Infamous: Second Son’s Next-Gen Open World

Infamous: Second Son is the most-anticipated PS4 exclusive, and for good reason. It's a true evolution of what Sucker Punch began on PS3.

Some are skeptical about how significant the jump from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 is. With series like Killzone and Infamous making the leap from current-gen to next-gen, leery gamers think that we’re about to get more of the same. But with Infamous: Second Son – which was demoed behind closed doors at E3 – it’s clear that Sony-owned developer Sucker Punch is primed to release not a mere rehash of Infamous and Infamous 2, but an outright evolution of the series.
In short, Infamous: Second Son is both familiar and new, predicated on what made the first two Infamous games shine while trying new things that attempt to set Second Son apart. It’s very easily PlayStation 4’s most promising launch window game and proof that Sucker Punch isn’t merely resting on its laurels.

Gone is Cole MacGrath, the protagonist hailing from Infamous and Infamous 2. Seven years following MacGrath’s adventures in New Orleans-inspired New Marais, Second Son places players in the role of Delsin Rowe, a character markedly different from MacGrath in just about every way. While MacGrath was inclined to be gruff and curt, Rowe is proud and arrogant. While MacGrath was an unlikely, hesitant hero (or anti-hero), Rowe revels in the fact that he has superpowers, and he’s more than willing to use them.
What immediately pops when watching Infamous: Second Son is its exceptional presentation values. Sony invested in a motion capture setup for Sucker Punch, and it shows. Infamous and Infamous 2 had interesting characters you cared about, as well as developed character relationships – think Cole and Zeke – but cutscenes weren’t always as immersive as they could have been. Second Son is different. The game’s cutscenes are gorgeous, and the performances delivered therein give you a great feel right off the bat at what Delsin Rowe is all about. His facial expressions illustrate just how cocky and confident he is, often with a smirk plastered on his face.

Behold Delsin Rowe's power.

In-game action is also gorgeous, and noticeably sharper and prettier than Infamous 2. It’s a game created in the same spirit as the PS3 Infamous titles, but its color palette is more vivid, its textures are sharper and more detailed, its animations are more fluid and realistic. This isn’t a technical rehash of what Sucker Punch has already accomplished on PlayStation 3. In this regard, Second Son is a leap forward instead of only a step forward.
But Infamous: Second Son is all about gameplay. The game harkens back to the first two Infamous games in so many ways, but it’s faster and smoother, less about wall-climbing parkour and more about seamless movement through the air. While Rowe’s smoke powers were the only ones displayed, and while more powers will be shown in the future, Sucker Punch’s Nate Fox explained in a conversation with IGN that smoke is the key to Rowe’s rapid movements.
“Delsin’s ability to transform his body into smoke is a real game-changer for us,” Fox said, “because it lets him move so quickly, both across the rooftop landscape but also to jump on guys and pound them into the ground, or using vents to move up the sides of buildings really fast. It’s empowering in that you don’t necessarily have to search the environment. You can kind of make your own path.”

The aforementioned vents are the crux of these quick movements, a sort of analog for the vertical electrified poles in MacGrath’s Infamous games. But the vents allow for greater movement along larger spaces, and the effect is dramatic. Rowe can shoot through ground-level vents and find himself on top of a building in a flash. And his smoke powers allow him to move through other sorts of grates, fences, and other semi-enclosed areas. He never finds himself trapped, because he can fit through even the tiniest spaces. You’ll still be climbing up the sides of buildings, Cole MacGrath style (“one of our rules is that if you think you can climb on it, we let you climb on it,” Fox said at one point), but Rowe’s smoke ability gives Infamous: Second Son an entirely different rapid transit mechanic.
Likewise, combat in Infamous: Second Son seems more complex and dynamic. Replacing MacGrath’s amp melee weapon is Rowe’s chain, an implement designed in a similar spirit, but with a wider array of abilities.
“The chain is two things,” Fox said. “One, Delsin’s kind of punk rock so we needed something that represented that. But more, we wanted something that was very simple. You know what it feels like. You’ve held one in a hardware store and it’s a real item that then he infuses with whatever power he’s got in the time. So it becomes kind of a cipher for his abilities. The chain kind of works a little bit with whatever powers he’s using. The amp [Cole used] was just electricity.”

Second Son's version of Seattle is true-to-form.

But even with the chain, and even with the promise of many more powers we’ve yet to see (just like MacGrath’s supplemental ice and fire powers in Infamous 2), Fox promises a simpler, easier-to-understand control scheme. “A real focus for us was to try to streamline the controls so that you didn’t have to memorize what button did what,” he said. “Games are complex. They need to strip that stuff away. So in Second Son, by simplifying the controls you’re capable of stringing together moves with more fluidity because it doesn’t require a special combination to do each one of them.”
Unlike Infamous and Infamous 2 – which took place in fictional cities based on real American locales – Second Son is set in Seattle, which gives Sucker Punch new and exciting ways to spread its wings. Seattle is a stone’s throw away from Sucker Punch’s hometown of Bellevue, Washington, and it’s a metropolis those that work at the developer are plenty familiar with. It immediately looks and feels more dire, dilapidated and dangerous than Empire City or New Marais, and a lot of it has to do with the dystopian, outright Orwellian slant to the city, something alluded to when Nate Fox first showed Infamous: Second Son to the world in February.

“The [Department of United Protection] in our game represent this really oppressive security force,” Fox explained, “and so they’ve built up all of this [stuff] around the city to kind of watch these superhumans. All of it is destructible because you’re cleaning the DUP out of town, pushing back that Big Brother element so people are free to live their lives. So destruction is just a really big focus for us.”
Most tantalizing about Infamous: Second Son, however, is the promise of greater non-linearity and a real emphasis on progression. Fox elaborated. “Delsin absolutely has this great skill to draw powers out of other superhumans and make them his own. And that variety of different powers is a big source of joy in the game, because you’re always thinking ‘what’s over the next horizon so I can get another ability?’"

Beware the DUP.

But when pressed on the open-ended nature of Second Son, Fox promised something unlike anything found in the first two Infamous games. “If you’re asking ‘are there areas that are inaccessible until you get certain powers’ in a Metroid-y sort of way? Yeah. It’s fun, right? To have this desire to go there and then eventually you can do it because you have two vents or a skillset.”
Infamous: Second Son – which will also include the Infamous franchise’s well-known choice-and-consequence slant – is set to come exclusively to PlayStation 4 in early 2014.