WII Red Steel 2 Q & A

A Q&A with creative director Jason Vandenberghe, with the game's release date set at March 26th.

Is Caldera the whole land and not just the city?

Let's talk about the world of Red Steel 2 a little.

Caldera is a city in what is generally known as the "Nevada Territories". It's kinda northwest of Las Vegas, off the beaten path a bit, in what's affectionately known as the "High Desert" (a.k.a. the Mojave Desert) - an elevated, hot, flat, chunk of the Rocky Mountains.

The land surrounding Caldera is named "Caldera County" as well, and one big crater was the most interesting landmark (a "caldera", for the curious, is another word for a big sinkhole or crater).

So, no, Caldera isn't the whole land. The "world" of Red Steel 2 is the Red West.

In fact, "the Red West" is a phrase used to describe the whole western part of North America.

Will there be other places than desert in the game?

But of course. The whole story takes place in and around the city of Caldera, and there's a lot of different kinds of environments in that place. Ancient temples, ramshackle slums, desert, huge modern freight-moving systems... it's a real city. Then you'll roll on out into surrounding canyons, where you'll find a pueblo-style mining town, a huge semi-automated strip mine, old, abandoned underground tunnels, an ancient ancestral monastery / temple clinging to the side of a cliff...

But if you mean "do you go anywhere cold, like the moon or something" the answer is no.

Will there be weather effects in Caldera (rain, sandstorms, etc.)?

Yes. When we were conceiving the 'mood' for each level, we tried to give the weather, time of day, and general atmosphere for each space a unique feeling, one that would fit the gameplay for that location. Honestly, there were a few times where our ambience people (lighting, VFX, audio, etc) showed us some stuff that we were convinced wasn't possible on the Wii... but they did it.

Will there be night, dusk and dawn in the game?

The gameplay takes place over several days, and the Sun in the Red West rises and sets just like it does in the real world. ;) What I mean to say is that there will be a few night levels, yes.

Are there living people anywhere? I know the inhabitants left but are there any remaining?

Yes! Yes indeed! Crucial, key, power-granting inhabitants! You should be discovering that in the near future, in fact what I can tell you is there are four inhabitants of great importance the player that you will encounter repeatedly, get missions from, buy cool powers from, and who, in general, will help convey to you the Story. That is, assuming you don't skip the cutscenes.

Posted on 26-01-2010 by Andrew

Comments

  • They changed the color of his coat. The original design has brown colored out west kind of coat, I am not liking the bright yellow coat.

    LeSomeGuy, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • ^ The coat is still rust brown/red in colour. Don't know where you've seen a yellow coat in the game but the main character has never sported one from what I've seen.

    ganepark32, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • I was watching the Caldera trailer on Kotaku and GameTrailers the coat looks really bright. I kind like the whole dark outlaw western theme. Out of no where this guy came out wearing a bright yellow coat... http://kotaku.com/5457435/red-steel-2-hell-comes-to-caldera-on-march-23rd

    LeSomeGuy, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • It's still red/brown it's just the lighting used in the prerendered cutscenes and in the game. They've done some impressive work with the lighting in the game so that'll explain why it looks yellow.

    ganepark32, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • Watched the video earlier this morning, really digging what they have achieved, can't wait to see what Red Steel 2 is.

    Trent, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • It's just that No More Heroes 2 just came out here on the state side, which is very similar to Red Steel franchise (both being big title action game on Wii), and No More Heroes 1 did drastically better than Red Steel 1 both in sales and gameplay. And I am quite satisfied with Sword Play in Wii Sports Resort, I got all my Motion Plus sword fight fix from that already. So I am having a hard time getting hyped about Red Steel 2 for now, maybe in a month or so after I beated No More Heroes 2.

    LeSomeGuy, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
  • Red Steel 1 sold significantly better than No More Heroes 1. It got the benefit of the doubt at launch from a lot of gamers and has sold over twice as many units as No More Heroes. A mote point as I'm more excited about NMH2 than RS2 but we'll see how it plays out.

    ganepark32, 30-11--0001 at 00:00

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