CoD XP 2016: Interview with Brian Bright, Design Lead for Zombies in Spaceland
Ted Hentschke
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I’ve always had a hard time keeping up with the Zombies franchise. Never mind the difficulty and layers upon layers of secrets. I ain’t no scrub. It’s more the ticket price for entry. You not only have to buy multiple games, but multiple packs of DLC to complete your collection. I wouldn’t mind buying a game+season pass for a single story, but the Treyarch mythos spans multiple games, with some earlier installments their own thing entirely. It’s hard to keep track of what is what. So when I first heard about Zombies in Spaceland, I kind of just shrugged and went, “that looks cool, wish I knew what was going on.”
I’m significantly more excited for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s new zombie mode after having gotten to play it. A tonal departure from the Treyarch’s Zombies story, the new mode is immediately recognizable and distinct. It takes a dozen steps into whacky town, with a “fun first” approach more suited for casual and new players. I mean, who doesn’t love blowing up zombies with explosive boomboxes?
Most importantly, it’s a narrative package totally separate from the Treyarch Zombies franchise. With the new “Revelations” map in the Black Ops 3 DLC pack 4, Jason Blundell and Craig Houston’s story is coming to a close. If you want to hear more on what they think of their creation, look for my recap of their panel soon.
Since the timed demo at Call of Duty XP 2016 was only 15 minutes, I was left with more questions than answers. Luckily, I had the chance to talk to Brian Bright, veteran game dev and project director for Zombies in Spaceland. Since we haven’t gotten a lot of hints as to the actual story yet, my first question was about what exactly was going on in Spaceland.
Brian: “With Zombies in Spaceland, we are taking a complete departure from the Treyarch storyline. This is a totally new story with new characters in an all new world. A story video is forthcoming, but here’s the basic rundown. Willard Wyler, played by Paul Reubens, is a failed B horror movie director. Think Ed Woods. After years of failed attempts, he now runs a theater as the creepy projectionist playing these old movies. After years of silence, he’s put out a casting call for four actors to be in his new movie. Responding to that call are our four heroes, played by Jay Pharoah, Sasheer Zamata, Ike Barinholtz, and Seth Green. They sit in the theater to watch his newest film, titled Zombies in Spaceland, and that’s when Wyler does some ritual that sucks them in the film. So our heroes find themselves in the movie, as these stereotypical 80’s characters. Sasheer is a valley girl, Jay is a rapper, Ike is a jock, and Seth is the nerd. They’ll have to unravel the story and get out alive as these characters. Along the way, they stumble across the park DJ, played by David Hasselhoff. He’s been stuck in this film forever, and he never gets out, so he tries to help our heroes get out alive. That’s the crux of our story, before all of the easter eggs and secrets that you’ll find if you survive long enough.”
It’s a much different feel than what we’ve seen with the recent Treyarch Zombies universe. I wanted to know, what made him take such a heavy departure with Zombies in Spaceland:
Brian: “Zombies has always been comedic, just with more serious overtones. With Zombies in Spaceland, we wanted to define our own space. We weren’t going to try to align ourselves with Treyarch’s eight years of making zombies games and their ever expanding world. We wanted our own fresh take. Zombies has always had this comedic and funny element, it just took itself more seriously than we are taking it. We want to have fun with it. We want to rope in new players to come in and enjoy it, but with enough depth and difficulty to reward the hardcore players. We can be serious. We were serious in Extinction, that was some military “boots on the ground” stuff. We worked hard and had fun making those five episodes. But we really looked at this as an opportunity to find our niche in the franchise and make it fun and compelling. It’s just a whole lot of fun.”
Since “new” seems to be the theme of Zombies in Spaceland, I was wondering what new features to expect with the more wacky theme:
Brian: “There are a number of new rides that serve different functions on the map. One of the more basic ones is the big slide, which gives you a one way mobility option. We notice a lot of the time people will run circles on the map, so more linear escape options give the map more complexity. There are other rides like the roller coaster which are more like challenges. You’ll get on and shoot targets and exploding zombies, and for that you’ll get tickets. Tickets is a new form of currency that can be used at “Weapons from the Future” stands to get cool left bumper offhand weapons. Things like armageddon will call down meteors, or rewind will go back in time. At the high end there’s a forge freeze gun that costs 500 tickets. There are other rides like the escape velocity that will go around and smash zombies, a chromosphere that creates a black hole, bumper cars you can smash zombies with, a rocket that you can test fire to incinerate them, and even a dance floor that makes zombies pop and lock while a laser disco ball incinerates them. The boombox and dance floor makes them do different dance moves. We mo-capped a lot for this game.”
