Behind-the-scenes story of game development can be quite intriguing, and can make for odd headlines. This was the case as the story of Sucker Punch, developers of the Sly Cooper and Infamous series.
As shared by Chris Zimmerman on the Playstaion Blog to celebrate the studio’s 20-year anniversary, Infamous was very much a superhero game at heart but many of the features that defined the series came later in development.
Early on, the game we now know as Infamous used to feature alter egos like most superhero would have. As Zimmerman describes it:
“You roamed your city, tracked down criminals, helped out the citizens, and did some light zoning work along the way.
“The best superheroes have alter egos, right? So your alter ego was a property developer, deciding where to put the pet shops and tiki bars the citizens were demanding.
“Sounds awesome, right? Well, it wasn’t.”
Animal Crossing is a games series by Nintendo about living a simple life doing simple activities- a less-focused Harvest Moon, if you will, but with a focus on customisation.
Another interesting fact is how karma, the binary choice system that is central to the series was only added thanks to the suggestion of the marketing team.
You can read the whole anecdote, which also covered more about Sly Cooper here.
Sucker Punch released Infamous: Second Son as the PS4’s launch title, with the standalone DLC Infamous: First Light released later in the same year, 2014. Infamous: Second Son is free for active PS Plus subscribers this month.
No official news on what the studio is currently up to right now, but we have to assume they are working on something.