Resistance: Retribution developer interview

John Garvin, Creative Director at Sony Bend, developer of Resistance: Retribution talks Chimera, the game's hero James Grayson and infecting your PSP with this latest chapter in the revered sci-fi series.

The Resistance series sees the history of mankind change with the rise of the Chimera. Where does Resistance: Retribution sit in the timeline of this alternative history?

Retribution begins in the aftermath of Resistance: Fall of Man. The Chimera have just been defeated in England, and as the nation begins to assess their military they face a new dilemma. A new hero emerged during the Chimeran war, but this soldier is also guilty of military abandonment, and the law considers this treason. In a time of war this means the hero must be executed to send a message to others.

This hero is the game's lead character, James Grayson. Can you give us a little background on him?

Grayson is the last person anyone would expect to save the world, including Grayson. While the British military has been in his blood for generations, James rebelled against the family profession and found a new home and family running with a gang on the streets of London. His new life taught him how to survive by fighting dirty, which prepared him to take on the Chimera. Grayson is a man of his era.

What kinds of locations will battles take place in the game?

The Chimera have been in Europe for two years, transforming the continent for habitation and for their push to invade the rest of the world. The Atlantic coastline has been fortified with hundreds of anti-air gun batteries, each the size of a soccer stadium. The Rhine River has been diverted into a massive conversion facility beneath the ghost town of Bonn, Germany. The countryside has been gouged open by earth movers and turned into a shipyard where massive aircraft are being constructed (the same ships used to invade America in Resistance 2). The few thousand surviving humans have huddled together inside a castle fortress in Luxembourg. The catacombs beneath Paris have been infested with Cloven. In a snow-covered Paris, the Chimera have excavated a tower that dwarves the Eiffel Tower.

What can you tell us about the new enemies that the player will face?

Retribution introduces a line of female Chimera possessing highly evolved telepathic abilities. Players will also encounter the enigmatic Cloven.

What are the main characteristics of these new enemies the Cloven?

Cloven are Russian soldiers who were infected with an early version of the Chimeran virus that infected Nathan Hale. Physically unchanged, the soldiers experienced psychological stresses that eventually drove them insane, and then to grossly disfigure themselves. The Cloven live and fight in small packs, and appear to function as part of a hive mentality. When members of this hive are killed the entire pack becomes less effective and the survivors descend further into madness, turning them into primal, savage fighters.

What sort of new weapons will players get to battle the Chimera with?

We've created a modified version of the Bullseye which we call the BM001 Razor. Its main fire is the same as that of the Bullseye but its alternate fire lets you charge the weapon to shoot out an energy blade that is capable of tracking and killing multiple targets with one shot. Another new weapon is something we created from scratch called the Longbow 1S-1K. This weapon acts like a railgun capable of dispatching multiple targets at once if your aim and weapon is charged up correctly.

Tell us more about Infection mode and PSP Plus mode...

Infection mode, done through Resistance Connect, is a component that offers quite a few things for the player that help add to the overall experience of the game. One feature that gets enabled from infecting your PSP with Resistance 2 on PS3 is the ability to play the game with the DualShock 3 for those truly yearning for a classic dual stick shooter feel. Another feature affects the game from a gameplay and story standpoint by infecting Grayson with the Chimeran virus thus giving him the ability to regenerate health and the ability to access Infected Intel items which provide more insight about the Resistance universe.

What will the experience of eight-player multiplayer be like? How does it work?

The overall experience will be pretty robust given the amount of content we have for a PSP game. The online component of the game supports up to eight players total with four-on-four team games. There are five maps that can be played using one of the five game types including familiar modes such as Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. We also have Containment, which is borrowed from Resistance: Fall Of Man, and Assimilation, which you could say is our take on the ever so popular Zombie mode found in other games like Call Of Duty: World At War.

Our multiplayer component works with both Ad Hoc and Infrastructure gameplay and of course provides community features such as rankings and clan support.