• 16Nov

  Those who work in Hell…..

  Developer Insight 141 Comments

   

  Following in our profile series, we continue to introduce you to more members of the Dante’s Inferno Team.

  First up, let’s introduce you to the latest member of the team to be profiled.  Rachel Mina Cross.

  

  Title: Lead Lighter

  What is it you do here on Dante’s Inferno?
  I work with a talented team of six lighters who along with the VFX team add to the final look of the game.

  What’s a typical day for you here at EA?
  I get in and attend morning dailies, head to the gym at lunch. My afternoons will include Lighting reviews, meetings, updating Lighting schedules and any work that I do at my desk is essentially adding lights to Dante’s path to lead him deeper and deeper into hell!!

  What do you enjoy so much about Dante’s Inferno?
  The creative background environments and amazing concept art for this game makes my job so much fun!!

  Where do you belong in hell?
  Gluttony – I crave cake and other yummy snacks! Especially around 3pm:).

   

  

  Name: Greg Reisdorf

  Title: Level Designer

  What is it you do here on Dante’s Inferno?
  I get to make the levels of hell! From the initial concept (based on the poem, of course) to the super secret hidden cambers that only 1 gamer in every 1,000 will find. I get to come up with ideas, put them in a computer and make them come to life. I also get to find out how bad most of my ideas actually are, it takes a lot of iteration and play time to get things right. However there are some ideas that are just no good at all. That’s when you have to know how to kill your babies, and where better to do that than hell. I’ve killed a lot of my babies… most were disfigured and mutilated from the start. But some I nurtured and tried to raise. But at the end of the day if you don’t kill that bad baby then someone else, generally a producer(baby killers), will. So I create levels by killing my babies.

  What’s a typical day for you here at EA?
  Since we are close to finaling the game my days currently go a little like:
  1) Get in, get coffee
  2) Review one of my levels with the other departments and leads
  3) Try to fix any major issues from the review
  4) Lunch
  5) Coffee
  6) Keep trying to fix stuff
  7) Get tired of fixing stuff and play the game.
  Coffee
  9) Fix some more stuff
  10) Help someone else fix something I broke a long time ago.
  11) Think about adding something cool… get my baby killed… go back to fixing stuff
  12) Help someone fix something that I just broke when I was trying to fix something else.

  What do you enjoy so much about Dante’s Inferno?
  The carnage and the variety in the levels of hell. There is a ton of awesome background information and great ideas that we get to pull from when creating the gameplay spaces, scenarios and puzzles.

  Where do you belong in hell?
  I’m pretty sure I would be sent to Greed.

  Before we sign off from the team.  Take a look at the latest Developer Insight Video…Heresy. 

  
   

  The Dante’s Inferno art leads standing at the Gates of Hell, at the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.

    

  

  

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Dante's Inferno, Visceral Games

• 16Nov

  The game of Hell!

  Games 301 Comments

  

  Dante’s Inferno is certainly creating a storm of interest out there.  So what better time to get a better insight into what the game is all about.

  I have secured this latest press release from the team, which reveals a lot of detail about what you can expect.

  Andare all’Inferno. Translation: Go to Hell.

  EA’s Dante’s Inferno will take gamers to the western world’s most definitive view of the afterlife as created in the 13^th century by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in part one of his epic classic, “The Divine Comedy.”  The game is shipping in 2010 for the PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360 and the PSP.

  EA’s Dante’s Inferno tells an adapted story that focuses on delivering a blockbuster 3^rd person action game experience while bringing Alighieri’s depiction of Hell to the medium. Players assume the role of Dante, who descends into Hell after returning home to find his beloved Beatrice murdered, with Lucifer seducing her soul into the underworld. Dante sets out on a rescue mission to save Beatrice, but he soon realizes he is also in Hell to face his own demons and ultimately to redeem himself.

  Players will take Dante through nine unique circles of Hell as mapped out and described by Alighieri: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.  Each circle will showcase its own distinct look, with demons, monsters, damned and geography that are crafted straight from the poem’s vivid descriptions.

  To take down the demons of Hell, Dante is outfitted with two primary weapons: the Scythe he takes from Death and the Holy Cross given to him by Beatrice, which has spiritual powers that will help Dante collect souls and spells from the creatures he defeats on his journey. The game also features a deep upgrade system so gamers can customize their abilities to their specific gameplay style, something they’ll need as Dante comes face to face with Hell’s fiercest beasts and bosses. If successful, Dante will be able to tame certain beasts, exacting their will and turning Hell’s punishments back on itself.

  Built on the same technology as the award-winning Dead Space™, Dante’s Inferno will deliver a fast, fluid and responsive combat experience running at 60 frames per second, a must-have for the action adventure genre. The game is being built by Visceral Games™, with the same attention to polish the studio has become known for with Dead Space.   

