ZombiU is arguably the most exciting and original game in the Wii U’s launch line-up, featuring innovative gameplay mechanics and a variety of atmospheric locales set in London.
On the final day of rAge 2012 Oliver and I sat down with ZombiU’s Associate Producer Nicolas Robin and Lead Content Designer Mounir Radi to learn more about this promising Wii U launch title from renowned French studio Ubisoft Montpellier.
Here’s what was discussed during our meeting:
Tom:
How are you finding rAge so far? How has it been?
Nicolas:
It’s very cool. I never thought that it was so big actually.
Mounir:
Yes, we are surprised because it’s a massive event. We don’t have a show like that in France because we have the Paris Game Show…
Nicolas:
But it’s not exactly the same actually.
Mounir:
We have good respect for players from South Africa.
Tom:
It’s great to see so many Ubisoft games here. You’ve got all the Ubisoft games at the Wii U stand and you’ve got the other ones like Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed III.
Nicolas:
I like Ubisoft of course because I work for them but I agree. Imagine if I didn’t work for Ubisoft? I see all the booths of Electronic Arts and all the guys, and I see the investment of Ubisoft in South Africa and I say, “Okay, they really care about those types of markets and they really care about delivering a good value to the players of this market.” So yes ‒ it’s good.
Tom:
Ubisoft’s games are very popular here ‒ Assassin’s Creed for example.
Nicolas:
The third one is incredible.
Tom:
They’ve got so many studios working on it.
Nicolas:
We’ve got friends of ours who’re working on this.
Mounir:
It’s a massive production.
Tom:
Can you guys tell us when development started on ZombiU and when did you first come up with the idea, the concept for it?
Nicolas:
ZombiU started basically two years ago when we started development for the Wii U. Actually we made a lot of iteration before arriving at ZombiU. The first iteration was Killer Freaks from Outer Space which was a different game. That was one and a half years ago. It was very fast-paced and action-based.
Mounir:
It was a co-op, competitive game – more like a sports game. Players had to cooperate but they could beat the other one.
Nicolas:
They had a common objective which was the final target. You know like in Zelda they also have some personal objectives. It’s finding more rubies than the other one to be the first one on the podium, so basically we had a common objective and this was the mechanic of the first iteration of ZombiU. Actually it worked but it was not very satisfying. There were a lot of holes in terms of experience and gameplay.
Mounir:
We learnt many things through this because we had a fast-paced game and we learnt something very important: if we want the players to have the time to see the two screens then you have to make a slow-paced game. This is very important. As Nicolas said we made different prototypes and we had many problems with them. The thought was that when you bring a common FPS – a fast-paced experience – then players don’t care about the second screen because there are guns, there are classic abilities, and they just go straight. We made many, many adjustments. We realised we were going to fail on this. We had much more information on this and next they played only with the screen.
Nicolas:
They forgot the TV screen.
Mounir:
Yes, they did exactly the opposite.
Nicolas:
And all the action was on the second screen but it was not a good balance either.
Tom:
So you’ve got to get that right balance.
Mounir:
Yes, it was the most challenging thing for the game design.
Tom:
How did those prototypes morph into ZombiU?
Nicolas:
What we are saying is that we slowed down the pace and took this zombie setting. Basically it was nearly there from the start because if you see the very first demos of Killer Freaks it was in New York actually. The first demo, I think. It was a really dark ambience we created.
Mounir:
It was in London.
Nicolas:
Yes, it was in London. We had the setting. It was not necessarily with zombies ‒ it was with creepy creatures but basically it was fast-paced and we could not pursue fast-paced gameplay so we slowed down the pace. We kept the type of dark setting that we evolved to incorporate zombies. We said for slow-paced gameplay we need slow opponents and yes, the zombie setting came very naturally because we are big fans of zombie movies.
Mounir:
And the team was very excited. The aliens were cool but working on a zombie game was something different for a change. Our team had worked on Tintin, Rabbids Go Home, and it was good to swap to more mature games.
Oliver:
So Killer Freaks never came out?
Mounir:
No, never.
Oliver:
Because I heard lots of people getting excited about it and it kind of just dropped off. No one knew what happened to it. It disappeared, and now we know.
Nicolas:
Yes, exactly. Actually it was okay but it was not fully satisfying.
Mounir:
We were not comfortable with it.
Nicolas:
Yes, there were some holes in the design experience. There were repetitions. So basically it was more difficult to keep the player engaged and make him surprised every time. But from Killer Freaks we kept one thing ‒ the multiplayer experience. Killer Freaks was an asymmetry game where you spawn. There was something called King of the Creatures. You spawned creepy creatures from a top view. The one was playing it as a FPS ‒ a fast, action pace and killing these creatures, and they have a match between each other offline in the living room and rematching by switching the controls. We kept exactly that thing for ZombiU. Actually it’s because of Ubisoft that ZombiU was made a very big part of development. We just made the backbone, the core mechanics and they didn’t sit very well. So in ZombiU you have the solo experience which is very large – like 15-20 hours – and at the end of it you have the survival mode where you finish the game with just one life. At the same time you also have the multiplayer experience ‒ three game modes ‒ and you have one player playing King of Zombies ‒ tactical, top view, spawning zombies, levelling his skills up. Being able to spawn more zombies and at a faster pace, and the other one is playing with the Wii U Pro Controller ‒ the fast-paced FPS part. He is also able to play with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.
