Roundtable with Visceral Games on Dante’s Inferno
Recently we were able to take part in a round table with Visceral Games Jonathan Knight, creative director for their upcoming game Dante’s Inferno. Throughout the round table ourselves as well as a few other media outlets were able to ask questions and pick the brain of the man behind the game, asking everything from why Dante? to Whats up with the ad campaign?
Dante’s Inferno hits store shelves on Feb 09 2010 for PS3 and 360
Enjoy
*Note: Our recording of the interview became pretty messed up towards the end so my apologies if some of the questions and/or answers aren’t direct representations
Q: Why did you choose specifically Dante’s Inferno as opposed to the any other types of medieval literature out there (IE Beowolf)?
I was really interested in the topic of the medieval vision of hell and the afterlife, I think the very first idea was to make a game that deals with that topic head on and not like an ancient vision of hell, or folklore vision of hell or even a sci-fi vision of hell. More like how did real medieval European Christians really think hell would be like and to do that kind of topic square on in a videogame. That was a topic I was researching and it was pretty much the one name that rises up above all the others and Dante incredibly synthesizes about 100 years of thought about medieval afterlife would be like, who goes there and why what are they punished for what are the sins….how is it structured. I read it (the divine comedy) it was so full of material that it seemed like rather than borrowing a couple ideas from it we should tackle that vision and do a game loosely based on the poem.
Q: Unlike any other type of source it actually has levels (Divine Comedy)
He’s sort of known for mapping hell. Pretty much any copy of the book you pick up will have a map on the inside cover and you know it’s part of that ongoing creative impulse to try and visualize and draw and map out his mental picture of hell, Which is very structured there’s 9 circles, each one has a boss character/guardian, each circle has specific weather and geography. It’s an incredible map and for centuries people have been drawing that map in their own way and just feel the game is an extension of that ongoing tradition of visualizing his world.
Q: From the conceptual stages were there any challenges to maintain focus to make sure you met deadline? Since you could have gone hog wild in regards to subject matter?
There’s always deadline in game development, there is always a box you have to play in. Fortunately EA has been incredibly supportive of the project and we’ve been given a lot of resources to build the game. We feel we’ve had a good time to build the game, it’s very polished and we’re really happy with the end product but of course I don’t think we have achieved the full extent of Dante’s imagination. There are entire monsters and sequences we didn’t get to. His imagination is much bigger than what we could do in one game. We said from the beginning that we wanted to do a game that was super fun to play and entertaining that we were going to be focusing on his vision of the geography, the characters, setting the themes and that we were going to do all 9 circles of hell. When it comes to some of the more sophisticated elements of the poem and some of the more I would say high brow aspects of the poem, I think those are kind of best left for a reading of the original material. The game is not meant to be a replacement or substitute for the original material. What we’re finding and hearing from fans is that they are interested in reading the poem now because the game got them interested, they’re learning more about Dante and the Divine Comedy its more of a gateway into that whole world and it’s kind of cool it worked out that way.
Q: During game play the user has the focus of the unholy and holy powers, how important is that as an element to development and how does it affect the storyline? Does it have a different ending depending on which one you focus on?
That aspect of the game I would say is largely a game play design decision that impacts the game play throughout the game. We never intended that to be something that would divert the story into a truly holy story or unholy story the game does come together in the end with one ending. For us it was kind of a way of saying here is a guy who is very conflicted, he’s done a lot of bad things, he also has a lot of good in him also, you know like most people. He’s got opposing weapons, he has a very holy cross power that is very magical and spiritual in nature it’s more about crowd control and less about bludgeoning people. It’s more about the setup. Then he has this brutal savage scythe that he can cut peoples heads off with. We wanted to offer those two types of play styles and upgrade trees and the whole system ties into that, there are holy magic and unholy magic, holy relics and unholy relics. At the end of the day it’s all about crafting your play style, your version of that hero.
Q: Is visceral considering a trilogy since the divine comedy is essentially a 3 part book, inferno, purgatory and paradise? Or will it all be part of the first game?
There aren’t any plans to announce today regarding future projects. I can say that we have some really exciting DLC coming for inferno that will be more than just items and skins there’s def going to be an extension to the fiction and some pretty significant DLC associated with the game. It’s kind of what the team is focusing on right now. When inferno comes out there, we will see how people respond to it and hopefully we’ll have more to talk about in the future.
Q: Did you guys draw upon artist that have already made depictions of the Divine Comedy such as Sandra Bordechelle or Gustov Dore or is this something you guys all devised straight from the text?
A little bit of both. We definitely had a tremendous and exciting research phase; there is so much material out there. As you mentioned Botechelle is essentially the first artist to do an illustrated version of the Divine Comedy that’s roughly a generation or two after Dante. We studied all of that and plastered it on walls we were influenced by all of it, I would say August Rodan was probably one of the bigger influences you’ll see Rodan inspired sculptures in the game and his gates of hell are literally replicated in the game in the first level of the game as you break into hell. He spent like 10 years with the poem and he just really captured the torment of the damned so he was a big part of it. Dore was a huge inspiration I think you’ll see his King Lenos looks a lot like ours only ours is a little darker and angrier because it’s a videogame. All those guys, I actually came across a series of watercolors by Salvadore Daly based on the Divine Comedy pretty late in production, I didn’t even know Daly had done the divine comedy. William Blake, you know a lot of those medieval painters like Bosh who did scenes from the afterlife but not specifically Dante, but their kind of in that medieval weirdness, those sort of crazy visions of hell. I think that kind of inspired most of the gluttony stuff. One of the biggest influences was Wayne Barlow who is kind of a 20th century guy who did hell with his painting “Barlow’s inferno” and he’s a working concept artist in the film business and we contracted him and he did a lot of the initial drawings for us. We wanted something that felt like it was in the tradition but we also wanted to do our own thing and branch out to give it a fresh feel…so I guess a little bit of both
Q: With the comparison to God of War and other action franchises, what you are trying to do to set yourself apart from other games like that?