  

  Key Features 

  • An Epic Adaptation of a Classic – Based on part one of Dante Alighieri’s classic poem “The Divine Comedy,” Dante’s Inferno is a 3^rd person action adventure game that takes Dante on an epic journey through Hell as he seeks to rescue the soul of his beloved Beatrice. 
  • The Nine Circles of Hell – Just like the poem, players will descend through Dante’s unique nine circles of Hell: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.  Each circle features distinct environments, enemies and story elements befitting the sins committed by their inhabitants. 
  • Control the Beasts of Hell – Dante’s Inferno features large scale beasts and bosses, some of which Dante will be able to fully tame, utilizing them to throw back Hell’s wrath to its minions. 
  • Fast, Addictive, Responsive Combat – Dante fights through the nine circles armed with Death’s Scythe and Beatrice’s Holy Cross, with magic powers and a deep, customizable upgrade system helping the player take full advantage of a fast and fluid gameplay experience that will never run at lower than 60 frames per second. 
  • Bring Hell With You Wherever You Go – Dante’s Inferno gives PSP owners the same level of fast, responsive gameplay through all nine detailed and unique circles of hell the team is aiming to achieve on the consoles. 
  • Visceral Games Stamp of Approval – From the award-winning studio that created the critically-acclaimed Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno will receive the same relentless focus on quality and polish Visceral Games has become known for. 
  • Be Righteous or Unholy – choose to punish or absolve the damned, affecting your character’s abilities throughout the game.

  

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Dante's Inferno

• 03Sep

  Working in Hell….

  Developer Insight, Games 108 Comments

  

  Name: Peter Iliev

  Title: Software Engineer I

  What is it you do here on Dante’s Inferno?

  —-I am a Level Engineer. This means I get to work with Level Designers to create level specific features like new doors, platforms and boss battles.

  What’s a typical day for you here at EA?

  —-I roll in, in the morning, grab some coffee and talk about how awesome our poop attack is. Then I spend most of the day drawing murals on our walls that inspire people(like whats in the picture). And at the end of the day, if there is any time left, I solve bugs and make sure the whole game doesn’t explode while you play it.

  What do you enjoy so much about Dante’s Inferno?.

  —- I get to kill things that are already dead and damned, so I’m actually doing something productive with my anger.

  Where do you belong in hell?

  —-I’d say Lust. I spend way too much time in the gym for vanity reasons.

  

  Name: Lisette Titre

  Title: Senior Character / VFX Artist

  What is it you do here on Dante’s Inferno?
  
  —-Character Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, and Special Effects. I also heard cats…..

  What’s a typical day for you here at EA?

  —-I work with my Lead and our Animators to make sure the character assets are looking great and articulating properly through all their awesome moves. I’m also working on visual effects for character costumes and combat sequences.

  What do you enjoy so much about Dante’s Inferno?

  —- Fans will be surprised by the depth and variation of our creatures. The character designs are fantastic and over the top. We weren’t afraid to “go there” with the concept work. If we make you a little uncomfortable then we’ve done our job.

  Where do you belong in hell?

  —-Lust or Gluttony…. I’m a hopeless romantic and I love food. Especially Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Dante's Inferno

• 26Aug

  The beauty of Hell……

  Developer Insight, Games 322 Comments

  

  Early concept for the giant Nimrod, the legendary builder of the tower of Babel.

  I wanted to share with you some more of the concept art for Dante’s Inferno.  Never has Hell looked so beautiful.  Enjoy.

  

  Concept art for the wheel of fortune in the fourth circle Greed. Gives you an idea of the thought and detail that goes into some of these set pieces.

  

  A small concept piece from the eighth circle of hell

  

  A little piece of concept art from the eighth circle of hell

  

  Exclusive by our comic series artist Diego Latorre.

  

  

  Here’s the poster for the animated feature that was debuted at Comic-Con

  

  Here’s a small piece of concept art from the Lust level. Gives you an idea of how much thought and attention to detail goes into even the tiniest pieces of the environments.

  

  Here’s a panel from the comic book, in case you missed it. Artwork by Diego Latorre.

  

  Some concept art from the Wood of the Suicides.

  

  Here’s a cool render of Virgil. It’s un-posed and un-lit, but we thought you all would enjoy it. Virgil appears and disappears throughout the game as an optional narrator, and his lines all come from the poem as he describes how Hell works.

  

  Here’s a style frame from one of the flashbacks in the game. You’ll be hearing more about these movies in the coming months. They are the scenes of Dante’s tapestry (in his chest) come to life, and represent the sins of his past. Fully animated, they are giong to be dark and disturbing!

  

  Some crazy concept art from Greed, the fourth circle.

  

  An early concept piece for the River of Boiling Blood, in the first part of Violence, the seventh circle. We didn’t want to make the centaurs into enemies (feels like that’s been done), so we are making gigantic set pieces out of them, where the centaurs become the level itself.

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Concept Art, Dante's Inferno

• 20Aug

  InsideEA Press Conference at GamesCom Germany

  EA Across the Globe, EA Sports, Games, Industry News 153 Comments

  

   This week we have been at the GamesCom Show in Germany.  So much to discuss and show you.  Lets start with a blog from our Sister site EA Underground, with an overview of the EA press conference by Black Pixel.

