GC: I have to say you nailed pretty much all the problems I had with the original game in your introduction. But I wonder, do you worry you haven't gone far enough? At one point there must've been a temptation to just abandon the characters and settings and just use similar mechanics in an entirely new game?

DF: So, when we came to the story, what was interesting is that we did start by thinking about where we would take Alex as a protagonist in the next story. We certainly knew the criticisms and we knew we'd have to deal with those, even if we had to reinvent Alex in some way. And we realised that the important things that are core to our IP were 1) that we had reality plus one fantastical element, that was the Blacklight virus. And in fact, really, the star of Prototype is the Blacklight virus.

Alex, Heller - they're the vessels we tell the story through. And so we started thinking about Mercer and where we'd take it if he had god-like powers and we thought, 'Okay, we can take those powers to another level.' Which means another level of enemies, and it started to get into the world of fantasy, and we realised we were breaking that rule. So the next step was, 'Take his powers away'. We've seen that in many other games as well, and we though it wasn't a great thing to do. Even a disservice to Alex…

GC: It's a cliché too now, isn't it? That's always what happens in the first sequel of every superhero film.

DF: Yeah. And we were lucky because if the virus is the star it doesn't matter who it's in. But we did want to continue the story, because we'd left it unfinished. Alex reconstituted on the shores of Manhattan, the virus is still around - so we did still want to finish that story in some way. And so we started thinking about other characters and we wanted to see one that you could relate to maybe a little better. You could understand him doing something at all costs because of great loss.

This is a digression but I had my own father die in my arms when I was in my twenties, and it really, really affected me in kind of a traumatic way - but also in a positive way years later. I found a way to be positive about that and use that strength. And so I can understand how Heller can feel with extreme loss.

And as we took the story along we realised, well he has to be the prototype and someone suggested, 'Why doesn't Mercer create a prototype out of him?' Now why would he do it? Well, let's explore that story 14 months later, how's the virus taken hold of him? What does he want to do? And we realised we had these two great kind of stories that we could collide together. And as the stories collide motivations clearly change and we build to a climax. So for us that seemed like such a great, powerful thing to do.

I mean it has the added advantage that the d*** from the first game is now the antagonist (laughs). But it does give us the chance though to maybe better explain Alex as well in this game. You know, have a chance to do a bit more character development with him. But primarily it was for Heller, because we have no morality in this game.

You can go ahead and kick civilians into the water one, by one. You're not punished for it, unless you're seen by the military. Because we didn't want to ruin that power fantasy, because quite frankly someone did this during one of these tours and was giggling as they're doing this, because that was their fantasy at that particular time. We didn't want to rob them of it and we didn't want to punish them.

But all we could do was influence them. I think in the first game no-one was influenced to do good, because of Alex. Heller, it might be there. And people may want to do good, or take that approach, right?

GC: Do you reward being good? Does the game recognise you're only attacking non-civilians, for example?

DF: No…

GC: When playing the game I was purposefully looking for a soldier to absorb, not a civilian. Does the game know I'm doing that?

DF: No. Well, it can know. We could certainly tell code-wise, but no. There is a difference in the consumes, the consumes of humans are less violent. So in some respects if you like the visceral side of it you're not getting that gratification. But it's very interesting, because it means we've done a good job of influencing you to maybe play the game like Heller, without that punishment being there. Without that reward… really the reward is the gratification the player has of playing that way. And being like that character.

GC: This is something we talked about with the guys behind Uncharted - and really Alex is the poster child for this issue: why are so many game characters so unpleasant and unlikeable? Is it just because games are still fixated with an angry teenage boy audience?

DF: That would actually be my guess, in some respects. Although certainly if I look at Heller, I just look at cut scenes of Heller, I would think that that was someone that had a certain amount of integrity. Clearly he's killing Blackwatch, he's killing infected. He is from the Army, he realises that you either kill the person that's got their sights aimed on you or you die. So some family's going to suffer in either case.

As a player, you can go ahead and do things the character wouldn't do thus creating the dichotomy in the telling of the story and the playing of the game. But in this respect I would like to think that if Heller was a movie character he would be kind of seen as a nice guy, a complex guy.

I think what you find is the best kinds of movies are the ones where both the protagonist and the antagonist are doing what they feel is right. A good villain is not one who's trying to be a villain, he's one that believes everything he's doing is for the right reason. And it's the complexity and that depth that's really critical to me. So I think the problem is that many people take a stereotypical view in doing games, and therefore it's either black or white. And I know it's still hard telling a good story in a game…

GC: Well, it's almost impossible given what a character does. When even a 'nice' one like Nathan Drake is killing hundreds of people over the course of a game, often for no particularly selfless reason.

DF: I guess the question is: would the game be fun if you restricted the gameplay to the type of person you're supposed to be? And maybe… we could certainly maybe have no civilians anywhere. Hey, that would be a good potential solution. Would it be fun? Would it be real enough? Probably not. And that's the balance, that's the tough part in making games.

GC: What's the motivation for the villains? There was a lot of comic book bad-guy-ness going on in the cut scenes, but why were they were killing all those civilians for so little reason? Although I suppose you can't really tell me for fear of spoilers…

DF: Yeah… and you're right I really can't say too much about Alex's side of things, 'cause that would be a big spoiler. There's certainly a certain amount of comic book-ish-ness to some of what he's doing…

GC: That wasn't a word when I just said it, but I'm glad you've vindicated me.

DF: (laughs) I know! But I like it! But it's difficult answering this question because I have to avoid so many spoilers, but…

GC: It's a very familiar trope isn't it? The bad guy is always building bio-weapons, but what for? Who are they fighting with the bio-weapons?

