There are many games change course while they are in development. They begin as one idea or concept and during their development, major changes or overhauls happen, and you get something that is very different than what was originally planned. The Devil May Cry series off as a part of the Resident Evil franchise. Pokémon Snap originally was not a Pokémon based game. One of the latest series that is incredibly different than what was first planned was the Infamous series, a game with a style much different than what one would suspect the series to have begun with.
Sucker Punch Productions, the developer of the Infamous series, had very different ideas for the series at first. Early on, the game was closer to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing than it was to the adventures of Cole MacGrath that we now know. According to Sucker Punch Productions cofounder Chris Zimmerman in an interview with Gamespot: “The original idea for Infamous, believe it or not, was that it was kind of Animal Crossing, but you were a super hero.”
“We worked on that for about a year in that direction,” says Zimmerman. “So much more stylized, much more cartoony than what you end up seeing. We worked hard to see if we could make that work.” There was much experimentation with this build of Infamous. One of the original pitches even had the player fighting balloon-stealing gorillas.
It did not seem to work, however. “It really wasn’t coming together,” says Zimmerman. This led to the Infamous that we now know. Anyone who has played Animal Crossing and Infamous know how much of a far cry that is. The games are worlds apart, and since the result is the Infamous that we all know and love, that does not seem too bad thing. Like many games, the changes created an entirely new game, yet an excellent game nonetheless.
The next entry to the Infamous series, Infamous: Second Son, comes to the PS4 March 21. The game features a new city and a new protagonist, who has brand new powers. It is still a world apart from the Animal Crossing roots that the series evolved from, but that seems for the good.
