Starbreeze "in constant fear" Syndicate is too hard

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 1 February, 2012

Will take 50 hours to unlock everything in co-op.

Syndicate is supposed to offer a hardcore experience, one in keeping with the old school strategy games upon which the shooter is based - but that hasn't stopped developer Starbreeze from worrying it's gone too far.

With gamers now playing the four-player co-op demo, Starbreeze told Eurogamer it's worried it's made the FPS - designed to introduce the Syndicate franchise to today's gamers - too hard.

"We're in constant fear we made it too hard," lead co-op programmer Lars Magnus Lang said.

"It's hardcore in the aspect of if you try to play it as a shooter straight on it will be really hard. You need to take a different approach from other shooters where you try to really cooperate and heal and revive each other, almost like an MMO experience.

"We have taken some inspiration from MMOs with the breach applications and the healing and reviving. It's a mixture of those elements with the shooting experience. You can still play it as a full on shooter. You can do the tank priest concept. But the best thing is when everyone grasps the concept of healing and reviving and everyone is doing it."

Syndicate does not have an easy difficulty setting. The difficulties are divided up into stars: one star for normal, two stars for hard and three stars for insane. "One star, we don't want to call it easy because it's not easy, so instead we said, let's start at normal. There's no easy difficulty."

Still, Lars said the normal difficulty - one star - becomes "almost too easy" once players begin to work together.

"Three stars is really tough," he said. "We can complete three stars in the office when QA play. But in two days there will be players that are better than I am at this game. That's for them, the ones who want that really tough experience."

The single-player campaign is similarly tough, but is designed to teach players "a few things that might be useful in co-op". You learn how to use breaches, for example, and the various game systems.

The co-op, then, is where most players will turn once the single-player is completed. To unlock everything on offer here, expect to put in around 50 hours.

"If you already played it and you're really good at it you can just run through the maps with other good players if you play on one star difficulty," Lars said.

"But then we have scripted it differently on the different difficulties, so you will encounter more interesting enemies and have some special events that only occur on certain difficulties. We have mercenary events and more mini-bosses - a lot more mini-bosses - on three stars, for example.

"You might be totally overwhelmed with missiles you need to breach in the air, something we tried to avoid in one star difficulty. Ambushes, for example. Before people learn the breaching mechanism it's a lot to keep track of. It's a lot to keep track of normal, but on three star difficulty multiply that a couple of times."

He added: "We have a progression system in there - if you want to unlock everything you will have to play 80 to 100 missions and complete them successfully. That will probably take at least 50 hours - maybe more. It depends on how good you are."

Syndicate launches on 24th February.

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 (41) Latest comment 3 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Architect_z #1 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 17:15:30 01-02-2012

  • BBIAJ #2 4 months ago

    @Architect_z Where have you been!?

  • Architect_z #3 4 months ago

    I'm here all week mate. How are you? ^_^

  • Cjail #4 4 months ago

    Both The Darkness and Riddick were hard, very hard, but were also incredibly satisfying to play because the AI was never cheating on you like in COD...at least this is my experience.

  • Liquidoodle #5 4 months ago

    After playing the demo in co-op last night we were all impressed with how hard and fun it was :) was a worthy challenge and the AI was pretty bloody crafty at flanking you and moving around not just taking cover over and over again like some other games.

    I've gone from having not much interest in Syndicate before the demo to now planning on getting it on release I enjoyed it that much. Well done Starbreeze I say, stick to your guns and keep it tough!

  • subedii #6 4 months ago

    Syndicate is supposed to offer a hardcore experience, one in keeping with the old school turn-based games upon which the shooter is based - but that hasn't stopped developer Starbreeze from worrying it's gone too far.
    Turn based? Did I play a different game to everyone else or something?

  • uninspiredcup #7 4 months ago

    Thankfully, it's not Sydicate, it's lame cash in.

  • Cjail #8 4 months ago

    @Liquidoodle
    The demo is only playable at Normal so the challenge will get tougher in the final game.
    I can't wait!

    P.S.
    The other difficulties available in the full game are Hard & Expert: no Easy mode.
    Edited by Cjail at 01/02/12 @ 19:03

  • Yuroko #9 4 months ago

    Here come 50 comments slagging it off for being called Syndicate. Meh, my childhood has been raped.

  • Gastrian #10 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • Liquidoodle #11 4 months ago

    @Cjail Awesome, I really need to work on getting those head shots then :D

  • DaemonSpawn #12 4 months ago

    In a couple of years we'll have only 'hard', 'super-hard' and 'insane' difficulty settings (with 'easy', 'normal' and 'hard' hiding behind them) so that people who choose the lowest wouldn't be scared off or offended.

  • Cjail #13 4 months ago

    @DaemonSpawn
    I also expect games putting "Hic sunt leones" on the cover.

  • menschenfracht #14 4 months ago

    @Yuroko
    >> Meh, my childhood has been raped.
    like that?
    http://canv.as/ugc/original/d72cbc69b94d42abf16f02caba087aae670adfad.jpeg

  • TelexStar #15 4 months ago

    After initially feeling lost in the demo, it's actually a lot of fun. The research options are pretty cool and a nice nod back to the original.

  • Yuroko #16 4 months ago

    @menschenfracht Haha! Not quite.

  • MattEdWithCheese #17 4 months ago

    Great Real Time Tactics game>>Battlefield light

    Also not sure why one of the characters started questioning his actions during a loading area; they're drones, kidnapped, broken and controlled by drugs. They have no free will...

