An epic saga

Gabrielle Shrager and Alexander Remy discuss Beowulf on PlayStation 3.

Ubisoft's Beowulf game has been developed alongside Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis' reinvention of the saga. Gabrielle Shrager, Narrative Designer, and Alexander Remy, Associate Game Manager, from developers Tiwak discuss turning an ancient saga and groundbreaking movie into a game.

Can you explain Beowulf for people unfamiliar with the saga and movie adaptation?

Gabrielle Shrager: We'll try and make an explanation of a very long and detailed epic poem as short as possible [laughs].

It is the story of a man battling his inner demons. It takes place in the dark ages, 518 AD and the actual poem was written around 1000 AD from a Christian perspective, the idea being that the legend came down to the Anglo-Saxons through an oral tradition. It was told to the court at that time in order to remind them from where we came, who our ancestors were and how close we were to darkness. So it was a reminder of a period of when we needed heroes.

Alexander Remy: For the movie aspect, Robert Zemeckis came on board on a script that was written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. I had a chance to read one of the first drafts of the script and it was awesome, and I totally understand how he became enthused when he read that.

Avary was the originator of the whole project; he wrote the script back in 1995 or 1997 when he was an Indie filmmaker. He went to Cannes and tried to pitch the Beowulf script around and everyone was like, "that is one of the best scripts I've read but that is a 200 million dollar movie." It was impossible to make at the time.

So basically ten years later, with Gaiman on board, they tried again to pitch to movie studios and it came to the ears of Zemeckis who was developing also at the time the whole motion capture technology that was used on Polar Express. He knew at the time in 2003 or 2004 that the technological progress would allow him to make a faithful adaptation of this script into a movie.

GS: At the time that Avary and Gaiman were writing the script, Neil told me he said, "Bob, I think I'm going a little overboard with the dragon sequence." And he replied "There is nothing you could write that is going to cost me more than a million dollars a minute to make, so go wild" [laughs].

Basically the idea being, that he wanted to trial this new technology and go as far as he could with it, and as far as we know when we saw the first edits of the film back in December 2006 it is nothing like what we're going to see in November 2007. So he is cutting, re-editing, he is doing everything, placing and changing cameras, rendering, re-rendering to create the film.

How have you taken Gaiman and Avary's script and adapted that into a game?

GS: It was easy to adapt, number one because of the strength of the characterisation. From Avary and Gaiman's dialogue alone, you get to know these characters really easily and that is the sign of a truly great writer. Once you take that, you need to decide how to use each of these main characters in the game, and what relationships they will have with the player.

From a story point of view, the material for having major bosses was there but this is where we had to expand greatly on the story, and where we had the liberty to do so. In order for us to do that we need the player to decide for himself who he will be, we need him to decide whether he is going to resist the temptation or not. He has to be in the position of Beowulf that we're passively watching in the movie and so you can't just do that based on two bosses. You can't have them just fight Grendel, you can't just have him meet the dragon, there is just not enough material. So this is all about the struggle with his inner demons. The entire second act, which is essential to players, is about fighting the monsters within, who are personified by the Titans of Norse mythology.

So we went back not only to the epic poems but we needed a lot more of the material and a lot more of the language, the codes of the Norse societies in that time, in order to strengthen and provide the background. So we could have this dichotomy for the player between the monstrous and the hero king at a sourced, realistic level - taking care of the people looking after the kingdom, and then the scary creatures, the bosses and basically the monsters you yourself are breeding. The more you go towards the darker, carnal side of Beowulf, the more you're creating monsters that will come back to haunt you.

Can you explain more about the difference between the heroic and carnal nature of Beowulf?

AR: I think right from the beginning, the incredible job that was done by Gabrielle and the Tiwak creative directors really pinpoints the core essence of the Beowulf myth and the movie, which is this duality of the character. The way they decided to translate it so there is one part which is the script, the dialogue and interactive dynamic you have this and the other is the design and gameplay mechanics.

On one side you have this very cruel, visceral, carnal side of Beowulf which is all linked in terms of gameplay controls and moves to the grab mechanics. Trust me you want to use it [carnal fury] and you're going to have to use it because it is the only way to get rid of the enemy.

GS: That is part of the temptation for Beowulf, not only literally with the monster's voices, "Show me your power. Show me your power." But then you have the temptation for the gamer who is walking by, "I'll pick that up; can I smash people with that? I can't do it in heroic..."

AR: On the other side you have got heroism, the heroic leader which is done through the interaction with your men, your Thanes, whom you can assign to specific tasks, such as the Drakkar race and also Grendel's fight. The way you attract Grendel into the mead hall is to have your Thanes sing loud, as loud as possible.

GS: It's a raunchy drinking song I think you'll enjoy [laughs]. We got Ray Winstone singing the song; it is the high moment of the game no doubt.

Has the CGI nature of the movie helped you in terms of game development?

GS: Yeah, we shared all of the concept art and got that very early on, and that was the starting point for us. We used some of the 3D models, but not all of them were adapted. Sometimes it took us longer to strip them down because they had so many pixels... We were like, "Oh, if we could only do that! That's Grendel's mother? Good luck with doing that as a real time cinematic!" As it turns out we could never have done it, like they could never have pulled off this movie without the CGI; we could never have pulled off the game without next gen.