everyone just says, Look, on the ground, the Sixaxis control is not the preferable way to play it, then were going to go analog stick only there. Then theres knight mode, which is analog stick and it always was, because youre running around with a character and I dont think that Sixaxis for moving aroundthe motion controldoesnt make sense. Having said that, though, what you do have is a first-person look-around mode, where you basically go into the head of the character and look around, and thats actually on the motion control. It feels, again, very natural, interestingly enough. When you run around with the guy, you can go into the look-around and you can very seamlessly use the Sixaxis there. So its all about doing it right, not gratuitous, gimmicky stuff.
GI: One of the things you were criticized most in your last Star Wars game for the GameCube was the on-foot elements. They seemed kind of forced, to a point, and obviously your expertise is in flight games. What did you learn from that game that youre bringing over to Lair.
Eggebrecht: Lair doesnt have a shooter weapon on the ground, so youre not running around with a character who basically would have a gun running around and shooting like crazy. So first of all, I think that comparison directly doesnt apply. When youre the guy on the ground, its merely to get to the dragon. Its more to give the feeling that you really are that person, because you try to flee. You are an air force pilot, right, controlling these dragons. Usually, these guys are not perfect Navy SEALS who can basically fight off a horde of people, either. So, in the end, you just need to get to your dragon. So that is traditional Ratchet and Clank control, which is basically just the way you guys wanted itwhich, by the way, we had in Rebel Strike at one point, and yes we should have kept it that way. I think, just to finish on that note, Rebel Strikes biggest problem for the character mode was actually the camera system, because the camera was predefined, and was the taste of the day, and it was a bad, bad decision to do that. No, the dragon actually on the ground is very much inspired by the fact that we had tank versions of it, which felt too much like a tank. Its a large creature, so what you now get is a lot of weight of the creature still, but the cool thing about having a video game is we can over-emphasize reality a little bit. So when the dragon latches onto humans, basically, we zoom in with the camera to give you close ups, and we actually do time jumps, a little bit Matrix inspired, where basically you get to engage with your enemies a little faster. Outside of that, its traditional melee combat with the added incentive of eating people.
GI: How long is the game? How long do you think itll take the average gamer to get through it?
Eggebrecht: All of these percentage questions and length of gameplay
Lets put it this way: If we really succeed in terms of tuning the difficulty curve right, and thats what were doing right now, then even a newbie player should be able to play through to the endbut, weve taken a cue from our old games, so we have the medal system and all of that, so youll be at home with that. So replayability of the missions is important. Ideally, we want to tune it so someone can get through the game and the story in about 10-12 hours or something like that. Then theres a whole lot of replay value. We have online leaderboards, supporting network platform fully there, we have chatboards inside the game, we have messaging inside the game, so all of that you can directly do within the game on the network platform. With the leaderboards, especially, I think our replay systems work quite well, because you can compare yourself and there are hidden things that you can unlock later. So your 10 hours is just your first playthrough.
GI: When you say hidden things, is the Buick coming back?
Eggebrecht: (Laughs) Oh boy, its good that you remind me of that one. Yeah, it could.
GI: It could?
Eggebrecht: It could. Maybe. (Laughs)
GI: Good. We want Rudys Buick in there. Its like a staple.
Eggebrecht: Yeah, I know. Theres like a couple of staples in there, including our hilarious logo trailers.
GI: Cool! Downloadable content?
Eggebrecht: Thats something were thinking about. There is, of courseyou always have to make a couple of sacrifices for shipping the thing. Theres a couple of points where we cut out parts of the story, and we kept it in place so we could re-insert subplots here and there into the whole thing, and I hope its going to happen.
GI: How far in development, and when can we see it? Spring is very vague.
Eggebrecht: Basically, by all definitions, pretty much everything is there. Now its optimization and really getting the difficulty curve right and really getting everything tweaked right. All of the systems are there. All of the unlockingeverything is there. Would I want to give it to you? No, because it needs to be tweaked right. Its a 80-90%, but those last 10% are actually the hardest onesbecause theyre going to make the game really perfect or not so.
