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Part of developing any game is killing your darlings, and that goes triple for something on the scale of Ghost of Yotei. Among the ideas cast aside in the blockbuster sequel was an added depth for the flashbacks that creative director Jason Connell truly wishes could’ve been avoided.
He spoke about it with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, breaking down his idea, and why it failed to take shape. "[Atsu is] on this lone wolf quest and then you press a button and suddenly she's kind of feeling the warmth of her past, like what she's fighting for," he says. "To me, that is like, what a great narrative tool, if with a single button [it can] make you feel something that's on their own volition."
In other words, the flashback mechanic would’ve been persistent through the whole world, letting you drift between wherever you are and Atsu's recollection of it. An amazing idea, but a lot of work to execute properly.
"You are doubling your art - [it's] twice as long a game, everywhere you go," he adds. "And so while it's this amazing feature, it saddened me the day that I had to kill that, to say 'OK, it can't be that.'"
The compromise from Sucker Punch collectively was using the idea in particular scenes, where you get to experience and interact with huge events for Atsu in a tangible way. Even though it wasn't as he envisioned, Connell's happy with what shipped.
"It was the right choice because it is a very powerful narrative tool," he states. "So you can really use it at [Atsu's] home where the events happened, and it's not like a mission start, where you go and it does it for you. You can press it anytime, you can put it back and forth."