    Link to the proper version...
    Edited by MattEdWithCheese at 01/02/12 @ 18:26

  • God_Octo #18 4 months ago

    I haven't played the demo yet, but I've heard good things about it. I'm gonna be the pansy wuss and moan that I hope its not too hard though- I have a hard enough life as it is, and I don't want to flail my way through a game- I just wanna sit down and enjoy the experience. From what I've heard though, its not silly, so it should be alright.

  • Eraysor #19 4 months ago

    I never played the original so for me this is essentially a new franchise, and I was pretty impressed with how fun the co op is. The enemy AI is a tad ropey but it has similar meaty shooting to Killzone, which I love.

  • Slipstream #20 4 months ago

    The demo has a hard mode too. My friend and I have taken our Rank 10 characters through hard mode and it is indeed difficultm but not impossible or even over difficultm just a decent challenge. More enemies , an extra chip to rip and crap load more points.

    We were also 2 manning it so 4 players would make that hard mode rather easy. You also need to do the other difficulties to get the next tier of your up[grades, we were going for Tier 2.

    lol As you can see I got quite involved in the game, really good stuff =]

  • Hellion83 #21 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 20:12:17 01-02-2012

  • smelly #22 4 months ago

    They should be in more of a fear that it's a fps game...

  • X #23 4 months ago

    This is now on my radar. Never really played the original Syndicate and didn't pay enough attention to it to moan that this being an FPS spoils anything.

  • Dangerous_Dan #24 4 months ago

    @smelly Ah well it could be worse, it could be a jump n run with cute dinosaurs to ride on.
    Or they put the guys into a green Robin Hood costume + tights and put on some spiky ears.

    But you are right, unfortunately it's not true to its roots.

    ;)

  • madjim #25 4 months ago

    -So you saw that success?
    -What?
    -Those Demon/Dark Souls games, sell well and also have respect from the hardcore gamers being that hard to complete.
    -Really? That means that people don't just want to play easy and forgiving games?
    -It seems they don't. And not only that but it's a nice chance for us to use that trend so we can attract the hardcore too. Let's increase the difficulty in our new Syndicate then.
    -You're right! After all, even the new Bioshock got the message. Why shouldn't we be in that trend too?
    Edited by madjim at 01/02/12 @ 23:00

  • Bremenacht #26 4 months ago

    haha! ooooooohhhhhhh - it's reeeeeeeealllly hard!
    ohhhh - It's reeeeeeeeeeeaaallly hardcore!
    It's insaaaaaaaaaane!

    What gamer could possibly resist this opportunity to show that they can handle really really hard, really really hardcore, insane FPS gaming?

    Wake up! Wake up and smell the marketing!

    Or stay in your FPS-induced coma, tip out your wallet and buy yet another dose of pew.

  • Bremenacht #27 4 months ago

    oh. Beaten to it!

  • Bremenacht #28 4 months ago

    ♫
    Well you’re not hardcore
    Unless you live hardcore
    But the legend of Syndicate was way hardcooooorrrrrrrre
    ♫
    Edited by Bremenacht at 01/02/12 @ 23:09

  • Po1ymorph #29 4 months ago

    I have to say this has perked my interest. Still unhappy that we are not getting a Syndicate game more true to the original.

    Firaxis fancy doing another remake?

  • CamelCarcass #30 4 months ago

    About the third or fourth time playing it (about 40 mins worth, if that), me and two buddies thought it easy so we did a run-through on hard... Baring in mind that we were down one person, we stormed through it easily, and I didn't even know at that point that the dart thing gave a damage boost, or I'd have used it... Anyway, we got to the last boss, died once (He stormed through us and enemies were EVERYWHERE), then tried again, killed everyone else first and took him easily enough... I'm hoping there's a super-hard difficulty personally :D

  • ps-360 #31 4 months ago

    To hard????!!!Try Dark Souls!

  • The-Jack-Burton #32 4 months ago

    I can see it being hard, played through the demo many times and when I got to the final battle, the enemies never deployed in the same fashion. Sometimes they all came out guns blazing before the Boss ever engaged us, other times we we're in a full firefight with the boss before the majority of enemies deployed.

    It is addicting gameplay, I have never played through a demo so many times.

  • Cobalt_Jackal #33 4 months ago

    @Cjail BTW it should be known that the people who made the fantastic Riddick games, those people left Starbreeze quite a while a go. So the people making Syndicate are NOT the Starbreeze of old.

  • ShiroBen #34 4 months ago

    Is it just me, or has every developer looked at the success of Dark Souls and gone FAAAAARK WE GOTTA PUT SOME GAMEPLAY IN THIS THING

  • Dirtbox #35 4 months ago

    In other words, it's not casual enough.

  • SineHacker #36 4 months ago

    I enjoyed the demo, will be great if I can encourage 3 friends to buy!

  • super_monty #37 4 months ago

    Cool I am sick as piss easy walkthrough games.

  • CrispyXUK #38 4 months ago

    Should be more worried about whether or not it's any good, which it isn't.

  • mAc062 #39 4 months ago

    I played the demo and breezed through it with one other player on normal, the definition of hard these days is laughable with the exception of demon\dark souls. If the AI isnt smarter on the harder levels its just a cheap way of making things hard.

  • Pastici #40 4 months ago

    @mAc062 Aren't you special?

  • scuffpuppies #41 3 months ago

    I'm always scared of developers making games too bloody easy. The "casual" gamer has left a dirty stain on this industry that regular gamers are going to suffer until the publishers notice the "casual gamer" bubble has burst and moved onto the mobile platform.

    What's happened with developers these days? They appear too terrified of publishers and the creative retards in marketing (that have far to much influence of game development), to develop what gamers actually want and not what marketing thinks we want (after their research amongst 40 year old house wives showed 99% find FPS games too hard).

    I miss the days when the independent studio's led this industry, and games were developed for gamers....and not my mum.