"Look at me, I don't have scripts and nobody tells me what to say," A Way Out director Josef Fares told Engadget during E3. "I say what I want to say. Passion is what drives this."
"All decisions that are made on A Way Out are based on the heart. Even if someone tells me me, like, 'If you do this you will sell 1 million copies more,' my answer is 'Fuck you.' Look at me, I don't have scripts and nobody tells me what to say. I say what I want to say. Passion is what drives this."
- Hazelight founder Josef Fares, speaking to Engadget about his upcoming game A Way Out.
At E3 in Los Angeles last week Hazelight founder Josef Fares explained to Engadget that he was literally putting his body and soul (or at least, the windows to it) into the studio's upcoming co-op buddy convict game A Way Out.
It's notably rare to see a game developer (indie or otherwise) don the mo-cap suit themselves to portray a leading character in their work, as Fares claims to be doing with A Way Out co-protagonist Leo -- though the character's face and features are actually based on Fares' older brother.
Fares also put a bit of himself into his conversation with Engadget, as the one-time film director turned game developer spoke passionately about how A Way Out is being developed from a place of passion ("all decisions that are made on A Way Out are based on the heart") and how he feels game developers' creativity is being drained by the limitations of game consoles.
"You want the honest truth? This machine is not so strong as you think," Fares reportedly said while gesturing at a nearby PlayStation 4 console. "This is like a five-year-old PC. If consoles were as powerful as PCs are today, you would see all different games. Most of the work developers put out there is to make them work on consoles."
It's a somewhat new spin on something Fares has been saying in interviews for some time: that games have a great deal of untapped potential when it comes to new mechanics, new systems, and new ways of telling stories.
"Right now, and I'm exaggerating here, we're playing pretty much the same kinds of games. Even the next-gen games, they look very pretty, but under the hood it's the same mechanics and the same games with a few fresh ideas," Fares told Gamasutra back in 2015. "That's the thing I think is going to change most, and that's the thing I'm looking forward to in the future -- how to tell stories in new ways. I truly believe telling a story in an interactive medium is so powerful, and I think it can be more powerful than movies."
You can read more of Fares' E3 conversation with Engadget in the full article.
You May Also Like
.png?width=300&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
