NEWS
by Mark Barley
Radical: Prototype 2 Hero Will Die
Radical Entertainment is relishing in the fact that Prototype 2 protagonist Alex Mercer will be killed in the upcoming sequel.
Speaking with Destructoid, Radical's design director Matt Armstrong said;
“We were just throwing out ideas about where we could take the sequel after the events of the first Prototype when one of the guys said ‘You know what? We should just kill Mercer."
“The room was suddenly bursting with energy, excitement and debate around the idea and that made me realize that we had the seeds of something really special. In the end, the premise was just too exciting to pass up.”
As it turns out Alex Mercer will be the sequel's primary antagonist with the true protagonist being James Heller. “The room was suddenly bursting with energy, excitement and debate around the idea and that made me realize that we had the seeds of something really special. In the end, the premise was just too exciting to pass up.”
“Heller’s a character who’s actually become more and more interesting over the course of development as we’ve got to know him better,” Armstrong said.
“One of the things that I’ve been most happy about in the game has been Heller’s dry sense of humor. Humor in games is a very difficult thing to pull off successfully, but our writers have done a really impressive job of simply allowing it to flow out of certain situations and interactions without forcing it. This has gone a long way to making Heller a really engaging and relatable character.”
Armstrong stated that the developer has listened to fan feedback for the sequel regarding the game's side missions. “One of the things that I’ve been most happy about in the game has been Heller’s dry sense of humor. Humor in games is a very difficult thing to pull off successfully, but our writers have done a really impressive job of simply allowing it to flow out of certain situations and interactions without forcing it. This has gone a long way to making Heller a really engaging and relatable character.”
“The experience was really hurt by the fact that they were all so simple, abstract and completely disconnected from the world we were building and story we were telling,” he said.
“This time around, we’ve made sure that we have a much wider range of side content and that all of it is tied back into the fiction. Ensuring that all of these elements are supporting and reinforcing the story that we’re telling has resulted in a world that is much more rich, diverse and believable than the world of the first game.”
Armstrong stated that the sequel's revamped side-mission system is the most improved area of the game but also noted that more stealth-like abilities have been implemented as well. “This time around, we’ve made sure that we have a much wider range of side content and that all of it is tied back into the fiction. Ensuring that all of these elements are supporting and reinforcing the story that we’re telling has resulted in a world that is much more rich, diverse and believable than the world of the first game.”
“One of the most interesting aspects of these improvements is how they’ve been folded into a brand new feature we’re calling Black.Net. This is Blackwatch’s secure, encrypted communications network which contains details of all of the various operations and experiments that Blackwatch and Gentek are carrying out across the three Zones of the city,” he explained.
“By hacking into this system via communications vehicles throughout the city, the player learns the identities of the key operatives associated with these missions and, by hunting down and consuming them, opens up brand new missions within the world.”
Prototype 2 is out in April for the PS3, 360, PC.
“By hacking into this system via communications vehicles throughout the city, the player learns the identities of the key operatives associated with these missions and, by hunting down and consuming them, opens up brand new missions within the world.”