Spark's Craig Allen goes Legendary

CEO talks mythologically...

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Huddling on a sofa, at a screening room in London's West End, I'm interviewing Craig Allen, CEO of Spark Unlimited, who has just given us a demonstration of mythically-inspired FPS Legendary in action (a preview of which has now been published).

Given your past work on a number of prominent war-based titles, where did the idea of Legendary actually come from?

Actually we have a guy at Spark, Eric Church, our design director, and we had a lot of experience in building epic combat and this kind of cinematic experience, action sequences, and you know, the team really wanted to do something modern and something that would allow them to work different creative muscles. We wanted to be involved in the epic combat landscape, based on the experience the team has, and then it was a case of looking at the enemy.

And in looking at everything from aliens, that's been done a lot, maybe we'll do something with spectral forces, we went down the list... and came across these mythical creatures. Sure there have been games with mythical creatures, but they tend to be role-playing games. There really hasn't been a first-person action game that has taken on mythical creatures in a modern world setting.

Also, it isn't me and a werewolf, its me and werewolves. It isn't me and a griffin, its me and griffins. This scale and approach allows the team a whole new canvass to draw on.

The multiplayer experience is intriguing. How advanced is this, is it playable?

We're using a lot of the code that is in the singleplayer game, it's a bit of a different approach. This means that the singleplayer must be completed before we can undertake multiplayer work, it sort of follows organically. The early testing that we're in... its really cool. It gives you a different feel, there's sort of a chaotic force threading through the experience. That's really at the heart of the Legendary game experience. The creatures don't always prioritise you as the biggest threat. How do you evolve a world where there are different rules that aren't human-based? That's the interesting thing.

Will you have the biggest monsters? The 'titans' in multiplayer?

Not at launch [laughs, possibly at me trying to drink a beer while asking a question].

Will they be added as downloadable content perhaps?

We haven't really talked about post-launch. It makes sense to assume we want to support the game after this launch, certainly.

Via the PSN and Xbox Live?

Absolutely.

Sorry to be trite... is there a difference between the console versions of the game?

There will be some differences between the consoles versions, although mostly it comes down to optimisation, and how to really maximise; how you think about each format. There won't be unique content, we're really aiming for a parity of experience... as much as is allowed by the systems.

Is the PS3 as challenging as some developers have hinted?

Well the PS3 is certainly challenging, I don't think anyone is going to argue with that, as most new game systems are. The real challenge, whichever format, is moving from one system to the other. Its like the standard gauge versus the metric gauge. Its a car... the wrenches don't work on the nuts and bolts of one car as they do on another. So it makes it more challenging. So, we've stayed close to what can be 'cross-platform' at a core level. And a lot of the work is optimising textures so we can have the visual expression.

How large are the environments. Are they free-form?

We don't do that.. our speciality is really a directed path of experience. We want that rollercoaster sense of adventure, if you have an open world like a Grand Theft Auto, a sandbox, it is easy to do anything at any time, which means the experience is not as highly focussed, and [in Legendary] you have some decisions which change your play experience. Take out the Black Order and you have a different experience fighting the werewolves and vice-versa.

So the choices come at key points in the story, rather than during the action itself?

Right, its more about how you work within these arenas. How you balance your play experience. Do I really want to focus on the Black Order? Or do I want to focus on the creatures, or shall i have the creatures focus on the Black Order, and then just mop up afterwards. So we're trying to have a lot of different play experiences within the direction of the world. It's a fairly structured game experience.

Why did you drop "The Box" from the titles?

[Laughs] Well... it was a PR stunt! To bring attention to the box.. then leave the box behind!

Dropping 'The Box'.. as we refined the process, some wanted to keep the box, but as we feel the future of the industry is not in "a" box.. [laughs].

That's a good answer...

How do you compare your title to other prominent examples of the genre?

I think certainly a consumer walking into a retail store is going to compare the experience to the other things they're playing, and we certainly have to look at what's going on with first-person action games and know that we'll compare to Call of Duty 4, Killzone, Halo... Again though, because we're an independent studio, there's fewer of us every day, month, we have limited resources. What we need to compete on is our creativity, our ability to offer something new to the marketplace.

Making a game as refined and rich as possible, given our time, budget and resources. I don't see another mythological creature shooting game coming up, so I think we're in a pretty good place. For the people that want to play a mythological action game, that is!

But yes we're certainly at the same time trying to provide that kind of quality experience... as comparable titles might provide.

Thank you very much! That's time-up I think...

No, thank you. We really hope everyone likes the game!

By Luke Guttridge