THE EMPIRE
Part 3 of??
What in the world are you on about. How can there be a third part of an interview with Rob Davis? Well in this little space I occupy on The Empire NZ, it’s a little collaborative to say the least. It means my works can be in a few different places at any one time. And sometimes that work will be requested to be split across sites. In this case, it’s part 1 at XENOJAY.COM. Part 2 at Yeah Nah Gaming. And now, part 3 at The Empire NZ. In what case would this occur? One where we get to interview a developer on one of the biggest games of this year.
In our previous 2 parts where we get to speak with Rob Davis, Campaign Director for Ghost of Yōtei, we covered a few things. The hand crafted touch the team brought to Ezo. The incredible load times. Their joy in allowing players to find freedom and mindfulness in Yōtei. And their work on a little series called God of War. But with The Empire NZ, I wanted to talk to the more fun side of their career and history. The fluff so to speak.
Davis is an Australian. Bare with me here. They are our brothers in arms after all. And there they worked on titles like Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 3, Destroy All Humans 2! and The Saboteur. As their continued love for gaming grew, it lead them to the big ol’ US of A. Here, they went to work on the aforementioned ‘fluff’.
I had to wonder what it was like for Rob to receive special thanks on a game where characters riff on Jason Derulo’s track ‘Solo’, but it’s about Han Solo from Star Wars. They laugh and say:
“It’s a very special thing.”
He’s not wrong. It is a certain competitors’ game on a sort of failed piece of hardware after all. You’ll figure it out. It’s meme material because of this kind of brainrot culture where everybody goes “Remeber when Han Solo danced to Jason Derulo’s song ‘Solo’?”. What does that feel like, right?
“I’ll say this much” says Davis. “I love any kind of game where kids and families come together to succeed or fail. Anytime you have a…remember Singstar? I love those types of games where parents and kids can play together or where you can play with your partner and gaming just opens up to a wider audience. So you know, take a shot at the goal. And I think that the goal of inspiring people to play together is terrific”.
At about this point I decided to go off on my own tangent of fluff. There was a PlayStation 2 game called Britney’s Dance Beat. Yes, that Britney. And my sister and I played it all the time. We really wanted to complete it. Each stage you beat, meant you unlocked a new song. And for some reason we got stuck on the track ‘Stronger’. Could just not get past it. And for some reason, after getting home from my weekend/holiday job, I decided I simply had to beat that song. Retail work does that to you. So I’m in uniform, dancing for my life and after 2 or so hours, I exit my room drenched in sweat. Mind you, hats off to my mother and sister for not thinking it was something else. But I simply said:
“I beat it.”
My sister in shock, from debating my moist state and phrasing no doubt, said “what??”. And I repeated “I beat it”. And she storms past to the games room to see that yes dear reader, I did indeed beat ‘Stronger’ and unlock the next song for Britney’s Dance Beat on the PlayStation 2.
Sharing this anecdote, Rob decided to share one with me.
“I’ll give you one thing to write about. In Seattle there’s a particularly favoured game designer named Dean Tate, and he is a brilliant designer. He created some of the most iconic levels for Half Life: Alyx. For Bioshock. He’s been in Seattle for so many years. He’s Australian as well, and a pal of mine. And when you ask him what’s your favourite game that you’ve ever worked on…he was the creative director of Dance Central, and he’ll say without a doubt it was Dance Central”.
I found it so endearing to hear them talk about this creator with so many big titles under their belt, yet it’s the most whimsical one they enjoyed “without a doubt” the most.
Nearing the end of my time with my third developer from Sucker Punch Productions, I had to run it back on a question I previously asked Nate Fox and Jason Connell.
“inFAMOUS, when?”
They laugh. “What would you want? What would the community want?”.
I ended up going off on a tirade of not needing anything in particular to be fulfilled. To being grateful for what we have. To laughing at how we never enjoy what we have now, always jumping to what’s next. And as I keep going, they laugh knowing they can see through the layers of it all.
“We’ll just take it as a compliment. That the people want to see more”.
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