Rare considers Natal will change development approach
Games won’t be designed or played as they used to
In an interview with VideoGamer, Rare’s George Andreas just had the chance to remind us what challenges Natal may present when it comes to playing and designing games in the near future. “We’re learning a lot of stuff about Natal every day, and there are many types of experiences that can be created with that technology,” he said. “You just need to be able to rethink how you approach those particular design problems.”
Even though we may be very familiar with certain genres, that doesn’t mean those games will feel the same on the new system. “To take a shooter, as an example, you would just have to rethink the way a shooter works,” explained Andreas. “Shooters work the way they do at the moment because they’re based around the original Xbox 360 controller. You throw that away, you throw that interface away and here’s a completely different interface – now how do we create a shooter for this? Does it mean that you have to run, strafe, turn, throw grenades in the way that you’re used to? Maybe not. Maybe there’s another way of doing shooters.”
Consoles like Wii or Nintendo DS offered similar gameplay changes in the past, making Andreas’ comments about Natal even more true. “You’re probably not going to get exactly the same experience that you do with a conventional controller, but that could also be a very good thing,” he added. “There may be new avenues there that people haven’t explored yet that might open the product up to an even broader audience. We don’t know.”
Finally, trying to underline Natal’s versatility, Andreas didn’t hesitate to assure that shooters would be possible with its technology as opposed to what some prophets of doom have been predicting lately. “Can you do a shooter on Natal? Of course you can. Will it be exactly the same as something you’re used to on a control pad? The answer to that is probably not, but does that mean it’s better or worse? Well we’ll see what we can do.”
Somehow related news
- The Future is Here; Rare is Not ()
- Rare is looking for new designers to work on Natal ()
- A Rare Natal game “may be” released in October 2010 ()
- Rare to open a second studio facility in Birmingham ()
- Rare rebrands for its 25th Anniversary ()
