Staff – August 27, 2018 at 3:46 AM
Strange Brigade is as much an action shooter game as it is an homage to pulpy adventure movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s. Its aesthetic, Egyptian setting, and quick-witted narrator are just some of the thoughtful details that allow the game to feel like a playable action-adventure film from the days when movies about raiding tombs while uncovering ancient treasures and otherworldly monsters captured the popular imagination. Jason Kingsley, co-founder of Rebellion Developments — the studio behind Strange Brigade as well as the acclaimed Sniper Elite series — talked to us about how the game came to be what it is.
What’s the story at the heart of the game?
Jason Kingsley: The Strange Brigade is an international group of elite adventurers blessed with the ability to call upon the supernatural. In this particular episode of their ongoing adventures, they travel to North Africa where Seteki the Witch Queen has risen from the dead, ready to resurrect an evil empire erased from the history books. So it’s a bit fun, a bit scary, and very much a kind of adventure that harks back to things like matinee movies, the Boy’s Own comics, and so on. We wanted a really fantastical, fun story for players to revel in.
How did your team settle on the design of the playable characters in the game?
Jason Kingsley: We came up lots of different characters, but in the end, we focused down on four characters that we felt were balanced and played the best of all the characters that we came up with. They make a fine group of 1930s almost-superheroes, especially with their supernatural amulet powers. As it is, the secret organization known as the Strange Brigade draws far and wide, so we’ll be introducing extra characters through our Season Pass post-launch.
How did you adjust combat to make it feel just right?
Like anything to do with gameplay it’s about feel, so it’s an iterative process. You have a go and then you play the game for as much as you can, and then you think, “Actually, if it was slightly different this way, maybe it would be better.” We kept redoing and modifying it until it felt just right, and I really feel the game has a wonderful mix of variety, tension and challenge, all very carefully balanced.
Pre-release trailers have shown players using environmental traps to defeat enemies. How would you characterize the flow of combat during the game?
Jason Kingsley: Part of the idea is the traps can be used against enemies, and they’re great because they’re bullet savers. But they also can be occasionally activated, either accidentally or deliberately, and used against your fellow players! We felt they added quite a good flavour to the environments. They can be used very strategically and good players will use them well. But they’re also just fun! You can really muck around with them — in our game, death isn’t permanent!
How prominent is puzzle-solving as a device for progressing through the game?
Jason Kingsley: We do have some puzzles that you’ll be required to complete to open up a chamber or unearth a secret tomb, but there are many, many puzzles that are optional for those who like to explore a bit more. We reward those more explorer-type players with lots of glittering goodies — treasure, relics, and lots of ways to improve your weaponry and unlock new supernatural powers.
You’ve mentioned in the past that Strange Brigade was meant to serve as a tribute to the lineage that extends from adventure films like Indiana Jones through games like Tomb Raider. What are some of the ways in which Strange Brigade pays homage to this history?
Jason Kingsley: First and foremost it goes back a lot further than Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones is basically a very high quality film version of the Saturday matinees of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. For Strange Brigade we went back to the source material, including novels from around the 1920s and even Victorian pulp novels. There is no real start to the genre; it just comes in different forms. But in particular for us, we wanted to play with those ideas in a visual medium. So we come from the same place as Indiana Jones — we are going right back to basics, back to the origins of this kind of action-adventure video game.
One of the most emblematic elements of that is the narrator, who comments on some of the very tropes that germinated in those origins. He’ll wonder who’s meticulously lighting up all these candles in the spooky cave, who’s reloading the traps — how come the ropes are still intact and the traps still work if they’ve abandoned for a thousand years? Of course it doesn’t matter. The conceit we have is fine. For Strange Brigade we’re not as bound by reality as we are with, say, Sniper Elite.
You’ve announced that there will be a Season Pass and regular updates to the game post-launch. What kinds of new content should players expect from the Season Pass, and what will players receive from for free month to month?
Jason Kingsley: We’ve always tried to provide a substantial, value-for-money amount of content with our DLC, and we received great feedback for our Sniper Elite 4 post-launch content. We’ve tried to keep up that spirit here. The Season Pass includes a new three-part mini-campaign that will be a very exciting addendum to the Strange Brigade’s adventures, along with new characters to join the Brigade from across the globe, new amulet powers, and new weapons. And yes, we’ve promised free content for the game on a monthly basis — we haven’t announced details yet, but one thing we can confirm is that we will have new maps for the Horde and Score Attack modes.
How are you feeling about launch?
Jason Kingsley: It is always nerve-wracking to have a game you’ve worked on for several years finally seen by the general public. But I’ve currently got 160 hours of playtime logged over the last few months, and I’m still very much enjoying playing it. I’m excited to see how players respond to all the features we’ve put in the game and to find out if they have as much fun playing Strange Brigade as we do!
Strange Brigade is out Aug. 28 for PC, and you can get the game here.
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