Kane & Lynch 2 Interview

15 Jan 2010 at 17:13:09 by

Kane & Lynch is a franchise used to a spot of controversy. Despite the lukewarm reception to the first game, we're glad to see our favourite dysfunctional criminal duo back in Dog Days. It was created by the great IO Interactive, and this time it's convinced it's got it nailed.  We caught up with Carsten Lund, game director, and Hakan Abrak, producer, to find out more about the new visual style, game mechanic and story.

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We start off by asking why someone would buy Kane & Lynch 2 if they already owned a third person shooter like Gears of War.

CL: Look at this guy. [He gestures to player characters] He needs to be on the screen, right? We need to know where he is and look at him, and feel what he feels, and see what he sees, and all that stuff, so I think he has a space there on the screen. I happen to love third-person shooters. They're great. It's much easier to navigate when you can actually see the guy in front of you, and where he is on the ground, and where to relate him to the environment, so for us it was a no-brainer. Plus, Kane & Lynch 1 was a third-person shooter.

Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. It didn't do particularly well. What's been done for Kane & Lynch 2 to get rid of all the negativity - and you know what I'm talking about - that was associated with the first game?

CL: Of course it was a blow for us. It wasn't nice to get these kind of reviews, and we had to make some very professional decisions around this. First of all, we decided that in the first game you kind of have two games, right? The tactical soldier military element and the crime shooter, and we needed to make a decision. What is the core of this game? We chose the criminal urban shooter instead, and made sure that the game features and that the game mechanics fit that particular genre. Then we have the character of Lynch, and he's also demanding in that way - he needs the features to fit his characteristics, and his way of life, and what he is. So we created a short list of things we wanted to address in the game - the cover system, the aiming and the shooter, the AI, the fact that the art was a little bit dated, and the fact that we didn't have online co-op. We added the online co-op, and I think it's very clear that we fixed the whole art perspective of things, and we've spent a lot of time testing and doing user research and all sorts to make sure that these final core mechanics actually do work.

HA: Well, you could definitely say that there was a lot of attention around Kane & Lynch 1. I'm not sure it was all negative - I mean, I think Kane & Lynch 1 was a huge success. It sold very well, but it got some mixed reviews, and to be honest there were obviously some problems with some of the mechanics; the core shooter part, and the cover system... But I think that there was also a lot of interesting stuff in Kane & Lynch 1. The characters, the story, the atmosphere, the whole setting. I think it's really interesting as a franchise, and that's why we pursued it again.

It's difficult, because these core mechanics you've worked on now have to fit with a very unique art style. How did you come up with the art style, and how did you implement it? It's very... "documentary feel" is the phrase that's being used.

CL: [Nods] It is. How did we come up with it? How do ideas come up, right? We used the collective effort of our team and we all thought that this is where the world is. YouTube is the place you go to see stuff that's real, and when you watch television you want to see stuff that's real - reality television, and all that stuff. That's a very clear visual signature. I think when we started toying around with these ideas and started implementing them, we were really surprised at how well it actually works. It really captures this feeling of credibility. I think that if you want to make something credible, it's not enough to turn up the texture resolution. You need to make sure that everything you do points in the same direction.

On that note, is it kind of a cheat? You're not using the hardware to its maximum potential - or are you, in a different way?

CL: Oh yes. We're totally pushing it in every aspect. It's not only the visual style - if it was only the visual style you would have noticed it straight away, I think. It's also in the way everything moves in the location, and the way the audio plays. We've got lots of filtering going on with the audio to create this vibe. The fact that there's no thematic music playing, there's no violins kicking in once you need to feel the action - we're using other methods of imposing those feelings onto you. So there are lots of decisions going in to create this atmosphere.

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