New features are important, but what about the player experience? What have they done to streamline that for Zombies in Spaceland? First off, for new players:
Brian: “For new players, I suggest they start off in solo play. We’re crafting a thought bubble pop up tutorial, light stuff to teach players what things are and how they work. Things like boarding windows, the magic wheel, new weapons, giving them the sense of what there is to do and why it’s good to do it. Also, we have a new lost and found. If you die and revive, you used to just lose your stuff without a specific perk. With the lost and found, you can go pick up your weapons again for a price. The ATMs are also new. Anyone can deposit money in the ATM. If you’re a new player coming in at later rounds, it sucks to die at wave 15 with no money. The game’s basically over for you. However, if you or some of the other players deposit money, you can pull it out and still have a fighting chance. Also new are team door buys, where certain doors can be bought in pieces by the team so that one person doesn’t have to shell out all the money for that.”
He went on to talk about some more general stuff that all players can enjoy:
Brian: “There’s some cool new mechanics as well. In previous zombie games, you die, you bleed out, you spawn back in. In later rounds, that could take 10 minutes or longer. Now you can go to the afterlife arcade, which is in the theater where you got sucked in. So you’ve left the movie, and you’re in the arcade in the theater. You can play a bunch of old Activision Atari games set up as arcade machines, basketball hoops, bowling, shooting galleries, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s not only fun, but earns you soul power. If you earn enough soul power, you can unlock the door and teleport back into the game world. Beyond that, the map is a little more open. It’s a spoke like map, and the lanes are a little wider. It’s easier to skirt around zombies. There are tight lanes as well in the underground section, but most of the map is more open.“
Most importantly, what does Zombies in Spaceland offer the hardcore fans? What will the people who’ve stuck around since the beginning find in the various rides and games at Spaceland?
Brian: “Experienced players are going to immediately notice the new gameplay mechanics, map design, weaponry, and all those additions. We also have new zombie types, boss zombies you haven’t even seen yet. We got easter eggs you don’t even know about, easter eggs you won’t find for a few months. Finding those out will be really fun and interesting for people. We just got a different vibe and take, but it’s still a zombies game. Even the most critical player I think will really enjoy it once they get their hands on it and start diving in deep.”
Finally, I wanted to know what he felt was the most crucial factor to Zombies in Spaceland’s unique identity. This definitely feels like a very different game, from the laser guns to the exploding clown zombies. What was the biggest part in making this game feel like its own real place?
Brian: “It’s one of those cases where everything just comes together, from the characterization to the UI to the outfits. We did a lot of unique animations. Everyone has a unique melee, like poindexter slaps and the valley girl gags them with a spoon. There’s also new gestures, where you fire a gun and do a gesture with your left hand. It’s one of those things we wanted to do before, but just didn’t have the time to develop it before this game. So we can bring a lot of personality to the archetypes. All of the little things come together. It’s hard to see that when you are working on a game from the get-go. You’re planning, “if we do this and then this and then this,” it’ll come together. But for 6-8 months you’re just looking at white blocks. We call it the blooming phase when it all starts to take form. Everyone gets so excited to work on it. With Zombies in Spaceland, the pieces just fit together so well. We all wanted to get it done so we could play it.”
There was one detail he wasn’t quite ready to comment on yet. When asked if the story would be told over several episodes, Brain stated that he, “wasn’t ready to talk about DLC season yet, but something like that was likely.” It’s a big point for me, as my fundamental issue with the Treyarch run was that it was too spread out. Still, I wouldn’t mind buying into a single DLC season for the full story. I just don’t want to have to wait a few years for it to all come together.
It was an interesting talk that definitely answered a lot of my questions. I’m still left wondering exactly what is going on, but am looking forward to figuring it out. I’ll definitely be looking into it November 4th when it drops, and seeing how much my feeble brain can uncover. How about you guys? Excited for Zombies in Spaceland? Furious that Treyarch isn’t at the helm? Over the whole “zombies” thing? Let me know below!
Categorized:Editorials Horror Gaming
