Sony's upcoming ensemble fighter, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, has understandably been compared to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. franchise. But originally, the game was made to be something else.
In an interview with Siliconera, Lead Game Designer Omar Kendall reveals the origins of PS All-Stars and states that it was originally a 4 vs. 4 Capture-The-Flag game.
There were all sorts of little gameplay demos and prototypes. When I talk about the last version of the game before we settled on the current incarnation was this 4v4 capture the flag kind of game. It was a class based game where you had fast runners who were good at capturing the flag and taking the flag back to base. You had defensive dudes. We were taking PlayStation characters and using them like archetypes.
Kendall gave a few Sony characters and their attributes in their former game. PaRappa the Rapper was a fast runner, Sweet Tooth was a defender, and Kratos was a mid-range attacker.
While we already this isn't the way PS All-Stars turned out, can the first version they created be released eventually on the PSN? If you're looking forward to that, I'd tell you to not hold your breath.
No, honestly. Two years ago right now that was the kind of game that was being worked on. So, it’s not that old, We really pivoted and started making a four player brawler about almost exactly two years ago. While I agree the capture the flag game is personally interesting and I’d love to develop that into something someday, who knows? We felt like the four player brawler, the time was right, the talent was right, and the opportunity was right to bring it out right now.
So for better or for worse, PS All-Stars is going to be Sony's Smash Bros. counterpart. Hopefully, it's as good as the game it mimics, no?
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is scheduled to ship on November 20 for the PS3 and PS Vita.