GI: Are you still on target for spring?
Eggebrecht: Yeah. I know when were going to deliver, but Sonys not going to ship it the next day. They need to determine whats the perfect day for the platform.
GI: How have your overall experiences been with the hardware?
Eggebrecht: Its an interesting ramp-up, interesting in terms of challenginglike I said before, less so than the PS2, but certainly moreso than, say, the GameCube, which was extremely easy. But thats to be expected, because thats where the power is. If its too easy, then as weve seen with the GameCube, theres no headroom. We had a terrible time trying to squeeze more out of that system for Rebel Strike. On the PS3, the skys the limit. Im happy that we got as much from it as we do right now, but we could go on for three years developing that engine and we know that the system will bear it. Thats the genius of Kutaragis designstheres so much headroom. And that makes the start up harder. But when you cross a certain threshold for the system and you know what to avoid and what to do right and how you write efficient code, how to basically have the Cell really talking in an optimized way with RSX, at that point its an exponential increase in productivity with what weve seen. At this point, its really going fantastically. Its great hardwareit really is.
GI: With your N64 titles and your GameCube titles, you were at the mercy of Nintendos always unique and different controllers. For example, the digital click on the GameCube controller.
Eggebrecht: That was perfect, by the way, for Rogue Leader. For most other games, it didnt workit was as though they put that feature in for us. Thanks, Miyamoto-san.
GI: What was it like switching to the PS2 controllerits kind of the standard at this point?
Eggebrecht: When you say that the PS3 controller is the PS2 controller, I would disagree actually. There are subtle improvements, which I think were very important. The shape is not exactly the same, with slight differences.
GI: And the triggers.
Eggebrecht: And the triggersa big, big thing for us. When there were discussions going around about the controllers, what I was pushing for most were the triggers, I remember, and that was kind of a no-brainer that they would put it inthe triggers and the motion control, obviously. Everything else is great. Its the only controller that if you ask people from all over the worldincluding Asiathey say it feels fine for their hands. We saw back in the day with Nintendo, they had an early prototype for the GameCube controller, which had longer handles in a very funny way resembling the early prototype for the PS3the Boomerang. The funny thing for those of us watching was Westerners loved thatit was fantastic, because we tend to have larger hands. But apparently, and thats when they went with the stubby one for the final GameCube controller, it was a real problem for Asian people. So the PS2 controller, or that basic concept, is really the only controller that really works with everybody in a really nice way. And its got the symmetry. I do appreciate the fact that the two analog sticks are on the same level. If you look at the controller, its very symmetric, in terms of feeling, and thats very Japanese. Sony of Japan feels strongly about it, and rightfully soits important. I think it makes it easier to adapt to the controller than any out there.
GI: You mentioned in an interview that your next project will be a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network.
Eggebrecht: Were talking about that, and yeah, were working on some stuffon small projects. Were also working on large stuff, of course, but the EDI platform
As you can imagine, after two-and-a-half-years, people are a little burned out, especially people who have burned the midnight oil for a long time, and the EDI stuff is just perfect to say, All right, lets do this wacky little idea. Lets not spend a lot of money on it, lets not take a risk and get it out there, and if people love it, it might be a mini franchise. Or it might fail, but at least it didnt cost that much.
GI: What about bringing some of your older titles over on that?
Eggebrecht: in the context of what I mentioned there, which was EDI titles specifically for the first-party initiative, I dont think that the current thinking from Phil Harrison is that under the worldwide studios umbrella he wants to see too many straight ported older titles. Having said that though, youve seen Midways announcement. The network platform is open to everybody, so there are other routes of releasing that content on network platform, and Im sure that its going to come. We have been in some talks about rereleasing some of our old Turrican titles for the platform, but nothings been finished yet. Id love to do it.
No, I don't.
