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Old 10-06-12, 06:14   #50
domina
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Exclusive Interview with Karl Stewart


In addition to the Group Q&A, the Ambassadors had a chance to speak with either Brian Horton or Karl Stewart in a one-on-one 15 minute interview; this is my interview with Karl. A few edits have been made for clarity. The interview took place 8:45 AM PST on June 7.

Ashley: I'm going to jump right in and start off with a kind of difficult topic: there have been some concerns regarding the implication of sexual violence towards Lara in the trailer. So my question, which is kind of two parts, is how do you feel such scenes contribute to Lara's growth as a character, and do you think the same effect could be achieved with the "standard" violence we're used to in video games?

Karl: So it’s never our goal to bring in any element of sexual violence into the game. I think that can be said first and foremost. What we’re trying to do is tell a story that makes it feel as real as possible, and I think you have to go a little bit far in certain instances. Bring it to a point where… We don’t ever let it play out. Nothing would ever happen. But I think in order to bring you closer to the character and experience the breaking point--what makes her do what she has to do--you have to feel like things are a little bit out of your control.

You see in the trailer--and also in the behind-closed-door demo--you see that scene play out. You don’t know who that guy is, but you know that he’s scary, you know that he’s just ordered his men to kill people so therefore he has no respect for who you are. And as a result, you are forced to have to do something that you’ve in doing something that you've never had to do before. So she breaks into tears and cries. And the goal with scenes like that, which don't play out as often as you think--You don’t want to duplicate that over and over again--That’s a very unique and iconic moment. In order to not just do the things like making the hair stand up on the back of your neck, but also to feel I now know what it feels. It was kill or be killed. And I don’t think you can ever put a gun in her hand and just say go and kill someone without being pushed to the extreme limit that we see in the trailer. Even though it happens in a very quick motion of time, it’s a strong, emotive piece.

We never intend to have sexual violence into the game whatsoever. We never play out like that should you fail to kill him.

A: So it stays with the... really uncomfortable touches?

K: Yeah, the uncomfortable touches. It kinda makes you feel like... You know, he makes your skin crawl. [Feel like] "I need to get away from him. I need to get away from him I need to move on. I can’t be here much longer." As he gets a little closer... The moment I played it, the very first time where he comes up to her ear and you can hear him, you know, [makes sniffing noise]. You hear him smelling her. You’re like, "Oh my God, get away from me!"

So there’s never any sexual violence. It’s there to make her pushed to the extreme, to do something that no one ever wants to do. That none of us ever want to do.


A: Are there any plans to support motion control, like the Kinect or PS Move?

K: We obviously as a developer looked at all of those avenues, and to be quite frank, although very, very strong uses of the experience that you know… you can play many games with those built in and they have fun. And we love it, and we play a lot of the studio.

The big thing for us is that... we want to keep the player connected as much as possible. We want the player to feel like they’re there, they’re a part of it. To us, using the various peripherals didn’t allow us to keep you engaged in every single second of the game. It almost extracted you too much, that you lose that heightened tension we built up. If we’re going down that road it needed to be done in a way that you weren’t constantly ripped out.

We see that happen in a multitude of ways that people kind of feel a little bit distconnected. I remember--The moment that sticks out in my mind is when you play Call of Duty: World of War. You wake up in this tent, and this guy comes to get you. As soon as he opens his mouth--Kiefer Sutherland. I was getting ready to spend the next six plus hours playing that game, and I was really looking forward to this intense drama to play out. And all of a sudden I was listening to Jack Bauer from 24. And for the next hour, I couldn’t get away from following Jack Bauer. And that was hard for me because they just ruined, for me, personally, they ruined something that I felt I was getting ready to engage with.

So we have to be careful about bringing players into a game [and] that you don’t keep extracting them out. I’m a big fan of playing a game [and] I want to sit and play the entire thing through. It's like a TV series: I watch one episode, and I want to watch them all now. I think it’s just very important that we make sure that we play to our strengths, and our strengths are bringing in unprecedented level of emotion in our game. Having certain peripherals used is great in some instances. I love the peripherals that are out there. I just feel like for us it just wasn’t the right for us.


