Resident Evil 4 had a bigger hand in the making of BioShock than you may think.
In my recent interview with Bill, he recalledBioShocks surprisingly humble early development at Irrational Games.
Relatively speaking the team onBioShockwas way outside of our weight class, said Gardner.
Thats compared to a game likeAssassins Creed, which had maybe 300 people working on it.
Given that we were bringing it to consoles, there were a lot of challenges there.
Irrational carefully considered how to implement the right kind of combat into the game.
It had this interesting design and tactical elements that I would show to the team all the time.
Gardner specifically recalls the impact thatResident Evil 4s opening village level had onBioShocks approach to action sequences.
Not really in terms of weapons, but the environment.
The most obvious example of this inBioShockwould be the puddles that can shock splicers.
There was a lot of talk about the importance of A.I., said Gardner.
That scene where you first encounter the big daddy was a tough one to get right, said Gardner.
When youre trying to maintain player control, it can break the game very easily.
Thats one of the reasons you see so many games go to cutscenes.
When you talk about authorial intent, you might really control more with cutscenes.
Meanwhile, theres this awesome cutscene where the big daddy is smashing this splicers head through the glass.
We wanted to ensure you saw that stuff.
This is an important scene.
Dont you think that maybe for a couple of sequences we can take control?
We got to a point when we were looking atResident Evils interface for the inventory, said Gardner.
There was a long debate about whether we wanted to use a similar inventory system.
That inventory system Gardner is referring to is one that requires the player to manage a grid-based interface.
Larger weapons like shotguns take up more of that grid while smaller items like health packs take up less.
This forces the player to consider the value of items based on their relative size and functionality.
However, the influence ofResident EvilonBioShockgoes to show that a games true legacy isnt always found in its imitators.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer forDen of Geek.
You canread more of his work hereor find him on Twitter at@SilverTuna014.