Tom:
What about the setting of London? You say that was already in Killer Freaks so what inspired you to choose that as the setting of the game?
Mounir:
Firstly the team is really fond of this town because of the rock ‘n roll atmosphere of this town and the principal landmarks of the town are really exciting and interesting for game players. London’s history like Jack the Ripper is really good for our survival game and the town has different landmarks like Buckingham Palace. You have to deal with narrow streets and large places ‒ it’s really cool for the setting of an action game.
Nicolas:
We also have the London Tube – the undergrounds of London. The creepy voice that says, “Mind the gap.” For the gameplay we’ve also got very cool, very exciting situations actually ‒ you’ll see in the game. There is the Thames riverside. What we did with the water: you’ve got your backpack so basically you cannot go in the water with your guns. You’ve got to put your backpack on your head and you are very vulnerable. Zombies can come.
Mounir:
You’ll see dead bodies around.
Nicolas:
Very cool situations like that. We’ve also got the Tower of London.
Mounir:
It’s like a medieval place.
Nicolas:
The Tower of London. Yes, it’s kind of a magical place.
Mounir:
It’s really interesting because it’s like a mansion ‒ unknown.
Nicolas:
Yes, you don’t know what kind of secrets there could be in there. There are some special secret items and passageways and you don’t know where they are. Yes, lots of cool things like that which make London a very exciting city. Moreover when we looked at other kinds of zombie games we saw that most of the zombie games took place in the United States with big highways or gas stations ‒ you know, regular landmarks. And we really thought that the old Europe, the old phantasmagoria that there is in the old Europe is very cool to deal with. London is very exotic and we are fond of history. There is a very big background story which takes place in England’s history. The main guy’s name is John Dee from the sixteenth century. He was the counsellor of Queen Elizabeth I. He also wrote about an apocalypse ‒ a very big Black Plague prophesy that we used in the game. So lots of realistic episodes of English history were used in ZombiU to form a new scenario. Another scenario was done by the co-writers Gabrielle Shrager and Antony Johnston who also made the scenario of Dead Space, so we have a very huge background thing and we are very excited about London.
Tom:
What are some of the movies and games that inspired you for the setting, action and gameplay of ZombiU?
Mounir:
28 Days Later from Danny Boyle, Shaun of the Dead. In the game you have a cricket bat…
Oliver:
I was wondering about that. Someone told me about the cricket bat and I was like, “Why would a French studio put a cricket bat in a game?”
Nicolas:
Actually as we told you we are fond of London and fond of English culture so basically it was more normal for us to say, “It shall be a cricket bat.”
Oliver:
So any other games? Left 4 Dead ‒ you must of played that. Any other games, movies?
Nicolas:
Movies ‒ yes, we are of course fond of the Romero ones also. Night of the Living Dead. In the game you will also find a place with a supermarket because for George Romero’s movies ‒ the criticism of consumption in United States society. Yes, many movies like that. Resident Evil of course ‒ the first episodes of the series. We are very fond of the first one, the second one ‒ which is my personal favourite. We are really fond of Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls. Very demanding games, very tough but never unfair. They really inspired us a lot.
Oliver:
So that inspired the survival mode? You know, death – you get kicked back but you still have a chance to go forward and you’re kind of pushed back a little bit. It is very challenging for regular, normal players. So Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls inspired that kind of mode?
Nicolas:
Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls inspired our online features and yes, it inspired us more in terms of making the challenge demanding ‒ difficult but fair. And at the end when you achieve the thing you say, “Whew!” This feeling in videogames that we used to have when we were young. In modern videogames we have cool emotions also but we kind of miss sometimes the emotion of, “Okay, I tried many times, it was difficult, but I have a really good memory of that moment that I will tell to the other ones and share with the other ones”, and that’s really what we wanted to communicate with the game. We had this type of conversation around Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls with Mounir. And yes, basically that’s more where Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls inspired us is to make a fair challenge but a difficult one at the end of which the player will say, “Okay, you see the gas station, I shot the flare…” We had a lot of conversations with the playtesters and lots of very memorable moments.
Tom:
What kind of interesting gameplay mechanics can you bring in now that you’ve got this Wii U GamePad to work with?
Mounir:
Firstly you have management of your backpack because it’s a survival game so it’s a realistic mechanic because if you were in a zombie outbreak you’d have to check your backpack. To be honest, the first time we presented this mechanic to Nintendo they said, “Woah, it’s crazy because in our teams from Nintendo we had some recommendations about not doing this.” If you look at Nintendo games it’s always separated ‒ you have asymmetrical gameplay with the GamePad to balance the use of the two screens. Maybe it was difficult for them but we used this concept to integrate it in a zombie atmosphere. So we’ve got that. You also have the use of the weapons that is really realistic. You have the crossbow and the scope. You have the passive signal so you can check the proximity effect and do many things like use your lockpick and check the surrounding threats on the screen.
