팟캐스트 3: 다크니스의 귀환

ELIZABETH: Welcome to the third episode in The Darkness II podcast series. I'm Elizabeth Tobey, and today I'm joined by Tom and Ryan at Digital Extremes to talk about the return of The Darkness and how the story evolved from the first game into what The Darkness II now is today.

TOM: I'm Tom Galt; I'm the Lead Designer of The Darkness II.

RYAN: My name's Ryan Mole, the Lead Narrative Designer of The Darkness II.

ELIZABETH: So we're talking about the narrative of The Darkness II and how it relates to the comics, the series, and the entire universe. Let's just talk about your inspirations for the game story. How did you guys decide what the story would be and how it ties into the first game?

RYAN: Well, we worked with Paul Jenkins who was the writer from many of the comic books and the first game, and he came to us with a great concept for a story. He pitched to us and we worked with him over a long period of time to develop it into what you play when you play the game.

ELIZABETH: In terms of the world of the comics and the world of the first game, how does this story and this narrative tie in?

RYAN: When it comes to the comics, we're definitely more in the world of the first video game which departs from the comics a little bit, but also stays true to a lot of the core narrative and that sort of thing.

TOM: We've taken a lot of the characters and the themes of the comic books and played off of that, and definitely with The Brotherhood and what this all is it's much more supernatural and comic-book-style than the first game.

RYAN: We definitely take a lot of elements from the comic book, [the] sameness of the characters and that sort of thing, much in the same way the first game did, but our game, I think it's more fantastical than what's in the first game. Certainly not to going too far with that, but we definitely have a new art style. And I think, as much as the art style has changed also, our move into a bit more of the fantasy that we see in the comic books is kind of the direction our game is going; without getting--let's say--silly. It's still a hardcore game.

TOM: Yeah, The Darkness is still a crazy supernatural thing that's not common in this world, but compared to the first game, there's a lot more shit going on than just Jackie. So it kind of approaches the comic books a bit more without getting too crazy on it.

RYAN: I don't think this is a spoiler, but we have other characters in the game that understand who Jackie is and what The Darkness is and they respond accordingly and they even have the ability to use a little bit of that power for themselves. So it means we have much tougher enemies to fight and enemies that are a little bit more capable of taking on the super-demon killing machine that Jackie is because you can't expect a mere mobster to stand up to that.

ELIZABETH: We talk about The Darkness but I don't think we've talked about what The Darkness is before. Can you talk a little bit about what The Darkness is and how it fits in terms of the narrative? And this is a sort of a two-part question: Since we're a video game, how do you really take that concept and apply it to gameplay?

TOM: The Darkness is almost like the genie in the bottle; the evil genie in the bottle. It's this force that you never see and never really know exactly what it is. It's ancient, but it wants out. It wants to wreak havoc and kill people and its Jackie's will that keeps it bottled up inside. It wants nothing more than to come out. You know, it's fun to work with, because with The Darkness, you can do just about anything. That was something we learned from reading the comic books. It's almost limitless; only hemmed in by our imagination and what make sense for our gameplay. So it was a lot of fun brainstorming and coming up with interesting things for Jackie to do and for us to use as scenarios in the game. Really it was about what will build on the core combat of the demon arms and the guns and make sense for us and kind of interplay with that kind of mechanic; that was what our guiding principle was in creating this Darkness based kind of gameplay that we have.

RYAN: With the narrative, The Darkness really wants to…would like nothing more than to have absolute control over Jackie and have Jackie simply be his puppet. But unlike previous hosts--and The Darkness is hereditary if you read the comic books--Jackie is a lot stronger and able to push back and control it and make The Darkness do his will so there's this constant fight between the two of them within Jackie's head over what Jackie should do. Even though he's a mobster, Jackie kind of has to fight to keep himself and not turn completely to the dark side.

TOM: Yeah, it's really kind of fun playing Jackie because he is a badass, he is a hit man, but we portray him in a more positive light than that.

RYAN: Yeah, he's really the good thief in a way. He cares for his family and everyone around him; he cares for the girl he's lost: Jennie. He's quite human, and this Darkness is pushing him more and more to do evil things and sometimes because of his line of work and who he has to deal with, he would have to do those things anyway, so he doesn't complain when The Darkness can help him do what he needs to do.

ELIZABETH: So obviously there are enemies who want The Darkness. Can you talk a little bit about why they want it so badly?