A: Do you have any plans for subtitles in different languages? Specifically I was asked about Greek and Turkish.

K: So that’s an interesting one because I actually had an email this morning from the VO guys, and we’re actually deep in that conversation right now: about what languages will be pure VO versus what will be subtitle. And let’s just say this Tomb Raider will be one of the biggest projects a team has ever worked on in many different levels. And one of them will probably... We’ll probably have a very large array of languages. In fact, [laughs] I don’t think we’ve ever done this before. I have to be careful before I say anything specific, but there is hope [for multiple language voice-overs].


A: So this is kind of morbid, but a lot of people are curious about Lara's death. Does she have the "ragdoll" physics like we saw in the Legend trilogy? Or will she have more graphic deaths, like we've seen happen to her enemies?

K: There are some deaths that happen in certain areas that are pretty hardcore. Let me just say if you didn’t kill one of those wolves, they don’t care too much for you and they will rip your throat out.

So in general, we haven’t done too much… You know, when you’re building a game there are a certain things that take precedence just to make sure you get that story. When it comes to things like when she dies what happens, at the moment we have a lot of things on the table. What you want to do is try to get the player from when they die back into the game as quickly as possible. You don’t want ragdoll physics that make her fall all the way down a cliff for 20 minutes. We do want to make the player feel more in and out. And there are some pretty horrific deaths in there that play up certain themes. And of course there’s natural ones where you fall off a cliff by mistake, and you want to get back in the game quick. We don’t want to be gratuitous and show her dying in the worse possible way all the time. When she does die pretty horrifically, you know why and you feel it.

So we’ll see. We have a few things on the table right now to decide what is the best direction to do with that.


A: I noticed in the demo Lara picks up a camera. Any insight as to how that will be used? Some fans are hoping for a screenshot feature. Is there any chance of that?

K: So I don’t want to go too much depth into the camera because it’s actually a functionality that were looking at. The good thing is it doesn’t feel out of place. She’s found the camera she’s picked it up—I would, too. It’s something which comes in handy at some stage, you just don’t know when. So it doesn’t feel forced or out of place. But it’s certainly a device that holds the opportunity to engage the player in a different way and tell a story. So we’re currently looking at whether or not that needs to play a big part, or just something that’s more symbolic. There were some earlier ideas where we used that on a regular basis and felt forced. They felt like they were extracting the player again from what they were doing. Right now there’s not too solid of an idea.

A: During the demo you mentioned that the bow and arrow would become Lara's new trademark. Does that mean we'll never see the dual pistols again?
[Note: I initially wasn't going to ask anything about the pistols since Karl had mentioned it elsewhere, but his comment during the demo prompted this. Asking again didn't change anything. :P]

K: Never say never! [laughs]


A: Can you give us any insight into the inventory system?

K: The inventory system… the interesting thing is we try to take inspiration from many, many mediums. We look ed at Movies and tv shows. One of the cool ones, if you remember: The Book of Eli. Denzel Washington only caries so much. He doesn't need all these different things; we tried to look at that. We tried to look at Tomb Raider through those glasses. She’ll have her set garb—I don’t want to say too much for spoilers--She’ll have the right level of equipment that you'll feel, "Okay, she's not carrying arond 50 things and they're invisible. And you’ll be able to upgrade that equipment. And then we’ll look at a swap-out system, say you can't carry any more. We'll probably stick to the D-pad select to access invetory items. Right now you feel like she’s got the right amount that she's not being laden down.

A: So basically what you see on Lara is all that she carries?

K: Yeah, that’s where you don’t want to clutter the character. It's a video game so we can blur the line--You don’t detract from who she is. But we don’t want to laden her down with 50 different things down.

[Meagan came in at this point and said we had about 30 seconds left.]

A: Okay, last one! How do the help icons work? Are they optional?

K: The prompts only come in when they’re relevant, at the beginning of the game. They’re only here to say “Here’s what you need to know right now.” We want the player to feel educated. Those little help, tutorial-like prompts: They come up once, they teach you, and they go away.

[Karl and I thanked each other, and then I went to my hotel room to fangirl freak out while the other got their chance. ]

Last edited by domina; 10-06-12 at 06:28.
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