This article was first published in the May 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Sami Järvi is no stranger to cinematic storytelling in gaming. A director at Finland-based Remedy Games, Järvi (aka Sam Lake) wrote 2001's noir classic Max Payne, including its infamous in-game graphic novel.
Remedy's follow-up, Alan Wake, borrowed its episodic structure from television. Its latest, Quantum Break, is the logical conclusion of that path: part game, part TV series. "We have been looking at television and thinking, 'How can we take these ideas and make them interactive?'" says Järvi.
The studio's solution: an entire live-action series within the game. Quantum Break's gameplay follows Jack Joyce (voiced by X-Men's Shawn Ashmore), an everyman granted time-manipulation powers. The show, meanwhile, traces the story of Paul Serene (Game of Thrones's Aiden Gillen), the equally powered villain. Both are interactive: at various points, the player's decisions influence not only the narrative, but the structure of the episodes, which can be cut into more than 40 iterations based on the player's actions. "You see something weird in the show, and then later you're the one making that weird stuff happening in the game," says Järvi, 45.
The scenes for the TV series were shot in Los Angeles by Lifeboat Productions. Remedy also recorded the actors in a volume - a room set up for a full-body performance - and their likenesses using a DI4D motion-capture rig. Its in-game engine provides the most accurate possible expressions. "[Before] it was easy to do big action scenes, but doing intimate and emotional was difficult," says Järvi. "Now we can go really close."
But the biggest challenge was more prosaic: keeping track of the various story threads with time travel, advanced physics and two different visual mediums involved. "It's... complicated," he laughs. "I'm waiting to see how long it takes for someone to find a plot hole."
Quantum Breakis out now on Xbox One and PC
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
