News

Developer Starbreeze fears Syndicate may be "too hard"
Posted: 02.02.2012 04:15 by JonahFalcon Comments: 8
Starbreeze is proud of their first person shooter remake of the classic Syndicate, but the developer is worried that it may have made the game too hard. According to Starbreeze, the game is so hardcore that it can't be played as a typical shooter. Blazing away will result in failure.

According to lead co-op programmer Lars Magnus Lang, "We're in constant fear we made it too hard. It's hardcore in the aspect of if you try to play it as a shooter straight on it will be really hard. You need to take a different approach from other shooters where you try to really cooperate and heal and revive each other, almost like an MMO experience."

The game doesn't even have an "Easy" difficulty setting. Rather, the game is divided up into "stars": one star is normal, 2 is hard, and three is for "insane". "One star, we don't want to call it easy because it's not easy, so instead we said, let's start at normal. There's no easy difficulty," Lang warned. "Three stars is really tough. We can complete three stars in the office when QA play. But in two days there will be players that are better than I am at this game. That's for them, the ones who want that really tough experience."

Syndicate takes its inspiration from other games and genres. For instance, Starbreeze borrowed such tropes as "breach applications and the healing and reviving." Lang added, "It's a mixture of those elements with the shooting experience. You can still play it as a full on shooter. You can do the tank priest concept. But the best thing is when everyone grasps the concept of healing and reviving and everyone is doing it."

According to Lang, the single-player campaign will more or less be the tutorial for co-op play, which is where a good chunk of the game's lifespan will be. "We have a progression system in there - if you want to unlock everything you will have to play 80 to 100 missions and complete them successfully. That will probably take at least 50 hours - maybe more. It depends on how good you are."

Syndicate will be released on the 21st February in North America and the 24th February in Europe for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Source: Eurogamer

Comments

By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 02, 2012
herodotus
I'm not so concerned the game is banned now that I know the SP is just training for Co-op. Co-op with fully realised AI team mates would be fine, but they would have to be darn good AI (not like "RE5" for eg.).
Co-oP with mates? Bugger that, that's for console jockies.
Oh well, back to the original.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Feb 02, 2012
SirRoderick
That is extremely dissapointing actually :(

I won't be picking it up if it's multiplayer focused.
By Chosen_One (SI Elite) on Feb 02, 2012
Chosen_One
Too hard?? Bring it on!
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Feb 03, 2012
FoolWolf
Hmm, Starbreeze makes good games however annoying it is to remake classics into FPS games...

A multiplayer oriented game is not that big on my wish list so i will skip this for now...
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Feb 03, 2012
JonahFalcon
It's more of a squad tactical shooter, FoolWolf, like SWAT 4. So naturally co-op would be a natural for it.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 03, 2012
herodotus
If you enjoy Co-op. Many non console gamers don't, but that's no great loss for Starbreeze. I hope for the sake of those who do get it, that it is better realised than in "Dungeon Siege III".
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Feb 03, 2012
nocutius
I like co-op so i dont mind, but i would have been ok with the game being singleplayer only as well.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 03, 2012
herodotus
As with the "GRAW" series, for example.