  Enjoy.  Over to you BlackPixel……

  ———————————————————————————-

  I have a short time to reflect on all the things we saw at the press conference and I thought I’d flesh out the sentiments behind some of my earlier tweets.

  It’s difficult not to sound too gushing or overly positive in 140 characters, but I genuinely thought that some of the stuff that was shown looked amazing. Some of it changed my opinion, some of it baffled me and some of it just hyped me up even more for stuff that I’m already really looking forward to.

  

  So we started with “FIFA 10″. Difficult for me this one – I’ve never been a big fan of real-life football and have certainly never been able to master the intricacies of previous versions of FIFA, so I’m not the best person to judge. However, it’s obvious that the FIFA team have really taken the game to the next level (again!) this year, letting players control every detail of the beautiful game. And it really does look beautiful, the graphics are great. Like I said in my tweet, it makes football look really complicated – I guess the true fans already knew that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

  

  

  Next up Peter Moore and special guest, sports star Katerina Witt, showcased “EA Sports Active: More Workouts”. Adding new exercises and thousands of customisable routines, new stretches and fun tasks, the expansion pack is released in November. Kudos to Peter for (literally!) running us through a routine in his gym outfit!

  

  With 3 million plus copies sold and a community of over 2 million registered users worldwide “The Sims 3″ is quite simply, a phenomena. “Sims 3: World Adventures” is the first Expansion Pack, and it allows the Sims to travel outside of their hometown for the first time and head overseas to locations such as Egypt, France and China. We were shown some game footage and then some behind the scenes “blooper” videos of some of the featured music artists trying to sing in Simlish – not easy to do, try it some time!

  

  

  Anybody hearing claims that a new game (ok, it’s a sequel!) was seriously considering taking on Modern Warfare 2 would be forgiven for thinking “not a chance”. But when the people making those claims are the brains behind the DICE studio,and the massively successful Battlefield  franchise, you have to take notice. Introducing “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″ the producers told us that the vehicle warfare, squad play and “destruction 2.0″ really set this game apart from the competition. Although we didn’t see any actual gameplay footage, the trailer, which was made using the Frostbite Engine, gives a great impression of the kind of strategies that can be applied to win on the battlefield. It showcases a devastating surgical strike employing snipers, homing rockets and overwhelming force. And it looks awesome. March 2010 suddenly seems like a long way off!

  

  “Brutal Legend” is a game that I really wasn’t sure about for a number of reasons (number one being: thou shalt not take THE ROCK anything less than 100% seriously) but after seeing Tim Schafer talk about the game and introduce the, frankly hilarious, “Mosh Pit” and the Axe Combat footage, I’m realy warming to this game. I’ll defintely give the demo a spin when it’s released on the 17th September.

  

  Basing a game on a poem may seem like a strange idea, but when the poem is the classic “Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, it all seems to make sense. “Dante’s Inferno” is a dark tale in which Dante battles through the 9 Circles Of Hell to try and rescue the soul of his lover from the clutches of Hell and the Devil himself. The “Righteousness System”, where you are rewarded for righteous decisions and punished for unholy ones is a novel idea in a novel game. It’s out next February so I’ve already set a date go to hell!

  Dr Ray Muzyka from Bioware introduced 3 massive games – “Star Wars: The Old Republic”, “Mass Effect 2″ and “Dragon Age: Origins”.

  Mass Effect 2 kicks off where the first one finished. I was always really impressed by the visual side of the first game and part two looks just as good, if not better. Your new AI partner-in-crime, Grunt, seems like he may become a liability eventually and it’s tricky to tell how he might effect the gameplay overall, but I really like the idea of a sidekick who is “irrationally violent”!

  

  Some 25+ years ago the young me would also have loved Dragon Age: Origins. I was obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons and spent hours creating my own characters and their complex mythologiges. DA:O reminds me of all the things that used to thrash around in my teenage mind, but brought bang up-to-date and in blood-spattered technicolor. Looks like it might be fun to revisit those stories.

  The breadth of detail in SWTOR is going to be amazing. Apparently in terms of “narrative, there are upwards of 40 novels worth of storyline in the game.The big news about “Star Wars The Old Republic” being released in 100% localised versions for France and Germany was illustrated by a version of the awesome trailer voiced totally in German. Having previously only seen it online, watching it on the big screen was a spine-tingling experience.

  

  And then finally – and the one I’d really been waiting for – “Need For Speed Shift”. Now, I love racing games and I’ve seen a little of this game already so I knew I was going to be impressed. Watching the developers demo the game – driving a Pagani Zonda in cockpit view around the Spa Francorchamps circuit – totally reaffirmed that this is a must have game for me.

  

  

  

  

  

  And that was it. A quick introduction to 11 of EA’s hottest forthcoming titles, whetting the appetite for the next few days.  There’s loads more titles to see at the show, so looks like I really will have loads to talk about.

  

  

  

  

  

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

   

  

  

  Tags: Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Brutal Legend, Dante's Inferno, Dragon Age: Origins, EA SPORTS Active, FIFA 10, GamesCom, Mass Effect 2, NFS: Shift, Peter Moore, Sims 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic

« Previous Entries