Amy interview

(Interview by Douglass C. Perry - IGN.com)

IGNPS2: Cool. Now, I've got a couple more questions for you. How have you envisioned the long term strategy, story of Kain?

Amy: For the franchise?

IGNPS2: Yeah, how does this fit into the whole thing -- what chapter is this?

Amy: Well, I guess it would be chapter 3 [laughs]. But we're jumping all over the timeline, which I hope people will enjoy. One of the things that we're doing in this game, which I think was fairly obvious from the end of the last one, is that we're going back in time, and the whole game will take place in the past Nosgoth. For anybody that played Blood Omen, there's going to be all kinds of locations and characters that they're going to be familiar with and will get to visit again.

IGNPS2: Now that's cool.

Amy: I think it will be really cool. For anybody that didn't play it, the other reason that we want to do this is that...we're very dedicated to this world and this franchise, and we want people who didn't play Blood Omen to be familiarized with all these parts, because it's going to be important. So yeah, our intention as a company is to keep making Kain games as long as the public wants them.

IGNPS2: So this isn't a prequel per se, but it allows you to go back in time?

Amy: Yeah, we'll be visiting time periods that are before Blood Omen, during Blood Omen, after Blood Omen.

IGNPS2: So will you...I mean, I'll be honest with you, I didn't play that much of Blood Omen, I and don't remember Raziel in that game.

Amy: He's a new character.

IGNPS2: How will that work? We he be restored to his full vampire self? Will he be human?

Amy: The idea is that there are all these events in Nosgoth's history, only a short span of which you actually get to see in Blood Omen. So what we're trying to show is some of the other intrigues, some of the other mysterious things that are going on in Nosgoth before and after what we see in that short time span in Kain, in Blood Omen. And to show that he did have, that he will have some impact on the events in Blood Omen. But not in a way that a player, having played Blood Omen, would have been aware of at the time.

IGNPS2: So Raziel's going to go back in time. And you play as Raziel the whole time; you're going to see or take part in these events, but not in order to change time?

Amy: Well one of the themes...I mean I don't want to give away too much of the story...

IGNPS2: I understand, I was just like, wait, if Raziel wasn't there, then who are you going to play as?

Amy: No, he's there, but if you think about his nature, he's kind of this angel of death, spirit creature, so he's not just a mundane guy. That gives us an ability to play with what he witnesses, and what his role in things is.

IGNPS2: And that will mean that he'll still remain decrepit and decayed?

Amy: Yeah, he's wrecked -- he is what he is. But I think there are a lot of themes that we want to play with, and a some of the things that were evident in Blood Omen and Soul Reaver were some of the themes of free will, versus destiny, and what that means, and the nature of good and evil, and one of the things that was definitely a text or a subtext, depending on how much you were paying attention, in Blood Omen was that some of the worst evils are committed in the name of righteousness. We're not trying to make a black and white game, in some ways I think Kain isn't the villain, and Raziel isn't necessarily that much of a hero.

IGNPS2: They're ambiguous.

Amy: Right. They're both tragic, flawed heroes. Crystal has a huge investment in Kain as a character, we're not writing him off as some sort of villain, a nasty villain guy. Hopefully we'll get to this in Soul Reaver 2 and people will understand, but I mean there's a lot more to this story than would meet the eye.

IGNPS2: Next, I was going to ask, how are you able to change the landscapes? How are you able to morph them, and is that process the same on PlayStation2? How does that work? In a short explanation, I mean, are those all built, and you do interpolation between the two?

Amy: No, that would be pretty much impossible, in terms of maintenance. We could do it, I mean, in traditional 3D if you wanted to morph something you would actually have two objects, you'd have your base object and a morph target. But you could see, I mean, how many hundreds of times do we go into each of those Max files [I think she means 3D Studio Max], to change things and push things around, if you had to maintain two you'd lose your mind. So what we store is the differences between the vertex values, so it's something that we can tweak and maintain the whole way through. We just deform it, and deform it by hand. It's not like there's any process, some button you push that says "Spectralize this." It's an artist process, and we just store both values for the vertices.

