InFamous due in 2009, new details

By Tom Bramwell Published 25 June, 2008

Sucker Punch's PS3 superhero sandbox.

Sucker Punch's upcoming sandbox superhero game, inFamous, is due out next year in PAL regions and Sony has some new screenshots to get you worked up about it.

They depict player-character Dylan wreaking havoc on the fictional Empire City, using his various zappy Palpatine powers to send cars flying into buses while hanging from a lamp-post. The scamp.

According to details released by Sony yesterday, and a recent cover feature in a US games magazine, inFamous begins with a massive explosion in Empire City and Dylan emerging from the rubble, crackling with electricity.

He quickly makes contact with his friend Zeke, and is encouraged to leg it in his direction before things in the city get any livelier. Off he goes, but despite manfully dodging falling girders and debris, whatever happened to him in the heart of the initial explosion overcomes him and dumps him in a coma for 15 days.

During those 15 days, things get a bit out of hand - with talk of martial law and uprisings and mysterious plagues and all sorts. When Dylan wakes up, coming to terms with his burgeoning electric superhero powers, the player has to decide whether to save the city of destroy it.

An openworld game by design, inFamous doesn't bother with weapons and car control for Dylan; instead it's all about charting a path down good or evil roads, with a "Karma" system governing the city's responses to your actions and their implications on the story and your abilities. You'll also battle "powerful, iconic villains".

Visually, as you can see from the screenshots, it's heading in a GTA IV/Crackdown/Saints Row kind of direction, although we're also told to expect cut-scenes inspired by the comic books that obviously inspired the superhero premise.

It all sounds quite interesting, and if you missed last year's E3 unveiling, you can check out that blurry trailer over on Eurogamer TV. At the time we'd been told to expect inFamous in 2008, but now Sony is saying 2009 - perhaps springtime. We're doubly excited because Sucker Punch made our beloved Sly Raccoon games.

We hope to see more of inFamous at E3 next month, so expect first-hand impressions sooner rather than later.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (7) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • betahoven #1 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • Laika #2 4 years ago

    Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog and Insomniac made three of the best platformer serieses (?) on the PS2 - Sly, R&C and J&D. And now it looks like they're all on track to make/have made three excellent next-gen games.

  • bioreit #3 4 years ago

    Looks fantastic! Like betahoven said, Crackdown with a plot! As long as you can leap from building to building and punt stuff into the distance, I can guarantee I'll be grinning like a maniac.

    Well, more so than usual, anyhow.

  • BiscuitBase #4 4 years ago

    What's with the silly capitalisation of the F and the lowercase I?

  • erp #5 4 years ago

    Chalk some more Sucker Punch loving up from me.

    It's not usually my bag, but given the pedigree behind this I've got high hopes for it.

  • Skywise #6 4 years ago

    Please let them put some not so awful sounding names in. Even the RPG naming department of SquareEnix can do better than 'Zeke'

  • Triggerhappytel #7 4 years ago

    Really looking forward to this; I think Sucker Punch are tremendously underrated. I thought the platforming in Sly was a joy, and always felt they should lend their talents to a more mature project.

    I like the premise, although kind of hope you have other powers, not just electricity.

    And I agree that the name Zeke sounds painfully bad. Just call him Michael or Jason, or something a little less 'We're trying to sound cool!'