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Mirror's Edge co-story designer Rhianna Pratchett not working on reboot [update]
EA hasn't approached Mirror's Edge co-story designer and writer Rhianna Pratchett about returning to DICE's upcoming reboot, the author revealed this week. Pratchett, who served as lead writer on the recent Tomb Raider and as co-story designer and writer on Heavenly Sword, went on to say the Mirror's Edge story "didn't review that great," and that she considered herself a "casualty of the development process." Pratchett has spoken about her disappointment with the first game's story before. Talking to ActionTrip in 2012, she said, " DICE was a great company to work with, but Mirror's Edge was a challenging project and an important learning experience for me. Unfortunately, because of the timing when I was brought in and a large amount of the script being cut (due to the late decision to remove level dialogue) the narrative wasn't what I would've liked it to be. Thankfully, I got the chance to remedy this a little bit in the Mirror's Edge comic series with DC. The story in those was much more along the lines of what I would've liked to have developed for the game." Pratchett added, "I've been quite candid about what happened with Mirror's Edge, because I know some players were disappointed with the narrative in the game. The upshot of that is that I've probably blotted my copy-book with DICE. I'd love the chance to do it again under the right circumstances, and I have plenty of ideas, but I doubt that's going to happen." After years of speculation, EA finally unveiled the Mirror's Edge reboot at last year's E3 conference, and the game is currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It'll feature a new origins story for lead character Faith, although the publisher is keeping that under wraps for now. As for Pratchett, she's being kept busy with upcoming TV and film adaptations of her father Terry's work, including a movie of The Wee Free Men and a BBC series of The Watch. And how about the Tomb Raider sequel, hmmmmm? "Can't say, sorry." is the answer to that. Update: Following today's news, we got in touch with Rhianna Pratchett to ask whether or not she'd be prepared to work on the new Mirror's Edge game if asked, and what she'd want to do differently second time around. "A lot of it would depend on the time frame involved, the attitude of the team and what they were looking to do with the characters and world this time around," she told us, while noting she'd outlined some of what she'd do with a prequel with the comic series she wrote for the first game. Check out what Pratchett had to say in full after the break:
Rhianna Pratchett announced as lead writer on Tomb Raider
Rhianna Pratchett is handling lead writer duties on the Tomb Raider reboot from Crystal Dynamics. Pratchett, the daughter of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, is no stranger to video game storytelling, having contributed to the Overlord games, Prince of Persia and Mirror's Edge.Pratchett has apparently been working on the narrative for Tomb Raider since "its early inception," and has brought "a depth and credibility to Lara" only she can, says Darrell Gallagher, head honcho at Crystal Dynamics. Pratchett, who is at San Diego Comic-Con 2012 this weekend, will participate in two Tomb Raider panels on Saturday. Full schedule and panel descriptions can be found past the break.[Image credit]
The Observer watches as novelists and journalists jump to game writing
"Who writes this stuff?" It's something considerate game players and critics often ask aloud -- and they're barely heard over the sound of a laser chainsaw going into some monster's maw. The New York Observer has published an interesting piece on writing in games, with a focus on novelists, screenwriters and journalists that have made the leap to interactive storytelling. Some of these writers seem to have a higher profile than the plots, characters and dialogue they provide. "What I found on the other side was that I'd never really understood how hard it was to get any kind of coherent story into a game, let alone a good one," said Rhianna Pratchett, former journalist and writer behind the Overlord games. Her observation isn't just critical of the quality of games writing, but of how late it finds its place in the development process -- if it's incorporated at all. Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter author Tom Bissell and his writing partner, Rob Auten, were apparently called in to fix the dialogue for an upcoming franchise reboot at a stage where the game was "largely finished." "I always say that the games industry makes Hollywood look like avant-garde poetry publishers," Bissell said. Games writing pays a lot less than Hollywood, of course, and doesn't offer the same kind of recognition. Marc Laidlaw, novelist and writer at Valve, believes the world of books provides a more apt rival. "I think you learn a lot about writing dialogue and stuff from movies," he said, "but games just compare more closely to novels, I think, because you immerse yourself in them and they take up a big part of your life for a very long time." Valve is anomalous in having in-house writers like Laidlaw, and the studio's games, like Portal and Half-Life 2, are anomalous in being commended not just for dialogue or individual scenes, but for how well their scenarios and characters fit within the unique structure of a game. If writers become part of the collaboration at an earlier stage, we might again ask, "Who writes this stuff? And where can we play more of it?"
