Alpha Protocol Interview with 1UP

Alpha Protocol executive producer Chris Parker and lead designer Chris Avellone answer two pages of questions about the spy-themed RPG in a new interview on 1UP.

Exclusive Alpha Protocol Interview

We get some classified details on Obsidian’s spy-RPG.

By Thierry Nguyen   12/08/2008

An espionage role-playing game, by virtue of its concept, sounds intriguing. But when you add that it’s from the developers of great RPGs like PlaneScape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer, you can officially designate it as “pretty cool.” We recently had the chance to chat with executive producer Chris Parker and lead designer Chris Avellone to find out more about what makes Alpha Protocol tick, what other spy media the game feels like, what kinds of secret agents they play, and what a “German mercenary cougar” is.1UP: For people who might not know about Alpha Protocol, can you describe it in just eight words?

Chris Avellone: Well, that’s a very perplexing question, as you’re asking us to be brief, and that’s not how we usually answer. OK, here are three ways, though they aren’t all as concise as you’re wanting them to be: If you were given an unsigned government check, and asked to save the world, what would you do? If you had the choice to stop a global conspiracy, would you? Be Bauer, Bourne, Bond, in any combination.

Chris Parker: I can tell you that mine pretty much suck. I have “live the story of your own espionage agent” and “espionage role-playing with an awesome story!”

1UP: “Espionage” nowadays can mean a lot of things. It can mean stealth like in Splinter Cell, or high-octane action like in a modern James Bond movie. What kind of espionage feel does Alpha Protocol have?

CP: It does encompass a little bit of all of those things. Our conversation and role-playing system are cued to let you try to build whatever kind of agent you want, so when you go into a mission, how you fight or deal with that mission will depend on how you built your character. You can go in and stealth around to set up traps and take out bad guys that way, or go in with guns blazing for some “high-octane” action that you mentioned. When I think of Bourne or Bond, I also think of a lot of conversations with people, and a lot of manipulation of various forces at work. That takes place during the story aspect, while the action element is a bit like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear, but more “shootery.” We do a lot of different things, and we leave it up to the player to pick which ones are the best fit for their character.

1UP: What kinds of agents do you guys play as?

CP: For a long time, I was playing a guy who maxed out Pistols and Toughness; I basically couldn’t really die and I could [perform critical hits] easily — in fact, there’s a special ability that lets you do a critical hit either from cover or from a distance. Since a pistol also takes a silencer, that was a pretty deadly combination overall. I was using that for a while, but one of the other guys on the project started talking about how much fun he was having stealthing around and using gadgets, so for the last few weeks, I’ve been using a stealth guy with gadgets. I’ll go sneak over to someplace and plant either proximity or remote mines, then run off to another area and use a noisemaker to lure someone over, and just giggle. That’s my favorite build at the moment, but I know my favorite will change as development goes on.

CA: I prefer all the stealth and infiltration options because a lot of the gadgets are really fun. I’m also a little bit biased, because the technical and stealth skills — once you pump them up — will give you new dialogue options for some characters, and I really enjoy writing those.

1UP: Can you talk a bit about the combat system — what does it feel like moment to moment?

CP: You play in a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective, running around behind [protagonist agent Mike Thorton]. Your most direct form of combat is with guns, and there are four different gun types, each with their own unique upgrades and so forth. Each of the gun types has a different “personality” that complements different play styles; the pistol is an elegant weapon that can be very quiet, the shotgun would be a room-clearing weapon, while the sub-machinegun is also a room-clearer, and the assault rifle is more of a soldier’s weapon. The gunplay works a lot like other shooters.

Or you can use close-quarters combat; you can stealth up to someone and do a silent kill like in a Splinter Cell, or just pummel people in hand-to-hand combat. Or use traps and grenades — there’s a lot of different options available to you. On top of those basic options, you gain special abilities, which are basically modern-day versions of spells. For example, with the submachinegun you can do a Bullet Storm, which basically does a ton of extra damage for a limited time. You don’t even have to worry about reloading, so that’d be one way to quickly clear a room of guys by using an ability. You have a lot of options for the player, but at its base, you have a traditional third-person over-the-shoulder action game where you have a choice as to how you take on most of your enemies.

