InFAMOUS 2 Questions and Answers

We have this approach of doing big things and little things to improve. We have some really big things, that are brand new, like vertical kickers. We found that sometimes you just don't want to spend the time going all the way up a building, so we have these – the way to think about them, is as vertical grind poles. They go straight up and shoot you really high up. We've got brand new powers where you get to – we call it the car jump – where if you jump on a car it'll actually springboard you up to get you faster and higher.

And the variety of neighbourhoods lend [themselves] to different rooftop heights and stuff like that. We've put the grind rails in between a lot of buildings now so there's a lot of that 'Tony Hawk feel' if you will, on top of the rooftops. Let's put it this way, by the end of Infamous 1, I don't think there was a need to get into a car, and there's certainly no need to get in a car in Infamous 2. [laughs]

Well, that's tough to say… I know what that question is trying to get to. In Infamous 1 you went through a Reaper town, right? Then you moved on to some other guys and you progressed that way. Well, the main factions in this one are going to be the Militia, the Corrupted, and we've shown bits and pieces of the ice gang – Vermac 88, so they're going to be appearing together. So you've seen many videos of ours already where you've seen the Corrupted and Militia acting together, so there's no real part that's just the Corrupted area, or the Militia. The bottom line is the Militia are all over New Marais, and they're purists. They don't want anything to do with any Conduits or anyone that carries a superpower gene or whatever. And then the Corrupted, well, they hate everybody. They just want everybody out of New Marais, so it isn't so much a segregation of action.

[Structurally,] in Infamous 1, you progressed and cleared out neighbourhoods – that's the same style as what we're doing here, with the side missions where you go in and do a side-mission and clear out that part of the neighbourhood. I think that was a lot of fun. We did the same thing for Infamous 2 as far as that's concerned. So, yes on one side, no on the other side! [laughs]

There are new ways to travel. Trust me, we have some surprises that we aren't going to reveal. There are some big powers actually, some big parkour powers that we haven't revealed yet. [In terms of size], it's relatively the same size. If anything New Marais is bigger. The difference there is that Infamous 1 was three islands whereas Infamous 2 is two islands, and sort of like this swamp blockade area that we have. The main storyline does develop on two islands though.

I think one of the cooler parts about it is that there's a lot more variety out there in the districts themselves.

Let's put it this way. Outside of story missions, if you just parkour around our city, you'll have just as much fun, if not more fun, in New Marais than you did in Empire City. It's not about the size, it's about the fun factor for us.

Well, the functionality is a little bit different in [your] powers this time around. What he's referring to is that in Infamous 1 there were a lot of RPG elements. There's still some of that – some of the upgrades, but more importantly, it's not about upgrading the grenades, say, three stages of good and three stages of bad, like we did, right? We just have six to eight options, of different grenades. You choose now, which ones you want to go into a battle scenario with, allowing you a directional left to make those quick switches. You can go from one to another - just like that. [clicks fingers] It's more about the variety and variances of the powers rather than the upgrading of powers. Now don't get me wrong – there are some powers that you can still upgrade, but [it's about choice]…

Coming back to the RPG aspect I was talking about, I want to make sure there's a distinction here. In Infamous 1, if you take grenades and you upgrade them three levels, it felt like we were keeping these powers [the three for the opposite karma] away from you. In the variances now, let's say you've got eight. There's still going to be two or three that are associated with karma, but you still get five or six more, you just don't get two or three.

Well, the functionality is a little bit different in [your] powers this time around. What he's referring to is that in Infamous 1 there were a lot of RPG elements. There's still some of that – some of the upgrades, but more importantly, it's not about upgrading the grenades, say, three stages of good and three stages of bad, like we did, right? We just have six to eight options, of different grenades. You choose now, which ones you want to go into a battle scenario with, allowing you a directional left to make those quick switches. You can go from one to another - just like that. [clicks fingers] It's more about the variety and variances of the powers rather than the upgrading of powers. Now don't get me wrong – there are some powers that you can still upgrade, but [it's about choice]…

Coming back to the RPG aspect I was talking about, I want to make sure there's a distinction here. In Infamous 1, if you take grenades and you upgrade them three levels, it felt like we were keeping these powers [the three for the opposite karma] away from you. In the variances now, let's say you've got eight. There's still going to be two or three that are associated with karma, but you still get five or six more, you just don't get two or three.

Will there be more evil/good choices you need to make throughout the game than the first infamous, and do these choices have an impact on how your game ends?

You absolutely get to impact the way the game ends… Within the main storyline itself we have much bigger changes that go through it. We know that players loved playing the [original] game twice, so we decided about 20-25% of the game is actually going to be exclusive content for one side or the other. And so, [karma's] a really big choice. And of course, some of these choices have even cooler consequences, like the Kuo or Nix choice, where you either get the ice powers or the napalm/fire-based powers. So those are the big changes that we made – the big choices that players make, but we've got a lot of little stuff too.

