With its bright, cheery aesthtic, Insomniac's Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive doesn't seem to have much to do with vampires or zombies but it started out as the studio's answer to Day-Z with the developers drawing inspiration from Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (the novel, rather than the Will Smith starring movie).
Creation of Sunset Overdrive began in 2011, several month's before Dean Hall's Arma mod took off, and Drew Murray, co-creator, told Eurogamer:
"A lot happened before we pitched it internally. The game genesis was really just a casual lunch conversation of 'if you could make any game what would you make?'
"We started talking about the book of I Am Legend and the day/night cycle; going out scavenging during the day and holing-up at night. We were really just kind of bullshitting about it really.
"The original idea, if we'd gone with that to its logical conclusion, would have just ended up as the Insomniac version of DayZ."
Marcus Smith, co-creative director, revealed that the game has gone through several different styles during the development but the name always stuck and now Smith says, "It has that 70s grindhouse feel, with 'overdrive' as a very hyperbolic and oft misused term, and Sunset being a transitional period. I still love it because it's so different."
A key part of the game is the traversal system and the ease with which players can move from grinding a rail to shooting bad guys but this was always the case. Murray said:
"When we started as pre-production, traversal was not envisioned as part of the game. Instead, we spent a lot of time talking about the mood and about how we want players to feel. I want it to sound like Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy, that's the feeling that I want players to have while they're playing the game and moving through the world."
Smith added, "It was Cameron [Christian, lead designer] who really pushed for that notion of having something that's easy to jump into but that holds a sense of mastery."
Christian himself explains:
"We want to encourage people to experiment and not be penalised for trying crazy stuff even when they're up high, because it really sucks when you've worked your way to the top of a building and then you fall down and have to start again.
"So, we created a system to mitigate by going with a tiered playground approach that ramps up in difficulty as you get higher. The first level is basic, easy traversal with long lines and easy bounces so a new player can approach that and get going right away. As you move up it gets more difficult and the highest level has a lot more wall-runs and need for vision and skill."
Brining these systems together is what makes Sunset Overdrive feel like a virtual playground but that wasn't always the case. Traversal was originally intended as a defensive move but Insomniac soon realised how much fun it was to shoot while doing so.
Separately, Insomniac CEO Ted Price confirmed to Edge that Sunset Overdrive is another sub-1080p Xbox One title.
“We’re still working on optimising and we’re going to continue to do that. We can get into all the technical stuff later. This is going to be a [question] for every game that comes out. People will be counting pixels. For us, it’s about the vision: you saw it, you played it. It’s about creating a world.”
Smith said given Insomniac's long history with PlayStation platforms, the switch over to Xbox One has been pretty straightforward:
“I’ll say it’s not a difficult system to work on. We’re coming from Sony platforms during the last gen! For us to focus on Xbox One has been great, because the guys can really dig into the hardware, and working with our partners [we’ll] continue to optimise so we can get more onscreen.”
Insomniac's games, both Resistance and Ratchet and Clank, are well known for their interesting weapon combinations and this legacy is set to continue with Sunset Overdrive.
Doug Sheahan, one of the lead programmers, commented:
“We’ve never made guns this powerful before. When you have lots of enemies, having one shot take out six dudes is awesome; you feel powerful, but you’re only taking out like 15 per cent of the OD’d. It lets us have weapons that have wider and bigger effects, which look and feel really cool, but won’t let players just stomp the entire game."
Finally, Smith was quoted by IGN as confirming that Sunset Overdrive will not feature Kinect support, "This game was definitely built for a controller, not jumping around the room."
Insomniac recently launched a promotional site for the game featuring the energy drink OverCharge which seems to be at the root of the problems in the game world. The studio has also confirmed that the game will have a large single player story.
Sunset Overdrive does not currently have a release date.
