EA: "Syndicate is tough, really tough"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 1 November, 2011

"It's part of the legacy."

EA has described Syndicate as a "really tough" shooter that will challenge hardcore gamers.

The Starbreeze-developed FPS has "best in breed" AI that makes for more "traditional" gameplay.

"It's cool," Jeff Gamon, EA Partners executive producer, told Eurogamer. "It's an excellent shooting experience. We think our AI is best of breed. It's very light on scripting. It's a very challenging, hardcore shooter game. It's very traditional in that sense. It's tough. It's really tough. It's challenging."

Starbreeze's Syndicate revives what many consider to be one of the greatest strategy games of all time.

While fans remain divided over this latest effort, Gamon said both EA and Starbreeze were keen to replicate the classic, Bullfrog-created Syndicate feel - including its difficulty.

And he pointed to one mission in particular: Atlantic Accelerator, a mission from the first game famed for its difficulty.

Syndicate's four-player co-op experience takes some of the settings from the first game and reimagines them in a new genre. Atlantic Accelerator is one of them.

"It's part of the legacy really," Gamon, who played Syndicate in the early nineties and completed Atlantic Accelerator, said. "Atlantic Accelerator is a case in point. It's not punishing, I don't think. What makes Syndicate fun is it is challenging without being frustrating. When you get beaten by the AI it's because they've got around you. It's not because they can bull's-eye you through cover from a million miles away. It's all about playing like a hardcore gamer. It's a good challenging experience."

One aspect of the first game that is not replicated in quite the same way is the extreme gore.

Bullfrog's Syndicate allowed players to mow down civilians at will - and while Starbreeze's Syndicate will allow players to kill innocents, it keeps the random murder to a minimum.

"It's difficult to do these days on that kind of scale, where you could use them as human shields," Gamon explained. "The world of Syndicate is these consumers who have bought into this lifestyle by putting this chip into their heads.

"So a lot of the action you'll raise when you go into the other syndicates' territory is in civilian areas. So, there are certainly moments in the game where civilians get in the line of fire. But you're not encouraged to or rewarded to [kill them]. They're there, basically. They're part of the environment."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • Lunatic4ever #1 7 months ago

    yeah tough is good, unfair is shit. decided to play ninja gaiden again..yesterday. bad decision. I fucking hate the game because its so unfair at times...

  • Ultrasoundwave #2 7 months ago

    Ive only been impressed by Starbreeze so far, Riddick and The Darkness are both excellent games. Ive got high hopes for this game.

  • ShiftyGeezer #3 7 months ago

    So from marginalising the game to Syndicate fans who also like FPS, they now want to marginalise that further to hardcore FPS fans who also liked Syndicate. How's about they make it Kinect/Move only to further limit interest?

  • ShiftyGeezer #4 7 months ago

    "It's difficult to do these days on that kind of scale, where you could use them as human shields..." No Persuadatron?! This game is gonna be soooo poo!

  • Skirlasvoud #5 7 months ago

    Would the developers kindly stop with the comparisons to the classics already? All this talk of it being "Classic Syndicate!... but totally different and you should be gratefull for it!" is just depressing, insulting and beligerent. Syndicate is so ingrained within my history as a gamer that I don't need EA to tell me how much better it could be, because it won't. That's the folly of their current marketing strategy:

    Nothing will ever be as good as the Syndicate that I can remember. In fact, not even the original syndicate is as good as the Syndicate I remember, because by now it has an added layer of sentimental nostalgia. The good old times I had as a bright-eyed kid will always triumf over the cynical adult I've now become. EA thinking it will win against that just smacks of hubris.

    So make up your mind. Either focus on creating something completely novel, or risk the ramblings of a few thousand veteran gamers who will hold up the new Syndicate to the unreachable ideal of the original.


    Point and case: Duke nukem forever. God was that ever an excercise in nostalgic futility.
    Edited by Skirlasvoud at 01/11/11 @ 09:52

  • Cjail #6 7 months ago

    @ShiftyGeezer
    What are you talking about?!
    You will still have a chip upgrade that lets you persuade enemies!
    Edited by Cjail at 01/11/11 @ 10:02

  • kangarootoo #7 7 months ago

    "Nothing will ever be as good as the Syndicate that I can remember. In fact, not even the original syndicate is as good as the Syndicate I remember, because by now it has an added layer of sentimental nostalgia."

    This.

  • Bilstar #8 7 months ago

    I played a lot of Syndicate back in the day and I still can't remember this "one of the greatest strategy games of all time" that keeps getting mentioned, anyone who hadn't played it will think it was like C&Conquer or similar.
    It was a sweeet game, but it wasn't like the game that keeps getting mentioned.
    Edited by Bilstar at 01/11/11 @ 10:14

  • jonbwfc #9 7 months ago

    @Skirlasvoud - very well put, exactly the problem I have with the 'New Syndicate'. It isn't Syndicate, it won't be Syndicate, it can't be Syndicate, so kindly stop telling me it is.

    Jon

  • woodnotes #10 7 months ago

    "yeah tough is good, unfair is shit. decided to play ninja gaiden again..yesterday. bad decision. I fucking hate the game because its so unfair at times..."
    Ninja Gaiden is actually a prime example of a game that is extremely tough but completely 100% fair. So you contradicted yourself there.
    Edited by woodnotes at 01/11/11 @ 10:32

  • hiddenranbir #11 7 months ago

    FPS games can't be 'tough'.

  • abigsmurf #12 7 months ago

    Hoping they properly deliver on AI. Haven't been truly impressed by AI since FEAR1 (weird they dumbed it down in the sequels). Even HL2 dissapointed (which is a shame given how advanced it was in the first game)

  • DreadedWalrus #13 7 months ago

    @woodnotes I was curious about that myself. Figured maybe he was talking about NG2 rather than NGB.

