Previews: Dark Void
Eight things you need to know about Dark Void.
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Dark Void's "wow" moment comes about 30 seconds into the press demonstration. After the Capcom tour guide runs the main character through a simple outdoor environment, he heads over to the ledge of a mountaintop, jumps off, watches as his limbs flail for about 20 feet, and then switches on his rocket-pack and boosts forward like a superhero. Equal parts shaky camera angles and over-the-top skydiving animations, the scene does a great job of demonstrating what the game is about -- getting your feet off the ground. That concept extends beyond rocket-pack flying, but hey, this is a list story. So let's jump in; here are the eight things you need to know about Dark Void if you want to know about Dark Void:
No. 1 -- It's from people you may know
In 2004, many of the staff members who worked on
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge at Microsoft got together and formed a new studio called Airtight Games. Since then, they've been working quietly on certain small projects (you can see a few tech demos on
their website), but Dark Void is their first game, which is appropriate since it's focused on adding flight elements to a shooter.
No. 2 -- It loves vertical level designs
We mentioned the rocket-pack, but Dark Void features multiple ways to get your feet off the ground. You can scale the sides of walls while jumping from surface to surface, taking cover on the way up. You can hover and fly with your jetpack. You can capture and fly UFOs. Granted, you can't do all of these things at the beginning of the game (you have to earn upgrades first), so early on you can expect a more traditional third-person shooter. But if there's a key theme to look for in the gameplay, it's going to be shooting well above ground level.
No. 3 -- It stars a pilot
You start out as everyman cargo pilot Will, who crashes while flying through the Bermuda Triangle and ends up in "the void," according to Airtight lead game designer Jose Perez III. You meet up with others who crashed there and discover an enemy group called the Watchers, who have been messing with Earth for a long time. "You can kind of think about all sorts of things that they may have manipulated if you think about the Nazis or Britney Spears," says Capcom director of design (and former EGM editor) Kraig Kujawa. You'll also play as Will's love interest Ava in a few specific parts of the game.
No. 4 -- It offers upgrades
Where the game gets fancy is in how you can use the Watchers' technology to upgrade yourself over the course of the game. By the end of the first mission, you'll earn the jetpack that lets you hover and scale walls; by the end of the game, you'll have the rocket-pack and the ability to fly at will. It even has a bit of a
Too Human-like conflict; you have to decide how much of this technology you want to use since you become less human as you upgrade.
No. 5 -- It lets you channel your inner Stallone
One of Dark Void's key features is what the developers call Vertical Combat -- much of the game sees you hanging from the sides of mountains, jumping from spot to spot, and grabbing enemies and throwing them down below. (Picture a
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids scenario where you're trying to scale a
Jenga wall.) On the way up, you can hide beneath ledges and can peek out, fire blind, and in some cases destroy the environment to make enemies fall to their death.
Worried that this might get disorienting? "One of the things we learned really early on is that when you're doing the Vertical Combat stuff, it's good to keep it on the side of cliffs or in an outside area so you can tell there's sky and there's ground...and there's a clear horizon line," says Perez. And we can vouch for that -- in our time with the game we always knew which way was up and found it simple to move between cover points.
No. 6 -- It transforms you into a plane
Once the game starts to ramp up, you can upgrade to the rocket-pack that lets you fly like a plane. "We literally are taking the same flight mechanics that we had -- or ideas that we had -- on Crimson [Skies: High Road to Revenge] for how the camera worked and applying that to the rocket-pack," Perez says. "When you go into the rocket-pack mode, we're literally using the same code that we used for the planes." And when you use the rocket-pack, you absolutely feel like your character becomes a plane, to the point where you have to swerve to avoid hitting walls and you stop slowly rather than on a dime.
So why not just fly to the end of each level once you get this upgrade? "Three words: heat-seeking missiles," jokes Kujawa. "No, I mean, we may do something a little cheap like that, but I think [Perez] and the team have been thinking of a lot of issues with that. There are ways to make it more advantageous for players to want to go up vertical cover. If the enemies have advanced weaponry that can kind of home in on someone that's jetpacking, maybe you'll want to take the more careful route. But kind of the cool thing too is if the player's really, really good, he might be able to survive that stuff, and that's kind of a tribute to his talent."
No. 7 -- It takes famous inspirations
The
Gears of War influence is pretty straightforward, with the focus on taking cover -- even though it's implemented vertically here -- and the game's use of the Unreal Engine for its visuals. But a more surprising influence comes from Sony's
Shadow of the Colossus, which not only is one of the best-reviewed games in recent memory but also is seemingly one of the least likely to inspire a shooter, since it's all about taking down giant beasts in a slow and methodical fashion. As it turns out, Dark Void will have bosses much like those in Sony's game. "The idea there is that you're going to use your jetpack to latch on to these things and kind of scale them," Kujawa says. "It's almost like pecking at this giant boss." And much like in Shadow of the Colossus, there will be parts of these fights where you'll need to hold down a button to keep the bosses from bucking you off.
No. 8 -- It puts you in control of UFOs
Since this all takes place in the Bermuda Triangle, Dark Void ramps things up at a certain point in the game by letting you hijack UFOs that you find while flying around, giving the game a bit of a midair
Grand Theft Auto feel. Using a minigame involving a grip system where you have to decide when to hold on and when to move out of the way, you'll be able to take out the pilot and control his ship, or you can rewire the ship and use it as ammunition in large-scale battles.