Nicolas:
And regarding the structure of the world we were really inspired by Metroid. So basically you will gain some abilities or new tools that you will discover in the game. There are very open areas that we show but you are not able to go there. Most of the interaction that the player does with the environments is done with the Wii U GamePad. As we said, to balance the immersion in the game we didn’t want the guy to lockpick the door by pressing a button twenty times. We didn’t want to have just a button or Quick Time Event stuff. We had this huge technology of a touchpad in the middle of the two sticks so we really wanted to use that. So when you want to lockpick a door you really lockpick the door with the Wii U GamePad. When you want to enter a code you really put the code in and if you miss then you put it in a few times. When you want to manage your inventory and backpack you manage it on this side. When you want to loot a box you will loot with your Wii U GamePad and when you want to scan you use it this way.
Mounir:
There are a lot of cameras in London so you can hide the cameras and check them into your safehouse to check on your resources because when you die and you lose your stuff – if you die another time you lose all your stuff. Your previous backpack is erased. And you have to check the CCTV cameras in London to get new stuff. “Oh, okay, I have to go to Buckingham Palace because there’s a sniper rifle. I have to go this way because there’s a lot of food…”, but because the respawn is random when you come another time you will encounter new threats in different ways so it’s always a new context.
Nicolas:
When you access the CCTV stuff on your safehouse you’ll also notice the threats – notes on the ranking of the threat of this special area of London or that special area of London. So basically if you see that there is a huge machinegun in this map but there are many, many zombies and you just have six handgun bullets. “Okay, so maybe I will just take the small shotgun on this part ‒ not a very big threat.” You don’t know where the zombies are but you know the ranking of the situation. And yes, as Mounir said we wanted the game to be realistic so we said when we tested the maps, “Okay, well the zombies are nearly exactly at the same place or maybe just the same number of zombies each time for the same map, so we said okay if you would have been in London during the zombie outbreak you would not have faced exactly the same zombie at the same place ‒ the zombie would have roamed. So basically we made the world system so that you will never have the same number of zombies in the map. You will never have the same placement of zombies in the map. One time you will go in the map and you will see all the zombies in the open for example, and the other time they will all be hidden. You will just hear them from various places. Actually every experience in the ZombiU’s maps is different.
Tom:
Another thing I’ve heard of is that you’re going for the whole realistic feel – if a zombie bites you you come back as another character. What kind of actions can you perform when a zombie grabs you to get rid of them before they bite you and you die?
Mounir:
Yes, you can shake the GamePad in a certain momentum although in this scenario you have the ability to scan zombies and to get their Virucide. So I don’t want to spoil it for you but with this Virucide you can push back the zombies when they come to you, when they try to get you, but you only have one chance so when you are grabbed you can use your push back ability to put your Virucide in their neck and get another chance.
Nicolas:
It’s a very rare cure and you have to find it on other zombies. Basically if you use your Virucide first then you have to search for a zombie and kill him so it’s another danger before getting the new Virucide. It’s very well integrated in the mechanics. The players really use that stuff a lot. We saw some players getting far into a mission, nearly finishing the mission but they use their last Virucide and say, “Well, I will not have a chance.” So they backtracked and visited another environment of London to get some Virucide to continue the mission and say, “Well, now I am well-armed ‒ it’s my only chance if I get grabbed by a zombie.”
Tom:
So there’s a lot of strategy involved. It’s going back to the old days of survival horror where you’ve got limited supplies – you’ve got to strategise to ensure that you have enough weapons to take on that particular area and those zombies.
Another question I wanted to ask is about the 25 GB discs that the Wii U uses. Did it help having that extra space for uncompressed videos or sharper visual fidelity?
Nicolas:
Well, I think the question is too technical for me. But sure ‒ we don’t have any issue about space and memory. Really the biggest challenge with the Wii U development was more from the gameplay perspective because we needed to learn how to use this Wii U GamePad. From a technical point of view we really received a lot of help from Nintendo so basically we didn’t have much issue with this aspect of development. Of course the console was in development so basically we iterated at the same speed as Nintendo. You know Ubisoft and Nintendo used to work a lot together on the Wii with Rayman Raving Rabbids and Just Dance.
Oliver:
Red Steel.
Nicolas:
Red Steel. So many, many games like that and you know there is a great relationship with Nintendo and we’ve got lots of contacts with them and they really helped us a lot from a technical standpoint so I can’t really respond to you precisely because I’m not a technical guy but I know we did not encounter many technical issues with the hardware.
Thanks to Nicolas and Mounir for being so willing to spend time with us and for sharing so many fascinating details about ZombiU’s development history and gameplay innovations.
The game will be released alongside the Wii U’s launch on November 18th in the US and November 30th in European territories.
Head over here to read Oltman’s hands-on preview of ZombiU, and be sure to browse through El33tonline’s previous coverage of the game for more details, screenshots and trailers of this highly anticipated Wii U launch title.
Tags: interview, rage2012, ubisoft, ubisoftmontpellier, zombiu