Interview: Rhianna Pratchett
With Rhianna Pratchett's most recent projects -- a trio of Overlord titles -- complete, the game scribe took some time out to discuss what it was like to write for three games at once, what she's looking forward to in the future, and why Faith in Mirror's Edge wasn't quite as talkative as originally planned:Did you have any difficulties writing for three different platforms? What are the differences and limitations of writing for one platform over another?It was mainly a question of age ratings. I'm sorry it's not more of an exciting answer. The Wii and DS, Dark Legend and Minions, were aiming for a lower rating than Overlord II, so there were certain things that I couldn't talk about in the scripts -- mainly to do with excessive violence and debauchery. You know, all the really fun stuff. You can certainly get away with more by taking a comedic angle, but games ratings are actually pretty stringent. I don't think it impacted too much on the Overlord feel, although it was a shame to lose things like drunken minions and mistresses. Okay, in Dark Legend the lead character is only 16, so a harem might have been rather wishful thinking.There was a definite need for economy of language when it came to the DS, which was a little more restrictive. Condensing a loquacious character like Gnarl was quite a challenge. Other than that it was really just trying to capture the right Overlord tone.
GDC09: Rhianna Pratchett says games should forget about making people cry
Rhianna Pratchett, the woman to blame for the dialogue of last year's EA experiment Mirror's Edge, says that game writers (not, erm, us, mind you, but the type that write the stories in the games we all play) are doing the wrong thing trying to make gamers cry. She tells the Guardian's game blog, "As an industry we get very, very obsessed with making people cry. What's so great about crying?!" Rather, she says that they should be focusing on turning those frowns upside down, citing her work on the Overlord franchise. "The world is dark enough, especially at the moment. Overlord, I think, was successful because it made people smile, it made people laugh. That seems to have resonated so much that I say 'Make people smile, don't make people cry.'" It's no secret that we are suckers for the lolz around here, so we're rather inclined to agree with Ms. Pratchett. In the eight minute interview with the Guardian (found after the break), Pratchett also touches on the importance of getting game writers into the development process early enough, calling shoehorned stories in gaming the result of "Weekend at Bernie's" processes, where a plot that doesn't really exist is "made up" to look like an actual plot. Rather than naming culprits, we'll leave the finger pointing to you fine folks -- and we're willing to bet you can name more than a few, no?
Rhianna Pratchett launches portfolio website
Rhianna Pratchett, the British game writer behind Heavenly Sword, Overlord (and its upcoming sequels), Mirror's Edge and Viking: Battle For Asgard has launched her portfolio website, making it easier to keep track of her various projects. The website showcases all the games that she's worked on, as well as her contributions to some game writing textbooks and her ongoing series of Mirror's Edge comic books. There are also links to interviews (including one of ours) for those who want to get a little more insight into the person behind the words. From the look of things, the site won't be updated for a while as Rhianna's being kept fairly busy with Overlord 2 and the Wii and DS Overlord games. Now that she's set up home on the internet, we wonder if she'll be joining us on Twitter soon, too.
Rhianna Pratchett back to write Overlord II
Codemasters has today announced that Rhianna Pratchett, writer and "narrative designer" for Overlord, Mirror's Edge and Heavenly Sword, will be returning to write the rest of the Overlord series. This includes Overlord II, which was announced for the PS3 in August. This will no doubt please those who enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek yet dark narrative that was present in Overlord or fans of Heavenly Sword's excellent story. In fact, Overlord's story was so well received that Pratchett has been nominated for a Writers' Guild Award as a result. The awards will be held at BAFTA in London on November 23rd and we wish Rhianna the best of luck, even if we do believe that an award for Heavenly Sword would be more well deserved than for Overlord. Regardless, those of us who are looking forward to Mirror's Edge can rest easy knowing that the story is coming from such a pure writing pedigree.
Rhianna Pratchett penning Overlord 2 script
Mirror's Edge and Heavenly Sword scribe Rhianna Pratchett is taking up duties once again for a less female-empowering franchise. Codemasters announced today that she will write the script for Overlord 2, along with all the other Overlord spin-offs currently in development. Pratchett's name had previously been mentioned as part of the projects, but it appears her dark covenant with the Codemasters overlords has now officially been consummated.Pratchett received a British Writers' Guild Awards nomination this year for the original Overlord script. What, no recognition for bringing "twing-twang" into our lives in Heavenly Sword? Overlord 2 is expected sometime in 2009.[Via Big Download]
Read the Mirror's Edge comic teaser issue
The gang at Silconera grabbed a copy of the Comic-Con 2008 teaser issue of WildStorm's Mirror's Edge comic, jumped across a few rooftops, performed a couple leaps of faith, then landed safely at the office to scan it. You have to admit that sounds cooler than "EA was handing it out and they scanned it."Anyway, the site has indeed posted the comic in its teaser-short entirety. It contains dialog from the game, which was previously confirmed to be the work of Heavenly Sword scriptwriter and Alanis Morisette look-alike, Rhianna Pratchett. After reading it, we're left to wonder if we'll be hearing a lot of female protagonist Faith's inner dialog throughout the course of the game as well. We'll find out in November, which is when both the game and the comic book mini-series based on it perform somersaults and land on shelves.
