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Cold Fear Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
06/01/2005
Set aboard a drifting whaling ship, Cold Fear looks to shake up the survival/horror genre...
Fans of the survival/horror genre could be in for a real treat if the screenshots and information lives up to expectations. Coming from premier publisher UbiSoft, the amalgam of horror, action and tension within a compelling storyline is sure to hit the spot
Set in a dynamic environment on a stormy sea, intense combat, intelligent enemies, and a high element of the shockingly unexpected is on offer. The Player will step into the role of Tom Hansen, a U.S. Coast Guard who is sent to board a drifting Russian whaling ship in the middle of a howling storm on the Bering Sea, who will discover there is no safe place here. On this constantly rocking and shifting ship and a mysterious oil rig, players must turn their interactive surroundings to their advantage to take down human enemies â“ and enemies that aren't human any more - and save their own life.
Derek dela Fuente spoke with Antoine Villette, co-founder of Darkworks and Creative Director on Cold Fear about what innovative and frightening experience is on offer!
TVG: How difficult in the mindset of the team do they believe it is to conceptualise and create a horror action game? Do you believe expectations are higher for this genre for you are creating a unique situation and must have gamers on their toes? What are some of the guidelines you work towards?
When your ambition is to widen the perspectives of a well-established genre, many issues are raised, many new ideas surge into your mind but at the same time you have to struggle against old habits. You have to encourage people to consider the problem from a different angle and to innovate in the solutions they will propose. To achieve this, a prototype is a good means, though it is rare enough. Therefore it is crucial to communicate again and again on the vision you have, accept compromises, but without moving too far from the original concept.
Expectations are high: we have to provide all the elements that made the success of the horror genre, but also bring enough innovations and refreshing ideas, because we do not want to be charged with laziness in a well-established genre, but most of all because we want our own expectations to come true.
Thatâs why it was mandatory for us to face the challenge of creating such a demanding environment such as a storyline focused on a raging ocean. Once this step had been validated in terms of art, technique and gameplay, the challenge was to develop and deepen the concept and build something coherent in all aspects. It is a hard, often frustrating work, because you have to make many crucial choices.
But our core objectives remained the same: never let the player rest, constantly putting him under pressure, not because of frustration but thanks to the situations we built.
TVG: There has always been a debate that creating real emotions â“ to frighten a player - is beyond a video and computer game â“ what would be your comments?
I would advise that you play Cold Fear with headphones late at night⦠Speaking seriously, I think that videogames have now reached an emotional potential comparable to other media. Of course some means are still quite limited, but tremendous progress has been made each year. Moreover, the âgrammarâ for writing videogames is taking more and more consistency even if we still are at the very beginning of the process. And even if we do not have ready-made recipes for creating emotions, we now understand most of the common mistakes to be avoided.
TVG: From some of the early screenshots the game is already looking fabulous. What kind of focus will there be on special/particle effects and can you give an outline to the variety of settings the game will offer? (Is it all at sea?)
Faithfully rendering the sea, the storm and rain was our main challenge and also the first one we addressed. We used our own SFX engine and took advantage of the extraordinary talent of the artists here at Darkworks. For the indoor parts of the game, we gathered a huge documentation database which was the basis of our designersâ work, with two seemingly contradictory objectives: coherence and variety.
The Cold Fear story takes place on a Russian whaler and an oil rig which has been converted into a scientific experiment complex. The drilling platform itself is divided between several modules that are linked together with catwalks. That allows us to provide a lot of diversity in a universe that is submitted to very strict rules in terms of visuals.
TVG: Getting the in game cast right must be a big job, so do you work along the lines of trying to make them plausible and what kind of AI will they have to react and respond in sensible way?
Actually this is a very important part of the game. Thatâs why we asked Richard Dansky â“ who also worked for Ubisoft on titles such as Tom Clancyâs Ghost Recon 2 - to work on the âscript doctoringâ and dialogs. He is also the person who monitored the speech recordings. Some scenes benefited from special attentions and shall be really moving. But again, Cold Fear is essentially action-oriented and the characters are always caught by the emergency of the situation: the most present emotion for the NPCs is panic. And youâll see that this emotion will be true to you tooâ¦
TVG: Have any films or media inspired the team and if you wish to be seen as being innovative in one area where would it be?
We watched The Perfect Storm a lot. Darkworks has always been interested by the water, the marine elements, and horror on the other side. Cold Fear allows us to conciliate those interests. Moreover I think that evolving in a constantly shifting environment is quite innovative as well.
TVG: What kind moves, actions and skills are on offer for Tom Hansen?
Tom can walk (forward and backward, strafe), run, crouch, shoot and cling. It is all we needed to make the player live the Cold Fear adventure.
TVG: Could you expand on one in-game event that you are creating that really captures the essence and ethos of the game?
On the deck of the whaler washed up by breakers, Tom Hansen fires on an oil barrel that explodes, throwing to the sea the enemies that were rushing on him. But as he approaches a dead body to get some ammunition, it wakes up and rushes on him, howling.
TVG: Tell us about the technology and engine that will be running the game? Have you created your own tools and engine and what are some of the 3D engineâs interesting - unique features?
We use Renderware for the 3D and F-Mode for the audio. Everything else has been developed internally. I think that our scripting engine is the most important part of the puzzle, as it allows us to create the tension and interest of the game.
TVG: Who are you aiming the game towards and will there be any kind of censorship?
The game aims at a mature audience, so we do not have many constraints other than being coherent.
TVG: Finally, what kind of variety in terms of action, passive exploration, maybe interaction â“ does the game offer and can you play it in different ways?
During the playtests, one could already notice several game styles: the âberserkerâ, the âcautiousâ, the âmethodicalâ⦠I do not mean that the games adapts itself in real time to the player, simply that very different players find pleasure in playing the game, as they all seem to discover something that satisfy their expectations.
Thank you for your time
Cold Fear is scheduled for a European release for the Playstation2, Xbox and PC during March; weâll have more information soon.
