dtp entertainment AG sent out a pre-arranged Q&As with Sascha Jungnickel of
Replay Studios as he talks about Sabotage, the upcoming stealth-action game set
in WW2. Sabotage should be available in January 2007.
In Sabotage, players take on the role of tough resistance fighter Violette
Summer. Deep behind enemy lines, she fights the WW2 Nazi war machine throughout
Europe, infiltrating military facilities, placing explosive charges and taking
out target persons - silent but deadly. Authentic challenges await the player,
thanks to detailed scenarios modeled on historic locations: Sabotage's missions
are fictitious but are set against a realistic backdrop. Whether Notre Dame in
Paris, the Hamburg harbor, France's Maginot bunkers or historic Warsaw:
Sabotage's impressively realistic graphics shine with a unique, artistic look.
Q:Can you please give us a update to were you are in the development circle
of the game today
Sascha Jungnickel: We're currently working on an early beta version that
is planned to be finished at the End of October.
Q:The game had a very good response at the GC Show in Leipzig in August, were
you pleased with that?
Sascha Jungnickel: Yes. Sabotage is a very ambitious project - and the
version we presented at the GC showed that it will be a great game. So it's now
up to players all over the world to track the process of Sabotage.
Q: Can you please give us some background on the team working on the game,
such as what games they have worked on before?
Sascha Jungnickel: REPLAY STUDIOS team members have worked on
blockbuster titles like Hitman Contracts and Hitman Blood Money (Eidos), Gothic
(Atari), Total Club Manager (EA), Spellforce 1 and 2, Legend of Kay (Jowood),
the classic Realms of Arkania series (DSA, Sirtech), for Rockstar Vienna as well
as on several ambitious independent titles. The team has experience with PC,
XBox and PS2 development. So far Replay Studios has created two games (Crashday,
Sabotage) with the in-house 'Mirror' engine and is currently evaluating
multiplatform next-gen technologies.
Q: You're are going for a very stylish look to this game, what has been your
influences, and what have you done to develop those influences in the game?
Sascha Jungnickel: Visually we are influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky's
movies. Besides from that, we are trying to establish unique, illustrative
visuals…It's our mission to give players a unique playing experience. In our
opinion, this also should include an audiovisual world that illustrates the game
distinctively.
Q: Historically games that use a female as there main character tend to scare
off gamers as they prefer to play as men, is this why artwork that you have
released so far your character is has a very distinctive look, very dark and
very gothic
Sascha Jungnickel: On the one hand, players are also attracted by playing
unique women. On the other hand, Violette is much more like 'just a woman'.
She's a very tough special agent, going through missions that - let's be honest
- even men don't want to go through.
Q: The game's main character is inspired by the true story of a real female
resistance fighter female MI6 agent and heroine of WW2. How did you hear about
her? And why a game based on her role in the war?
Sascha Jungnickel: The game's not based on anybody - it's been inspired
by a real resistance fighter. We've been very impressed by what she did, but we
wanted to tell our own story, imagining a character we designed in a situation
like that.
So we are using a tough woman as the basis, putting her in authentic locations
and tell a fictional story with fictional missions.
Q: Are any of the missions based on real missions? And which ones?
Sascha Jungnickel: There are certain elements in these missions that are
based on real incidents. For example, Violette will have to eliminate a
high-ranked SS general. Therefore, she travels to Paris to track down the
general at the famous Notre Dame cathedral. At the cathedral, the general is
commanding the looting of the church - dozens of soldiers are carrying out
pictures, paintings and everything precious they can find to load it on trucks.
These lootings really happened, but of course we are using them as an element to
tell our story without being accurate on the time and places we are using.
Q: Violette was killed in the end of the war by the Nazis, does you your
character die in the end?
Sascha Jungnickel: We're going to leave the end open at this point of
time...