IGNPS2: The last question I had was one you sort of answered, which was "How has Raziel changed?" But you pretty much said he's wrecked.

Amy: Yeah, well, he is what he is now. He's this undead guy. Undead, undead undead guy. There's no coming back from that. And he's got a role to fulfill. He's sort of born again into this new form, and there's a reason for it. I think when we say, well, how will he change, how will he grow, hopefully that's what comes through the story, is that it's internal, it has more to do with self-realization, and that we'll convey that to the player, and they'll kind of go through that as Raziel does, having these epiphanies about himself and the history of Nosgoth and the machinations behind the machinations... I think it'll be interesting for people. It's not just there's some set pieces and some set characters, and you fight them and go on to the next one. I think it'll be a pretty interesting story for folks.

IGNPS2: I know you don't want to really give too much away, because that's a big part of the game, the story, but can you give us an abbreviated version of the story that doesn't give too much away, so we know what we're starting with?

Amy: Well, certainly what you're starting with. I'll probably be so vague that it won't do you any good. Obviously the last game left off with Raziel pursuing Kain through the portal and coming face to face with Moebius which was one of the main characters from the first game. Hopefully we did enough backstory on him in Soul Reaver for people who didn't play Blood Omen, but he's a sneaky character, and he was never up to any good in the first game. Definitely a manipulator, and the implication is that you find yourself back in Nosgoth's past. You're still sort of single-mindedly, relentlessly pursuing Kain, but some of the revelations that we want the player to go through along with Raziel is that he's being pretty simple-minded, he's sort of being very black-and-white in his interpretation of things, and being kind of petulant. He's really not...I hope it came across in the way they talked, but he's not really as heroic as Kain is, and he has a lot of stuff to figure out, basically, about what's going on. That's going to take him through familiar locations, familiar characters, and familiar events...

IGNPS2: I always thought that Raziel was a pawn in a much more powerful player's game...

Amy: Yeah, and the question is, who's the player? There's about three of them, and he has to untangle all of that. Is it Kain, is it the Elder God, is it Moebius, is it something else? He's going to have to have a series of revelations before the end of the game. Part of what we want to have come across is a change in his character, not necessarily his physical form but in his character, because he's kind of a self-righteous little twit, in a way, and he's got a lot of stuff to learn.

IGNPS2: You just said "self-righteous little twit." [laughs]

Amy: Don't you think so?

IGNPS2: Oh, yeah. But I'm not creating the game.

Amy: [Laughs] No, I mean, that was intentional. Usually you don't do that to your game characters, I guess, but I hope it came across. I mean, it's funny, everybody has different reactions depending on how hard they listen to the voiceover I guess, but Kain's a little bit more mature than Raziel is, and he's definitely an interesting character with an interesting history, and that's something that we want to continue exploring.

IGNPS2: Cool. Well, that kind of covers everything... You've been on since day one, really?

Amy: Yeah, I started in 1995, and my first job was to work with Silicon Knights on Blood Omen.

IGNPS2: So you're originally with Crystal [Dynamics], then?

Amy: Yeah, I joined in July of 1995 and worked on and off with SK and the rest of the Crystal staff that was working on Blood Omen for I guess a year plus on the game. For anybody that's worried about...I mean, there's a lot of fans that are worried about, kind of, the changing of the guard, I understand that, and I just want them to understand that obviously I'm a fan of the first game, I worked on the first game, I'm committed to it, I'm committed to honoring the franchise, and I don't want them to think we're a bunch of sellouts or something.

IGNPS2: The conspiracy theorists will always think you are.

Amy: Yeah, I know. We can't actually be good-intentioned creative people, we have to be a bunch of scheming sellouts. Oh, well. I guess that's more interesting...

IGNPS2: You're really just an executive trying to increase your corporate profits.

Amy: [laughs] That's right. You know, you wouldn't say that if you could see me.

IGNPS2: Well, thanks for everything. I can't wait to play the game at E3. See you there.

Amy: OK, thanks. Bye.