Kent Hudson - 2K Marin

Interview from Luke - Monday, 08 February 2010 @ 12:28pm

Kent Hudson is a Senior Systems Designer for 2K Marin, one of the studios behind BioShock 2. With over 8 years of industry experience, Kent was the Creative Director of an unannounced project at Midway Studios Austin before joining 2K Marin. He began his career at Ion Storm Austin, where he shipped Deus Ex: Invisible War and Deus Ex for the PS2 as a level and systems designer. He also helped out briefly on Thief: Deadly Shadows, where he worked with BioShock 2's Creative Director Jordan Thomas for the first time. Before joining the industry, Kent graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in Political Science, which he swears made sense at the time.

Kent: That's true, that's a good question. When I wanted to get into games, this was around the year 2000, there weren't a lot of games schools. Now you've got game institutes and training schools that really didn't exist back then, so I didn't really know any other way to do it. I liked political science when I was in school, so I figured I’d take classes that I liked and would build maps and do mods in my spare time.

So I spent my spare time downloading level editors and doing stuff in Quake 2, Soldier of Fortune, and older games like that. I was building maps to amuse myself and practicing making levels; then I saw that Ion Storm Austin, the guys who had just finished Deus Ex, which is still my favourite game ever, were hiring for level designers. I was like, “What the hell, I'll send my levels over there.” I told them I wanted to get into the games industry and had just been training myself. By some good fortune I ended up getting hired… I don't know how but it worked out! But yeah, my education pretty much has nothing to do with games (laughs). But the college experience always helps.

Kent: Oh man, there's a ton. For example we just saw the Big Sister fighting; she is unlike anything else you've seen in BioShock. She is agile, fast, and very, very dangerous. She is kind of the opposite to what a Big Daddy is except for the threat level, ‘cause she is at the top of the food chain. Jumping up and down levels, jumping off walls and hitting the player, she's got fireballs, telekinesis attacks, and she can also charge you. You didn't see it in the demo here but if she is in a fight and there is another Splicer in the room, she will pull them over with telekinesis and impale them on her needle, then drain his life so she can recharge herself. I mean tons of stuff; she's crazy fun to fight. The cool thing about her is that she will find you, that wasn't fake. She will find you anywhere in any level and hunt you down. When one of them comes after you, you've got like 30 seconds, you'll hear a couple of screams and you'll have to set-up. That's going to happen anywhere in the level, you can’t escape.

I also think the Brutes that we saw are really neat, they can also jump around the environment a lot more. If one sees you, he can pick up real physical objects and throw them at you, and you can catch them with telekinesis and throw them back. It’s not like spawning a fake object out of the ground that you see in a lot of games. If there is a chair over in the corner, he is going to go pick up that chair and throw it at you, it’s very dynamic in combat.

For our human characters we have added cover, not the most revolutionary thing, but it is a step up from the first BioShock. With the combat you have a lot more environmental awareness with those guys. The Spider Splicers can now jump up on the walls and throw hooks at you instead of just going from floor to ceiling.

Pretty much all the AI has seen some kind of improvement and I think that overall thematically the AI's are a lot more connected to the environment. They are a lot more environmentally aware and it feels like they are in the same world you are, it’s not just a dude standing in the middle of the room when you’re like, “Dude, go hide man! Why wouldn't you go hide? I'm shooting at you!” They know what the environment is, they use better tactics, and it’s just a lot more dynamic to fight them.

Kent: It’s something that we knew we wanted to do early on when we knew we wanted to play the Big Daddy and have those interactions with the Little Sister, but it’s something that definitely grew in scope as the game came together. When I first came onto the project in October 2008, it was just a spec at that point and it was just very much like you were gathering at a body and some guys would come. That was the extent of what we had and so I started writing the initial specs for that thinking, “Okay well what enemies are they, how do we pace it” etc. So we started developing the Ambush System and it was important to us that it be systemic – it’s not scripted. It's not like every level designer took every body in Rapture and said, “Okay if you harvest from this body then I'm going to script these guys to come in from here”, it’s all generated by the game. Every one is going to be different, even if you play the same level twice its going to be different.

