Possession – First Look Preview

Whilst at EGN, TVG unearthed quite a few gems from LEGO Star Wars, to Championship Manager Online, to Possession. Now we can imagine that there are a lot of you sat at your monitors, scratching yours heads thinking, â??Whatâ??s Possession?â?

Possession is a game currently in development at Blitz Games for â??next-genâ?? consoles and PC, and will make use of Blitzâ??s in-house toolset that includes â??Flameâ??, which TVG reported on last month. At EGN, Blitz talked to TVG behind closed doors about their plans for Possession, and how the Flame tool helps to create the awesome degrading and damage effects witnessed within in the game.

The game is a revenge zombie title; you play the zombie remains of a traveller who was kidnapped by the population of an American town. The population did experiments on you, and turned you into the un-dead zombie master called â??The Enslaverâ?. What follows is a story of revenge as you discover that you can turn anybody into zombies that you can then control. Blitz aims to have players control the zombies in two ways. Youâ??ll either be able to control a multiple of zombies as you can in RTS titles, or you will be able to â??possessâ?? one your minions and control it in first-person perspective. If your zombie gets attacked and perhaps decapitated, then the body will pick up the head and carry it along with rest of it. If your legs are taken away, then all youâ??ll get is a worms eye view of the world.

At the moment, Blitz has out-sourced the storyline of Possession to a few Hollywood writers, some of whom have experience in the Zombie genre. This leaves us wondering whether this could be the title that George A. Romero could be working on...

The Single-Player game follows this as yet unwritten storyline, and the mode is definitely underpinned by strategy. Blitz gave the example of a petrol station where some survivors have barricaded themselves inside. If you were to send a mass of zombies to the station to overwhelm them, you may be able to kill them, but theyâ??ll certainly kill a lot of your zombies along the way. What Blitz suggests is thisâ?¦Why not send a zombie, that has been set on fire, to the petrol station and blow up the fuel tanks. You risk minimal loss of zombies, but the survivor pay-off will be huge. Obviously, the title is at a very early stage, but the fact that there is a lot of strategy underneath this gore-fest means that players expecting a shallow fight, kill, destroy game will be surprised.

At EGN, Blitz was keen to point out the multi-player mode that will feature in the game. Whilst one player will play the part of The Enslaver, the other players will play the few survivors that are left in the town. Imagine this â?“ you are a survivor. You know that there are zombies that want to eat you alive, but â?“ and hereâ??s the punch â?“ you know that the zombies arenâ??t computer controlled; they are being manipulated by a real person who can completely focus on your demiseâ?¦scary.

At EGN, Blitz showed an early test level of the FPS â??survivorâ?? feature in the multi-player game. The level was a hospital ward in an old, almost Victorian style building. Standing in the middle of the room were several zombies. Blitz explained that to create a cinematic look, they had developed a method that essentially gives each character on screen their own lighting rig. They then explained that the game will have dynamic lighting and other physical features including shooting out glass, and having the blood splatter onto the walls and pillars in the rooms. Blitz even showed the level of detail in the lino that covered the floor â?“ the dimples and imperfections in it were an amazing detail to see. The blood glistens in the light, and actually looks wet. The amputations by gun fire are gory and bloody and look totally convincing.

Blitz then showed what the Flame tool enables them to do in Possession. As we mentioned in the previous news article about Flame, it allows Blitz to double-texture a character. Zombies have a â??Goreâ?? layer of blood and muscles, and a â??Skinâ?? layer that displays their purifying flesh. The idea is that when a zombie is shot at, the hit area of skin is removed, showing the gore layer underneath. Demonstrating this, Blitz also pointed out that the skin will eventually deteriorate over time even if a zombie isnâ??t shot atâ?¦There are even plans so that if you shoot out a chandelier, the shards of glass will rip through the zombies, unveiling the gore layerâ?¦nice.

The game has already come along way, with the game evolving as a next-generation title over time. At first, it was to be for the current generation, and Blitz showed a video that showed the cartoony graphics that the game initially had â?“ the game has already come along way and the level of realism has been increased to an exceptional level, with Blitz ditching the cartoon style for photo-realism.