Interview - Eidos Montreal’s David Anfossi
Eidos Montreal’s David Anfossi was on-hand at gamescom showing off Dues Ex: Human Revolution and took time out of his busy schedule to chat with VG247's Johnny Cullen about many wonderful things.
According to the producer, there are plans in place for DLC, no plans for multiplayer, and he really wants Warren Spector to see what the developers have accomplished with the third installment in the Deus Ex series.
He also drops a slight bit of information on Thief 4.
Read the full interview below.
[Interview by Johnny Cullen].
VG247: You have Shanghai, Detroit, and Montreal in the game. I'm assuming Montreal is in there since you guys are doing it, but why Shanghai and Detroit?
David Anfossi: Well, we created the story as whole ya know, so it's not just the story and then the characters. It's a whole. So, to define the characters we had to define their background and everything, so we started with that. And, as you know, Deus Ex is about an international conspiracy, and we decided to keep that as is - so based on the story and the characters, we decided to give them an international background.
VG247: It obviously has a massive Blade Runner reference. You'd have to be blind not to notice it. What are some of the other influences to the game?
David Anfossi: For the visual, yeah, it's about Blade Runner mainly, and you'll notice in the game there's mainly black and gold effects. So, the gold is about the Renaissance, and you'll notice paintings in it too which are based on a Rembrandt paintings which represent the Renaissance era. The black is about the cyberpunk aspect, and the conspiracy and the shadows. So this is why we decided to go in this artistic direction for the game.
You've said as far as online goes there's going to be nothing. Absolutely nothing. What about DLC? Do you have any plans for that?
Anfossi: So you’re right, no multiplayer, it’s a single-player experience. It’s very important for us to deliver a quality game. And that fuels our energy. And yes, we started to work on DLC that will be an extension of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Me and [Jean-Francois] Dugas, the game director, we started to work on that.
In the demo I watched, there were three ways to do a mission: stealth, guns-a-blazing, and social aspects (information seeking). How many different ways are there to complete a mission?
There isn't a fixed number as we want the player to explore the game as they want to depending on player style. So, with each one you will be able to choose between five or six different ways to go about it.
Any there any particular differences between the PC and console versions?
No, except for preference. We're working really hard at moment to balance and find the right formatting for the keyboard and everything. But we're making this game a unique experience for the player whether for 360 or PC - your experience will be exactly the same experience.
In the game, are they any particular nods to the past, like JC Denton in the first Deus Ex or the world?
Yes, it is set in the same universe we respected that as it was very important for us. And yes, you'll see some cameos from people, and operations but yes- you will some things from the first game.
Is JC in it?
You will see whether or not, I don't want to give away too much. But you know, JC was born in 2029, and this game is set in 2027. So it's two years before.
Has Warren Spector seen it yet? Has he seen the game?
Not yet, unfortunately. We are in communication and a few times during different events we almost had the opportunity to present the game to him, but either we were busy or Warren was busy. So, it's not been done, but I hope it happens very soon. We relish the opportunity.
Sheldon Pacotti was the lead writer of the first two games and has worked on this one as a consultant on the story, to make sure we respect the universe, and two designers from the first two games came to the studio to visit us as well.
I don't know if you are working on this or not, but can you tell us anything about Thief 4? What's the situation on that? Is it still in development?
[silence]
Ah, come on [laughs]. That's no answer!
No, I am not the producer on that, but my friend is and he is here today, but not for interviews. It's in production and that's the only thing I can say. Sorry.
Last year in Toronto, I think it may have been Montreal, but Wada-san mentioned a collaboration between Eidos Montreal and Square Enix back in Japan. Can you elaborate on that or provide any more details?
No, but what we did since the acquisition with Square Enix was work a lot on sharing. They visit us a lot, a lot, a lot, to see how we work. They present to us their projects, their vision and everything. And you know, its a very different picture as we each work a different way. So we are in a state of collaboration where we try to understand how to work together. And the first collaboration we did was the trailer.
You know, it was nine months work and we know how to work together now, not in the sense of the direction of the game, but now we understand each other so I think in the near future we can start to work on other things together - but it's not the case at this moment.
They did a fantastic job on the CG. They really know how to push the borders of CG, like in FFXIV. Have you seen some of the scenes in FFXIV? I mean it really does look fantastic.
Yes, they do. So, I am really pleased with the opportunity to work with them and proud to say that we push them also, so it's a very good collaboration.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution releases next year for PS3, 360 and PC.