We started really expanding the scope of the system to where now it is really robust, we built everything. We sat down and thought, “What kind of guys come, they can come in waves, send out 3 guys, then wait 5 seconds and send out 5 more”. The level designers are sort of biasing the system towards a really cool encounter with good pacing, while also letting it be dynamic and systematic. It actually became very robust and grew a lot in scope by the end, but it really let the level designers do some cool stuff without having to hand script everything. It’s kind of the best of both worlds.

Kent: You know that's a good question, obviously the power curve is a lot different with you being a Big Daddy. We left the human enemies in but let them serve a little bit different purpose. The human enemies [Splicers] in the game are the least messed up of the people, they serve as more of the bread and butter enemies. If it's you versus one melee guy you are going to destroy him, if it’s a pistol guy, maybe he is a little harder. We go all the way up to the SMG enemy; he's a bit of a challenge. We kinda kept those guys [Splicers] at the low end of the power curve so you can see them in the first couple of levels but in the later levels they are really just there to blow through. We definitely wanted to add to the top end of the spectrum, to keep it challenging as a Big Daddy.

So you saw that Brute character, he is quite a fierce opponent. Even though he is human he is very powerful, he can throw things at you, charge you, and he's got really powerful melee attacks - that keeps it dangerous. We do have the two Big Daddies from the original game as well as a new Big Daddy who I would say is more fierce than the first two because he has the rocket and the turrets, so that's again more dangerous - Big Daddies are still a big fight.

We've also got the Big Sister who is a completely different enemy. Where you are kinda strong and more lumbering, she is super fast and agile. We've got another enemy that I can't really go into detail about because I don't think we've announced it yet; I guess it will be a surprise when you play the game. But there are some other guys who are really big, strong and scary.

It was definitely a challenge because the first game relied a lot more on the human Splicers and we had to sort of move them down the power curve and add a bunch to the top to keep it consistent with being a Big Daddy.

Kent: I think I'd have to say the Big Sister, I know that sounds like a cliché answer but she just does so much stuff. She was just such a challenge, it's actually funny because I obviously work with a great team of programmers, animators, character designers, etc. but there was a point in the project where she really sucked (laughs). She wasn't fun to fight, she did stupid stuff and we just hadn't given her enough attention. After that initial Game Informer world release issue, and we had the demo where she would do cool stuff, and there was like a teaser at the end, we were like, “Okay she’s on the cover of a magazine, she really needs to kick ass. She's got to be awesome guys, we have to make this a priority.” So we made a big shift, she's now got dedicated meetings, she's got a dedicated team, and we are going to start really working on her. It took a long time to get her up to snuff but once we did it was just crazy, I mean just the amount of stuff that she can do, the fact that she can follow you anywhere in any level. It all came together and she's so fun to fight every time, and just the shear number of abilities of attacks and her movement is amazing. It's easy to add a bunch of features and have them all be not that great and say, “Yeah, but she does a lot of stuff”, but really it’s not be all that fun. Every attack we worked on had to be great. It was just a huge effort, but I think she turned out really cool.

Kent: Overall I think it’s just how do you follow up a game that was so well received and was so original? It was daunting, making just so many decisions about which areas we were going to change. It was like, “okay that was cool, let’s leave it” versus “okay that wasn't very good let’s improve it” versus “okay that was fine, but let’s improve it anyway.” Kinda making all those decisions about what worked, what didn't, how to take it forward, just really trying to take seriously the responsibility of working on the game. So many of us were new to the project who didn't work on the first one, it’s a big responsibility so we wanted to do it justice. It comes in a lot of small decisions but it's BioShock, we had to do it right.

Kent: I don't want to go into story spoilers but obviously if you would have known about “Would you kindly” before playing BioShock it would have ruined the first half of the game. But I think there was pressure to deliver a great story, because that was obviously one of the most memorable things about the first game. I'll definitely say that we've done some different things with the story, we didn't go in thinking “okay everyone is expecting a twist so what's our twist going to be?” We took it in a different direction that some day I think is going to be unique to BioShock 2, kinda sets it apart and not makes it feel like a rehash. It’s definitely about how to deliver that great experience in a different way with a different kind of approach.