1UP: When I hear about a game that you guys are doing, I think of previous writing-heavy titles like PlaneScape: Torment or Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. Can you talk a bit about the writing and dialogue for Alpha Protocol?

CA: What we’re trying to do with Alpha Protocol is tailor the dialogue system to reinforce the feel of the game — give it more of a 24, or “timed momentum,” feel. When I say that, I mean that in a lot of our previous games like PlaneScape or KOTOR 2 or Mask of the Betrayer, the conversations in those games are very interrogation-based, in that you can go through each dialogue option repeatedly and explore everything that character has to say. In Alpha Protocol, that is a lot different; there is one path during the conversation, and it keeps going in a forward direction — you don’t usually have the chance to go back and talk to people again. We call this overall system the Dialogue Stance System, which was developed by Brian Mitsoda who worked on Vampire: Bloodlines. The whole intent of the conversation system is to make conversations feel more real, so a lot of the Stance choices you make won’t loop back on themselves; they’ll take one path of the conversation, and you’ll see reactivity and results based on that choice.

1UP: Are there party members? Does Michael Thorton hang out with other secret agents?

CA: He’s a solitary person. He’s the only character you control and you will not have companions joining you over the course of the game, except in very specific circumstances. It won’t feel like KOTOR 1 or 2 in that respect.

CP: At the same time, there are a lot of characters that you interact with over the course of the game in a continuing fashion where you’re developing storylines with those characters.

1UP: Care to name any specifics?

CA: Sure, and just so you know, a lot of the character designs were developed by designer Brian Mitsoda, and we’ve then added gameplay mechanics on top of those. One of the more colorful and notable characters you’ll meet is the German mercenary cougar named Sie. Now when I say “cougar,” I mean she’s been in the intelligence game for quite some time, and she’s sort of showing her age while also just throwing it all out there too. You encounter her in a series of several missions over the course of the game, and you sort of build up a very interesting, interactive relationship with her.

1UP: Another thing that I associate with your games is the tendency for significant choices or dilemmas. Can you talk about the kinds of choices you’ll be making?

CA: One of the early decisions, which itself is a kind of an example of the decisions you’ll make a lot in the game, is that while you’re hunting for this particular terrorist leader, you find one of the arms dealers that he regularly does business with. But when you encounter him, you’re faced with a dilemma: Do you let him go so that he can lead you back to the terrorist leader, but with the danger that by being free, more people will die from the weapons he traffics in the Middle East? Or do you take the paladin route, and realize that this guy is a criminal, and despite the fact that you might lose access to finding the terrorist leader still bring him in and arrest him? Or if you’re the sort of character who wants to see justice done then and there, do you simply put a bullet in his head? All of those things create a different reactive feel to the opening mission, and it’s the player’s choice of which path he wants to pursue, with different risks and bonuses.

1UP: Right now, what would you say is the most significant improvement that Alpha Protocol makes over your previous games?

CP: In my opinion, I think that having action gameplay is pretty significant. When we started Alpha Protocol, we were like “what are we going to do that’s a little bit different?” And we didn’t do it just to have something different than we’ve done before; we love our previous games, but we really wanted to have something that was fast-paced, where you have to make decisions on your feet, but you still have tactical special abilities to use. How that’s all come together so far is pretty cool. But as far as specifics, we’ve done a lot of tuning recently, and as I said earlier, playing as a stealth character is pretty fun. Setting up traps for unwary enemies while keeping them and their friends unaware of what’s going on is pretty cool and is what I’ve been enjoying the most recently.

1UP: OK, what about you, Chris Avellone? What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen in the game recently?

CA: The way we have conversations set up is that you don’t always directly talk to somebody face-to-face in the game. Between the cinematics team and how we structure the Dialogue Stance System, we have it so that you can pop open your PDA and talk to people through that, and we saw the first polished version of that. It’s like having a little person in your pocket that talks to you! When I saw it, it just looked pretty amazing how the team finally pulled it off.