DF: (laughs) I'd like to think the reason makes sense for Alex, whether the reason is of great complexity or of anything that may not be obvious when it happens I can't say. But hopefully it at least makes sense, that's all I can really hope for.

GC: I really enjoyed the free-for-all in the red zone, with all the abilities unlocked, that was very cathartic. There was a good rhythm to the combat but it did seem a little formless, was there never any thought to add combos or scoring - to help gauge your performance?

DF: What we tried to avoid is, when you get into places where you're being rewarded for combos and it's +5 +whatever, it becomes very arcadey. And we've kind of avoided, at least for the story, most of those more arcadey moments. Because we didn't want to take away from the tone, about what's actually happening. You're certainly getting XP points, and are rewarded for evolution.

Now granted at that point in time you were fully evolved, so therefore you're not seeing that kind of upgrade going on. You're not getting a reward. But if you were playing the game you would, you would see yourself evolving. But you wouldn't necessarily see it announced in a way that you might in a more arcade-like game. And that was purposefully done to stay within the tone of the game itself.

GC: Okay, so I'm right in saying there's no multiplayer of any kind?

DF: That's right, there's no multiplayer.

GC: That makes your game an increasing rarity nowadays, and I don't mean that as a criticism at all. But it must have been a consideration, to add it in for this sequel I imagine?

DF: So here's our thinking in a nutshell. We were thinking multiplayer in the first game and what we've come to realise is that if you're going to make a multiplayer or a co-op game it has to be designed as a multiplayer or co-op game. Tagging it on will just not work. You've got to have a multiplayer design. And for us, after making the first Protoype and, in my opinion, still having a ways to go to make a better one, we stuck with that single-player model.

Because we knew we could build on it and be more successful. And many players playing open world games, tend to mainly play the single-player portion. And we just didn't see anyone cracking that nut for a multiplayer open world third person action game. Some games have done a good job of creating multiplayer, but how many players actually invested their time in it? Nothing in comparison to first person shooters. So, I really think that it would've been a difficult one to crack and I think it would've been a risk without necessarily any great reward.

GC: There's not really that much evidence that anyone wants it, especially given intrinsic problems such as being able to find other players and ensuring an appropriately designed map or arena.

DF: Yeah, and even keeping things really persistent. That's really key, I know in a world where you're streaming everything persistent means having to have some form of database amplification where you can have a small amount of data that you can use to propagate the world quickly and generate it fast enough. And a lot of that technical stuff may come online, but in the end it has to make sense to make that multiplayer game and I just haven't seen anyone crack it.

GC: So is this something you don't think is going to happen till the next generation? Is it primarily a question of technology?

DF: It's possible, but I think it's the design that's the key. I mean I just haven't seen a multiplayer design in the genre… there's been some good ones - I could name examples, but maybe I shouldn't - but again I haven't seen the adoption rate from the players. So it's like you said, it doesn't seem as if the players necessarily want what's been given to them so far.

GC: Rockstar's stuff works okay, but even then you're ultimately just playing deathmatch or capture the flag. And really if you're going to play that you might as well do so in a game dedicated to it.

DF: Exactly. Might as well head over to a Call Of Duty and play it there instead. That's what I mean about that nut has to be cracked. And every once in a while you get the, 'Well, if there is no multiplayer you're going to lose this many on Metacrtic'. And you know what, that's not the reason to put in multiplayer. It's not a checkbox. It's got to be a proper design.

GC: So one thing you hear a lot with people playing an open world game is that they really enjoy it, but most of the time is spent just messing around and exploring - not doing the story missions. So how do you a) ensure your game world is interesting enough to make exploration feel worthwhile and b) convince them not to ignore the story missions?

DF: One thing is making the story compelling. The more compelling you can make it the more you may drive a player towards it. Many players love the sandbox experience, so the real key to it in Prototype is getting your major powers. If you require the player to progress through the story to get them, and they wanna play with those in the open world, they're gonna have to follow the story. So that I guess is the carrot in that respect.

GC: The other big issue for open world games is how do you avoid the problem that essentially every mission is just: go here and kill this person. Isn't that an intractable problem?

DF: Oh, I know. But let's face it every game you can take what you can do in the game and boil it down into a small number of elements. Whether you're chasing, whether you're infiltrating, whether you're killing, whatever - you can boil it down. So it all comes down to the context of the mission: the location, the kind of enemies available, and the powers you have at that point. That's what creates the variety.

You've got to have some interesting settings and puzzles to solve, your enemies should be geared towards challenging the powers you have at that point, and of course once you've got enough powers you're going to have to amp that up. And that really comes down to how you make it less repetitious.

The mistake we made in the first game was having people create their own fun. We kind of said 'Here's a bunch of powers, a bunch of Lego boxes, we're just going to scatter them on the ground. Buy the ones you want and have fun'. Problem is halfway through the game I bought most of everything and I just used the things I knew that were effective and the missions got boring after that.

So really we have to pace that better, describe the context better. And even then it's never easy, I just hope we've done a better job of it this time.

GC: That's great. Thank you. Oh, and this RADNET business [explained in the video below], can you just clarify that for a moment. What happens if you buy the game after the seven weeks are up?

DF: They unlock over those seven weeks, so if a player decides they're going to take 14 weeks or whatever before they play the game they can, and they'll still get their reward. So we're just parcelling it out at the beginning, so again we're not just throwing everything out in one big go.

GC: So the leaderboards or whatever will be there for the game's whole lifetime?

DF: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

GC: Okay, that's great. Thank you.

DF: Thank you. Great questions!