We are flattered with those comparisons. God of War is the granddaddy of the genre right now and I think they were influenced by Devil May Cry before that. A strong tradition of Japanese fighting games has influenced what is going on in this genre in the west. We are big fans of Bayonetta. I think all those games are influences and we are super flattered to even be mentioned as part of that. We try to set ourselves apart in a couple of key ways, was really tackling that medieval Christian myth of the divine comedy and really try to take a piece of literature and obviously a lot of things change about it and we turn it into a action game but really try to deliver that adaptation of a piece of literature and do levels that have never really been done before. The horror of those specific sins. On the game play side we wanted to create a character that had a duality to him and rather than just one style of finishing off enemies over and over, we wanted to give you two paths and allow you to earn experience on either a holy path or an unholy path.
Q: With the animated movie that coincides with the project and other such things that were outsourced. How much did Visceral oversee these projects?
We spent a lot of time overseeing those projects and we co-produced all of them. It was really important that the creative team at visceral be directing involved in creating and approving of these products. We really had to be hands on with our partners to make sure everything was faithful to the base material.
Q: We’ve heard some rumors of achievements for things such as killing babies, drowning a priest, hanging people, being defecated on. Can you confirm these?
There are definitely some fake achievements out there that are generating some discussion. I’ll just say don’t believe everything you see on the internet. I’ll give you a hint, we do a marketing campaign every month reflecting one of the 9 circles, and this month is fraud.(Laughs)
Q: The multi-tiered campaign seems to be pretty hit or miss with the critics right now. Now aside from trying to sell games of course, what was the other driving force to go with such an extreme add campaign?
The marketing campaign basically is branded the 9 months of hell and what we’ve been doing the last 8 months leading up the final month now is named each month after one of the circles of hell so lust gluttony greed anger and so fourth. It was really intended to refresh people’s memories about the Divine Comedy and the notion of the 9 circles of hell which is very unique to Dante.
Along with that was a kind of stunt if you will to draw attention to that month’s sin. Some of those I think were more successful than others but they were all meant in a tongue and cheek fashion to kind of bring attention to those sins which definitely have humorous elements to them.
Q: The PS3 version of the game is coming with some extra content. At some point will this content be available for 360?
Ah yes, that will be available for the 360. The divine edition will come with that content for free.
Q: How does the level design vary circle to circle and how do you try to separate them from one another?
We’re really proud of the level design in the game and we had an amazing team to do that. Our philosophy was to really try and mix it up, make each circle of hell feel really different, introduce some kind of new design element. There is a lot of combat in the game and that’s definitely what we focused on showing as visually it’s really eye catching however there is a lot of puzzles in the game, a lot of adventure. One of the cool things about the game, it never really goes black or load in the next level. It’s really a continuous decent down through the 9 circles of hell. So you really feel like you’re making this physical journey. From one circle to the next there is a decent sequence that Dante is using ropes repelling cliffs, sometimes there’s combat and puzzles, environmental puzzles, bosses mini bosses. We definitely just wanted to mix things up as much as possible. There are a lot of different things going on.
Q: A lot of games with similar content seem to get a lot of flak. Dantes Inferno hasn’t seemed to have gotten the same level of flak as some of those other games. Why do you think that is? (This question was very hard to hear on the recording so I hope I got it somewhere in the right ballpark)
Certainly once the game is out there and once more people are playing it I’m sure we’ll get a lot more feedback on the content. I feel the game is very fantastical in nature, I feel the original vision of hell from the Divine Comedy is also very fantastical in nature. I think people sort of get that. We’re taking these concepts like the 9 circles of hell and we’re doing the videogame version of those sins. I think if we didn’t push the boundaries of that topic and imagery then we wouldn’t really be doing a game about hell. We’d have a disappointment from our audience as we wanted to explore what hell would be like. We’re pretty confident those things are appropriate for the content, they’re definitely stylized and exaggerated because it’s a videogame but they’re fantastical and in the context of the setting.
Q: How do you feel about the early criticism that you guys bastardized the original poem?
Well my response is basically, yes we have done a very loose adaptation, sure it’s bastardization in the sense it is kind of a bastard child of the original material. I think that is completely fair. We definitely used the source material for the foundation of the game; we are very familiar with it. I think if anyone plays the game they will recognize hundreds and hundreds of references and they’re going to see we injected the game with a tremendous amount of material from the poem. If anything we want people to go out and read the original poem. A lot of people will pick it up because of this game. It can’t be a bad thing.
Q: Many games in the action genre can have issues with allowing the player connect emotionally with the games protagonist while some games are really good at it. How do you expect players to connect with Dante in the situation he’s in?
I think it’s going to really vary to be honest with you. Our version of Dante is a dark troubled character, in the beginning of the game he’s fairly unlikeable he’s done a lot of bad things that he thinks he’s done them for good reasons. There’s a lot about him to not like for sure. I think that’s something you can only do in a game. If our Dante is up on the big screen as opposed to the game I don’t know if you could make that journey with him since he’s such an anti-hero. He does redeeming qualities, he does truly love this woman and you sort of see how that plays out. Our goal was to make a character that seems likes he’s got it coming to him at the beginning of the game but by the end of the game you feel different about him. You’re on this journey as a gamer and you can’t help having fun killing demons and enjoying the things he enjoys doing….is he a role model? Probably not and I think there will be an interesting debate there.