We tried to make it so you have even more opportunities to both express your karmic state, but in addition to that, one of the funner things we do is that we try to entice you to go the opposite route. Our favourite [example] is the Blast Shard carrier. We've brought back Blast Shards from Infamous 1. They're these collectables that power you up, and to the average pedestrian they're just kinda cool looking things, so we decided that – you know what? – let's say some of the pedestrians picked up some of these Blast Shards. If you're playing good and you want that Blast Shard? The only way to get it is to knock 'em down. So it's a really tiny moment in the game, but we tried to pepper those all around the world.

Will water still be dangerous to Cole after he gets the ice power?

Yes. You still can't just jump in a pool and swim around and do laps.

Solid state, liquid state. [laughs]

In inFAMOUS, every time we got a new power, the sewer sequences created a series of challenges tailored to getting you used to the aforementioned new power. How will they introduce the powers in inFAMOUS 2 and get players acclimated to the new skill?

The way that you get powers this time around is through Blast Cores, and so one of the reasons that you're going all the way back to New Marais is that you've found out that Blast Cores are the way to get powered up. You've got to get powered up in time before the Beast arrives. You've got to be strong enough to face him. So the Blast Cores are really the key… you collect these during the main storyline, and that's when you get the new powers.

So no more sewers. It's all within the environment. The sewers sort of felt like it was a separate part of the game. We want to keep people in the main story, in the main environment.

Dear Sucker Punch, I'm a huge Infamous fan! One question I'm extremely interested in is whether there will be interior environments this time around, in any capacity? An open-world to me isn't "complete" without there being buildings or small interior places one can venture in. Please tell me they're there!

Actually, we have a mission called Forced Conduits, and the coolest thing about Forced Conduits for me is that we have these huge warehouses that – once you go inside it, you can blast your way out. So it's not just a big warehouse, it's a warehouse where we kind of remind you that you're an amazing super hero. And so, you don't want to use the door? Make your own door.

That's the key, right? It's not necessarily about the indoor environment. It's about [the fact that] you're a super hero – it's not going to contain you, regardless of whether you're inside or not. Why go through the door when you can knock the wall down? It's all about that feeling of being powerful. And that speaks to another thing that we've improved – all the breakables. You wouldn't have been able to do that in Infamous 1.

How persistent is that destruction?

We actually have two answers for that, because a lot of stuff in the main storyline; we wanted to make sure that the choices really mattered, so we actually have persistent changes in the environment, but for the most part, for things like verandas, or that warehouse that you can knock down, we actually had an internal debate for a little while – do we [make this persistent]? I guess it's more real, but at the end of the day the thing that we kept coming back to is – which one's more fun? And I think it's actually just way more fun if, after you leave for a little bit and you come back, you get to knock down that warehouse again and again and again. It's so much fun to do!

To summarize that whole viewpoint on persistent versus not, here's how it breaks down. If it's a choice of yours and a karmic choice - for example, [in one of the trailers] you've seen the trolley running into that building, when Nix tells you to do that – that building will be permanently scarred throughout the game. However, if it wasn't a karmic choice - you've seen the Behemoth coming down the street and it's breaking all that stuff; that's not your choice, and that will eventually be rebuilt. That's the differentiation.

Can we expect to see Kessler again? Is Cole on the path to become what he's seen he'll become or is he carving a new path?

Hmm. If I was a reader I don't think I would want that spoiled so we're going to hold those story spoilers for now.

Everything we've released around the game [so far] has been around features, not necessarily the story too much. The main storyline we're featuring right now is 'the Beast is coming' – that's all you need to know. Trust me. We'll have many surprises within that.

Will we actually get to interact with the beast at the start of the game through some kinda of fight that involves gameplay. or will it just be skipped in a cutscene? Basically do we get to stay in empire city long enough to fight the beast through gameplay if so AWSOME.

You will have live interaction with the Beast in Empire City.

We don't want to spoil too much.

We're going to have a lot of cinematic flair as well.

Exactly what will carry over from the saved data from the first game? Blast shards? Karma? Powers? etc?

We actually honestly haven't figured that out yet. What we have figured out is – yes, you will be able to take your save game with you. Now, what bonuses we offer that Infamous 1 player that finished the game and transfers out over to Infamous 2, we're still trying to work that out, but it will happen. We want to make sure that people know – if you haven't played Infamous 1, a) go play it!, but if you haven't, you're not going to get punished. You're just going to start setting your karmic state right off the bat. Everybody gets the same powers and everything like that. [The players that did finish Infamous 1] will just be able to get their karmic state and there'll be a few other bonuses…

Hey, I was wondering if you had any plans for co-op in Infamous? For this game or future games? Thanks!

You know, when we first started developing the game, we looked at it all. Move, co-op, multiplayer, everything. We looked at it all. For our game, we thought – wow, can we really pull UGC [user-generated content] off in an open-world game? And I think we did it, so the concentration was [on] UGC.

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InFAMOUS 2 will be available in stores June 7, 2011.