Joystiq interviews: Dark Void producer Morgan Gray

At a recent media event, Joystiq sat down with Capcom's Morgan Gray, senior producer of Dark Void. Gray fielded our questions on jetpack gameplay, multiplayer, DLC (confirmed!), and much more, including the frightening revelation that the helmet design could be confused with -- oh, let's not even go there ... Continue on for the full interview, and stay tuned for our latest hands-on preview coming soon.

So, we've seen Dark Void a few times. The basic story is still the same, right?

Just in case anyone needs to know the plot in a nutshell: the fictional premise is that you play a cargo pilot named Will, you go through the Bermuda Triangle, and you end up in an alien dimension called the Void where humanity is being subjugated by these aliens called the Watchers.

You also find out Nikola Tesla is also somehow trapped in the Void as well ... he's sort of the brain that's going to lead humanity back home, and you're the agile brawn. He gives you a jetpack, and you proceed to fly around and kick a little ass. How's that? Hey ... I'm no writer.

Well you summed it up very nicely. What more do you need? So, are there other humans in the game besides Will and Tesla?

Absolutely, there are other humans who have found their way in via the Bermuda Triangle, and some who are "Void-born" ... they've lived their whole lives inside the Void and have never seen Earth.

Have you confirmed what historical era Will is from?

Actually, we're not saying. There is a real Rocketeer type of pulp hero feel to him, but we haven't said yet.

When people talk about Dark Void, they immediately reference the jetpack for its instant cool factor. Is Capcom going to add jetpacks to every game now?

Exactly! Resident Evil ... with jetpacks! I really want to get Bionic Commando vs. Dark Void so we can have jetpack vs. claw.

Obviously, with the jetpack, there's a lot of references to pulp characters like Bulletman and Rocketeer. That had to be intentional, right?

The Rocketeer was definitely a huge inspiration for us. The jetpack just really seems to resonate with people.

Is the jetpack always on in the game?

Actually there's a flight mode, there's a hover mode, and you can even just shut it off and go into freefall. You still maintain a bit of control when he's in freefall. In fact, there's an Achievement associated with freefalling. I like to call it "How Low Can You Go," although I'm not sure if we're going to keep that.

Also, the jetpack has unlimited fuel, or as we like to unofficially say at work: "Don't cockblock the fun."

Was flying one of the hardest things to nail?

Actually that wasn't too bad, but getting it cherry was hard. Adding the nuances was very hard. Having a guy just rocket off is easy, but making it look believable is very hard. Also, designing these levels where the character has basically a huge freedom tool -- that took a lot. You know, like in some instances the player can skip over a combat area and approach it from behind, things like that were very hard.

We've also seen the vertical gameplay and cover system in the game. Is that in every level?

Almost every level has some vertical gameplay in it. You might not always have to take that path, but it's in there. You'll want to see if that's the most tactical approach, but it is in there. At first we almost thought we'd gone overboard with the vertical aspect by putting it in so much, but then we realized that just added to the gameplay and was a unique element. You know, you can't really say, "This game is 100 percent unique!" these days because they're all built on the backs of their predecessors, but we liked the platforming addition of the vertical levels.

Are you planning a demo release?

I really, really want to. The thing is when you see a screenshot of Dark Void, they think, "Oh, it's like Halo or something. I get it." But it's crucial that they see it in motion, so they know that's not it at all. The game is much better served when you see it in action. So, our plan is "yes" on a demo -- it's just not official right now.

There's no online aspect to Dark Void, right?

None. It's "massively single-player," as we like to joke. We made the call to walk away from multiplayer because we didn't feel like we could do it justice. My personal belief is that having deathmatch just doesn't cut it anymore. If you can't have a Call of Duty or a Battlefield meta-wrapper, then who cares. The bar is so much higher now ... and games are better for it.

What about DLC?

We're definitely planning some very cool stuff for DLC. We're not sure what those will be yet, but we're currently figuring that out right now.

Have you thought about adding jetpack time trials, maybe slalom races or something like that?

It's been discussed because that kind of stuff is just really fun. There's a lot of stuff we're talking about for post-game support, and that's one of the things that keeps coming up. Something like time trials, a slalom course, a skills test.

What are you guys planning on showing at E3?

We really want to show off our environments, because so far everything we've shown has looked pretty much the same. We wanted to show off our jungle stuff and our early human architecture looks ... We'll be showing about three or four vignettes that are all different. We'll have an entirely new demo there.

So how did you choose Bear McCreary for the score? Are you big Battlestar fans?

One of the things I really liked about Battlestar was his ability to express culture musically, and that makes you think about a bigger whole than what you see on screen. While we were creating the Void and all this subtext, we thought that if you could do something like what did Bear did, then that would be huge. So then we thought ... why not just get Bear?

How did he react?

Oh, he was like, "Wha'?! Yes!" We didn't know this at the time, but he's a huge Mega Man fan. Huge. He's done fan remixes; all of his machines are named after Mega Man bosses. For April Fools we put up a bunch of 8-bit artwork on the site, and he did an 8-bit remix of the theme for that.

Is Bear done with the score?

He's done, we recorded everything in January and it's all getting plugged in now. Even though he's worked on Battlestar Galactica, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Eureka, this was actually the biggest orchestration he's ever worked with. Plus, this is the first video game he's ever worked on, although I'm sure there will be plenty more.

So, finally, what sets Dark Void apart from other action shooters?

For us, we feel like the dogfighting aerial stuff makes ours a completely different game. One thing that concerns me because of the helmet ... someone might see our game and say, "Oh, that looks like Haze," and I'm like, "Oh god, no no no no no!" [Laughter.]
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