You don't have to take our word for how game changing the latest story driven action adventure game from Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment is, you can hear it from the studio itself. “Quantum Break, being a Remedy game, has a lot of story and a lot of depth to it. You know us, we love to talk about our stories,” creative director Sam Lake tells us.“Quantum Break is an intense, story driven action game spectacle. It’s an entertainment experience. It’sa fusion of a cinematic action game and a live-action show. The game is about heroes, the show is about villains.”
How the two will interact has been the subject of much discussion. We do know that the end of each chapter will result in the player taking on the role of the villain and having to make choices that will have direct repercussions in the live-action television show which means Remedy is filming multiple versions of scenes to cover what sounds like the most ambitious branching narrative ever conceived. What’s more, much of the gameplay we’ve seen in action has been narrative-focused. With all the temporal shenanigans going on as time begins to collapse, various ‘stutters’ the flow of time will freeze objects in motion, and one explosion involving a tanker gives protagonist Jack an opportunity to investigate and manipulate the wreckage with flaming cars, shattered glass and cowering pedestrians all motionless around him.
It’s an eye catching visual trick, one composed of mesmerising crystal like cracks and jittering objects as Jack navigates through the debris and, eventually, fights with similarly gifted soldiers using the frozen landscape to hurl cars and concrete stuck in time loops. And we’re told this is just a small taste of what’s to come. “Some stutters are more chaotic and others are less chaotic,” says Lake. “Obviously, we have picked this particular sequence to show you different aspects of that. As you play the game, more and time gets more broken. There is escalation as you go, and you will certainly experience fights in more chaotic and difficult situations than you saw here.”
How the two will interact has been the subject of much discussion. We do know that the end of each chapter will result in the player taking on the role of the villain and having to make choices that will have direct repercussions in the live-action television show which means Remedy is filming multiple versions of scenes to cover what sounds like the most ambitious branching narrative ever conceived. What’s more, much of the gameplay we’ve seen in action has been narrative-focused. With all the temporal shenanigans going on as time begins to collapse, various ‘stutters’ the flow of time will freeze objects in motion, and one explosion involving a tanker gives protagonist Jack an opportunity to investigate and manipulate the wreckage with flaming cars, shattered glass and cowering pedestrians all motionless around him.
It’s an eye catching visual trick, one composed of mesmerising crystal like cracks and jittering objects as Jack navigates through the debris and, eventually, fights with similarly gifted soldiers using the frozen landscape to hurl cars and concrete stuck in time loops. And we’re told this is just a small taste of what’s to come. “Some stutters are more chaotic and others are less chaotic,” says Lake. “Obviously, we have picked this particular sequence to show you different aspects of that. As you play the game, more and time gets more broken. There is escalation as you go, and you will certainly experience fights in more chaotic and difficult situations than you saw here.”