Kent: Probably the largest thing that we cut was underwater combat, originally there were some early prototypes of you actually being able to fight enemies underwater and use your plasmids underwater. Partly of course it’s just a production concern of, “We've only got so much time, and its going to take this much work for it to happen,” it’s a very challenging thing, so some decisions are made on production and schedule. Making sure that it's better doing a small selection of things but doing them very well. You don't want to over extend to where the game is not polished, it’s not fun and it’s not bug free. We might not be able to deliver a quality game if we spread ourselves too thin. But it also just felt like a different game, those underwater parts were cool on paper, but when we started playing it but it just didn't feel like BioShock. We asked ourselves, “Is that what people want? Is that what we, as fans of the game, feel like that's the direction we should take it?” So it was partly a production concern and partly because it didn't feel right. So the way we dialled it back was we still had the underwater sequences, but they were a lot more about a change of pace and exploration. It’s sort of like a break from the chaos, maybe you'll find some Adam, pick-ups, audio diaries, etc. We took it in a different direction which was absolutely the right move.

Kent: It’s not like an outsourcing situation, it’s very collaborative. The way we did that for example, the level Siren Alley was developed in Australia by a complete team of level, audio and effects artists that was autonomous to Australia. It was a lot more collaborative, but there are a lot of challenges with working at that distance. But one of the cool things is that since the timing is off when we (2K Marin) come into work where they (2K Australia) are kinda leaving and there isn't much overlap in the day. A lot of times we will ask for feedback on stuff and they will ask for feedback on stuff. You leave work and then they come in and by the time you come in the next day you've got a whole bunch of emails and you have that chance to come and read fresh feedback everyday; this goes both ways.

So it actually turned into a unique opportunity, two of the levels are developed completely in Australia by autonomous teams who really brought their own stuff, and really brought a lot back to us on the game.

It was definitely not an outsourcing type situation, it was a two way street. We are actually working on them with the next project where they've (2K Australia) got a much larger role, we have already started kicking that off. We really see it as one studio in 2 places.

Kent: Absolutely! We are working on pretty aggressive plans for DLC and that's actually something that is already under-way. That is something that is mostly being run out of the Marin studio because, like I said, the Australian studio is already ramping up on the next big thing.

Kent: Oh man, I haven't had much time to play games recently because I've been travelling so much. Probably the biggest one I picked up was The Saboteur; which I think kinda got a bad wrap. I've only played a couple hours of it, but after some of the reviews I was kinda of expecting something a little bit worse. But you know, it’s fun. The climbing isn't as good as Assassins Creed, but this game is not Assassins Creed. That game didn't have cars, it didn't have destruction, it’s one of those games where I think so far it feels like the whole is greater than some of its parts. I've definitely been enjoying that, but I haven't had too much time to dig into it, still really excited about it though.

Kent: It really is, it’s a tough industry. I've been through two studio closures myself and it’s tough. But it also makes you appreciate times when you get to work on something like BioShock 2, where you actually get to have a happy ending in this industry. It is just that much better, you can’t appreciate the highs without having gone through the lows. I obviously wish those guys the best of luck. It’s cool that they got to ship a game that I think they are all proud of, at least they went out with a bang.

Kent: Thanks, we're really proud of it, it really turned out well (laughs). I really can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks when they get their hands on the full game... Make sure you grab a goodies bag on the way out it’s got a lot of cool things in it, like a replica EVE hypo.

Kent: (laughs) Oh! How cool is that thing! It's so much bigger than the first one… man, it’s so cool. We got to see the prototype ones in the office, which were just white plastic, they weren't painted or anything. We were like, “Oh, his arm moves!”, and all playing with it... so cool. Actually our lead character guy, Jeff Weir, was really involved with the toy design. It wasn't something where some company does some shit and it’s a marketing tie in, Jeff was actually reviewing the work and sending them models in 3D (laughs). Oh, I actually wrote the blurbs for the back of the box (laughs), yeah we were at work and we were like, “Shit! We need somebody, can someone quickly write blurbs about what's a Big Daddy – we gotta send this to the toy company.” I was like, “Ummm, a Big Daddy is this fearsome opponent of Rapture…” So that was fun, we were kinda involved in a lot of that stuff, which is pretty neat. I can add that to my resume, I wrote a blurb on the back of a toy box (laughs).




BioShock 2 is due out on the 9th of February for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Keep an eye out for the full review right here on Australian Gamer.