Saboteur - interview

GamesRadar: What aspects of Pandemic's previous games led into this one? Anything from Mercenaries, Destroy All Humans or Star Wars?

PH: Saboteur is one of two new next-gen titles that Pandemic is releasing. The team that has been assembled is some of the talent from Mercenaries, Battlefront and Full Spectrum Warrior. A perfect example is Tom French, who just walked into the room. He's the lead designer and he was the designer on the Mercenaries team. I think that Tom brought the expertise and the thought of that world into how we're going to tackle Saboteur.

GamesRadar: Going back to the color transition, does it actually seep into the world when you trigger the proper event?

PH: Yeah, there is a real-time transition that happens. The clouds change, the color changes. I would say it's like a leveling up experience for the player that is really visceral.

Tom French, Lead Designer: It's not like a big broad sweeping change; it's literally localized over sections of the world.

GamesRadar: Can a section revert back to black and white, or is the change to color permanent?

TF: We have events that can. It's like you have liberated an area and, if the Nazis are making an attack on that area, it can suck the Will To Fight back down. There is a navigational mechanic where you can visually see areas where you need to go to next, or areas that are under low "will to fight." We think of it as a player progression tool so the player can constantly see how they are progressing through the game visually, without having to look at some sort of stupid interface to show it to them.

GamesRadar: Is this an open-world game then?

PH: We can say that it is an open-world stealth action game. Yes, it is an open world game.