P3zine: Haze Developer Interview

After getting some substantial hands-on experience with Haze, P3zine got to grill Project Lead, Derek Littlewood about just how the co-op modes work, Haze’s PS3 exclusivity, and the possibility of monkeys online…

Where did the idea for Haze come from?

Back in 2004, we were just finishing up Second Sight, and [Dr.] Dave wanted to do a game that was set in a war, but not actually about the war, so the story has the war as a backdrop to it. This was something traditionally that games don’t do – they’re always about the one guy who saves the world. So then we started thinking about what would be interesting. One of the things we were always very conscious about in Timesplitters was we had a very diverse range of characters, but they basically did the same things. One of the things we were interested in was making a game where, particularly for the multiplayer, we had two different sides that would appeal to two very different types of FPS players. From there we developed the idea of the asymmetric conflict, where the Promised Hand rebels are very strategic, and all about smart play, but then you’ve got the Mantel troopers, who have more of a brute force approach. From there, we started working that into an interesting narrative.