RYAN: It's the most powerful force on earth.

TOM: Yeah, who wouldn't want it?

RYAN: The people who come after Jackie know The Darkness's power; they might be oblivious or ignoring the great responsibility and the downsides of it that Jackie knows all too well. But they want it for themselves and Jackie knows if he gives it to them bad things are going to happen to him and bad things are going to happen to the people around him so he's not going to give it up.

ELIZABETH: So in terms of The Darkness itself, you guys talk about how its limitless and how that it's held in only in terms of gameplay. How does The Darkness manifest itself in Jackie and in gameplay throughout the course of the game?

TOM: Well the biggest way it manifests itself is in the demon arms and the Darkling. These are sort of Jackie's core abilities. He has this slashing demon arm and really this is the most fun because you can use it to knock enemies around, cut them in half, chop up their bodies in little pieces and then pick them up and throw them at other enemies. The amusement you can get from that really knows no end. And then, of course, you have a grab demon arm as well to pick up objects in the environment and use them as weapons in combat. My personal favorite is the riot shield that you create from a car door. So you grab a car door, you then hold it in front of yourself and can use it to block bullets and when you're done with it, you can then throw it at enemies to kill them.

RYAN: Like a disk so it will slice them in half, which, that also is also endlessly entertaining.

TOM: Trying to target different limbs and slice them off is a little mini-game you can give yourself when you're playing The Darkness.

RYAN: Or little multiple enemies in a row, that sort of thing.

ELIZABETH: My favorite is the parking meter javelin.

TOM: Yes, nailing guys to walls with parking meters is always fun. And the Darkling or course, he is sort of Jackie's sidekick in this one. In the first game, there were multiple Darklings and they had a gameplay tool. And they were kind of funny, but they didn't really have developed personalities and I think that's the big thing we're doing in the second game here: we've decided to focus on one Darkling and give him an affable personality. So this is a character that is with you throughout the game, just like any other character; except he also has a gameplay potential. So he kills guys for you, he brings you ammo and guns, and he's just fun to be around; he makes you laugh and makes you smile. On top of that, he does have a role in the narrative that without him, Jackie would probably be lost to The Darkness.

RYAN: All our powers are about comboing between different things. Having that Quad-Wielding and having four different options for attacking someone at any given time really makes the gameplay interesting. You can really freestyle on how you're going to deal with an encounter. I think there's going to be a lot of replayability in this game.

ELIZABETH: What were some of the biggest challenges and the biggest wins you had in terms of the story? I'm assuming it didn't just come to you easily. You said that you worked a lot to revise it, to make it work with gameplay.

RYAN: I think the biggest challenge we had with the story was coming up with, or not telling too much. We have so much to explore with this character and there's so many possibilities with what can happen with the different places that The Darkness can take you and that sort of thing…

ELIZABETH: Show don't tell?

RYAN: Show don't tell.

ELIZABETH: Don't ramble?

RYAN: Don't ramble. No these are all good things. What I'm trying not to imply is that, like, this story is small in scope. A lot of this, making the story for the game has been like making a movie where you shoot hours and hours and hours of footage and you have to get it down to that concise-length movie that everybody sits and enjoys and feels is just right. We think we're there, but it took us a while to get there and there were definitively a lot of different revisions of the script, lots of different dialog but we think we've gotten to a point where it feels really tight and good, and really complements the gameplay and doesn't confuse you or leave you dissatisfied at the end.

ELIZABETH: And final question, what are you most proud of?

RYAN: Tom you want to go first?

TOM: I'm thinking about in terms of story, I think it's the overall journey that Jackie takes throughout it that we're letting the player experience. It's one of the few character-driven stories in an FPS and it's been really interesting in how we've merged this type of story with our gameplay. We're telling a very emotional story, and character-driven story, but at the same time have a really fast-paced and violent video game. It's been challenging merging those two together, but I'm really proud of our end result.

RYAN: I tend to agree. We've got a story that I think works outside our video game, but it also works so well within our video game. The type of video game we're making doesn't always lend itself to story, but I think we've managed to merge the two in a way that‘s really exciting and also entertaining.

ELIZABETH: Thanks for joining me, Tom, and Ryan for the third episode of our podcast series. We'll be back next time to talk more in depth about the characters you'll meet throughout the game and the roles they play.