  • Hieronymus #14 7 months ago

    "Nothing will ever be as good as the Syndicate that I can remember. In fact, not even the original syndicate is as good as the Syndicate I remember, because by now it has an added layer of sentimental nostalgia."

    Read my mind like a telepath dear sir.

  • Cjail #15 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:44 12-12-2011

  • Cjail #16 7 months ago

    @Skirlasvoud
    I too believe that recreating an experience is futile and ultimately impossible.
    You simply can't do it, being it a videogame, a movie, a book, a meal, etc...there will be always something unrepeatable in any of our experiences.
    BUT, there is a but, I believe that this "replicating the classic" argument is more an attempt to regain the audience's faith on the project rather then showing that they are re-doing it.
    2012 Syndicate clearly wants to be "something else": a new point of view in the same universe.
    Strbreeze in-fact didn't try to recreate the original since the very clearly said that what they do best is FPS, but it is exactly for this very new approach that they have been criticized.
    Many seems to hate this Syndicate because is not "just like the Syndicate they know": this difference is disturbing and ultimately bad for them...paradoxically they are the ones that would be more comfortable with a re-created Syndicate.
    EA actually pushed for the "novelty" and was hated, so now is just trying to tell fans that there's still something of the original Syndicate in this game and that they should not fear to have lost something precious to them.
    This is probably the true meaning of this "being keen to replicate the classic".
    Edited by Cjail at 01/11/11 @ 11:54

  • Jolly_Armadillo #17 7 months ago

    Sounds like they are trying to lure some of demon / dark souls crowd by saying its tough thinking that's enough... Hmm shall see

  • mcmothercruncher #18 7 months ago

    Going for the old Dark Souls vote eh EA?

  • kangarootoo #19 7 months ago

    @woodnotes

    To be a pedant, being wrong is not the same as contradicting oneself.

    Lunatic4ever is simply wrong about Ninja Gaiden (a game I also hate because it is so tough, but I know its my fault and not that of the game).

  • mAc062 #20 7 months ago

    Atlantic Accelerator was pretty easy as I remember as long as you had the right gear. I had to self destruct one of my agents to get the last enemy agent that was stuck in a building (I tried gauss gun and time bomb with no luck).

  • loveless #21 7 months ago

    I loved Syndicate. For what it was.

    Most people are not hardcore gamers, and don't want a super hard FPS. This is not cool. And it's certainly not Syndicate.

    There may be some people that will love this game. And by all means deliver it to them. But please stop sullying the Syndicate memory.

  • Scribble #22 7 months ago

    The Atlantic Accelerator mission on Syndicate was amazingly fun. I did it last and finished the game the day I got my GCSE results. Four agents with Gauss Guns, Rocket Launchers and careful execution. Sadly no mass Persuadatron crowd lynchings on that level. Still hard to see how a hardcore FPS can be a follow up to an isometric tactical squad based game.

  • ShiftyGeezer #23 7 months ago

    @Scribble - The Atlantic Accelerator was the only place I really used the Laser Gun. With those thin gangways funneling enemy agents, it was easy to take out five or six with a single laser shot. Took a number of attempts to learn where to place agents to get maximum kills, and one had to be careful of gauss guns too. But then you'd collect the gauss guns to finish off the rest!

  • knocker #24 7 months ago

    In what way can this be called reviving ? It's called the same name, that's about it.

    I suspect there is a whole "revival" market out there. People who missed the stuff first time round can buy into a bit of the history.

    I suspect if wizball was being remade it would somehow end up as "a very challenging, hardcore shooter game."

  • Arsecake_Baker #25 7 months ago

    @Skirlasvoud

    One of the best comments i have ever read on EG +1

  • Skirlasvoud #26 7 months ago

    Ah yes, the beginning sequence of the atlantic accelerator. :lol: Can't help but join that conversation.

    I just stuffed my agents with personal shielding. Nearly their entire inventory, packing just just two miniguns each and perhaps a gauss launcher. My strategy wasn't so much killing them as enduring them. When their innitial charge ended, I scavenged their corpses for weapons and ammunition to complete the level.

    It was this really great trick I used against their innitial onslaught: A personal shield is trashed when its depleted, but it recharges when its switched off and given some time. With more then 6 shields equipped, I simply cycled through them, switching off the active one just before it was depleted and by the time I had used the other five, the first one was recharged again. I was invinsible against anything but the heaviest of their weapons. Dodging Gauss rockets and finishing them off with what little weapons I did have was the second step. Oh the micromanagement...

    I was 12 years old at the time and didn't have internet access. Man, did I feel smart for coming up with that all by myself.


    I have to say though, in terms of pure enjoyment, I enjoyed syndicate wars even more. Nothing quite like flattening the very first 3D gaming cities with ASAT strikes and positron disruptors.
    Edited by Skirlasvoud at 01/11/11 @ 15:10

  • ShiftyGeezer #27 7 months ago

    @Skirlasvoud : Trying to remember that clearly, I think on the AA level your squad was divided between two points, so managing them was a little awkward. Well, I guess you'd just use the party overview. But Im' thinking I may actually have gone in with just one or two agents instead of all 4 so I could keep focus. I vaguely think I managed to persuade enemy agents, but I don't recall there being any civvies to start the persuasion escalation. There were enough low guards, but didn't you need 4 civvies before you could brain-drain a guard?

    edit : All talk of strategies and favourite moments in Syndicate just underline how terrible this shooter is. Syndicate was an RTS. May as well make The Settlers into an FPS...
    Edited by ShiftyGeezer at 01/11/11 @ 15:28

  • ps-360 #28 7 months ago

    Doubt it will be as hard as Dark Souls, that game is impossible!!!!