Ninja Theory's Enslaved detailed

By Robert Purchese Published 18 September, 2009

Alex Garland, Andy Serkis on board.

Ninja Theory will work with Hollywood rubber-face Andy Serkis on new PS3 and Xbox 360 game Enslaved, as the Gollum actor fills the central role of Monkey, a man whose life is spent running from robots.

That's according to the first details of the project, which tumble from a Game Informer preview read by Destructoid.

The story, written by The Beach author Alex Garland no less, takes heavy inspiration from legendary Chinese novel Journey to the West, or Monkey as it's sometimes called. This follows a monk on a divine quest; he's helped by disciples and a dragon prince which joins the journey as a white horse for the hero to ride.

Enslaved, on the other hand, takes place far in the future - decades and decades after World Wars three and four made a mess. Eventually, Monkey is captured, by robots still pursuing objectives issued years ago for a war long finished.

He awakes on an airship in the company of Trip, a young lady who needs his help to return home. Knowing his penchant for a solitary life, she's popped a skull-crushing headband on him that she will use should he object. Thus begins a fragile relationship.

Action-adventure, then, and apparently with combat similar to Heavenly Sword, only more focused on tactics. Monkey can scout areas with a reconnaissance drone-type machine to see how best to approach, and tear weapons from robots to use for himself.

Enslaved sounds to be safely on the path of cinematic storytelling that Ninja Theory displayed a knack for with Heavenly Sword. Let's hope that this time, the game mechanics match up.

Our Heavenly Sword review explains.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • BadBoyBonner #1 2 years ago

    Born from an egg on a mountain top
    The punkiest monkey that ever popped
    He knew every magic trick under the sun
    To tease the Gods
    And everyone and have some fun

  • myiagros #2 2 years ago

    Get damon albarn onboard, so you can use the mucic from his monkey opera.

  • MrMarbles #3 2 years ago

    Written by Alex Garland?

    Colour me interested.

    Although colour me less interested by the fact that it is set in the future. With robots.

  • Firvulag #4 2 years ago

    i have to say, the villain in Heavenly Sword, portrayed by Serkis, is probably one of the coolest videogame villains of all time!

  • zarglu #5 2 years ago

    All this makes me miss an Heavenly Sword sequel even more...

  • vegard #6 2 years ago

    hey, this sounds interesting!

    even though there's still no mention of viking metal
    Edited by 1 at 18/09/09 @ 12:54

  • sneetch #7 2 years ago

    Hopefully, the nature of the monkey will be irrepressible.

    Surprised there's no mention of Pigsy or Sandy here, I'm sure they'll be along.

  • Kenshin001 #8 2 years ago

    The mention of Serkis has me worried. Was quite interested in HS but got the impression the gameplay suffered as all the focus went on to theatrics instead. I'm not against good VA and characters by any means, but make a good game first.

  • mkreku #9 2 years ago

    Let's hope this turns out to be a longer game than Heavenly Sword.

  • Doctor_What #10 2 years ago

    @ Firvulag: Seriously? You liked Serkis in HS? You must be an enormous fan of BBC's Robin Hood then, because Serkis seemd to be emulating the Sheriff of Nottingham as closely as he possibly could. Serkis is a good mimic, and I actually thought that Keith Allen was performing the role for the first half of the game. I quite enjoyed the camp Robin Hood series, but the character didn't fit with the game.

    I've no idea why they decided to have mostly serious, intense performances for all the good guys and then ruined that with pantomime characters for bad guys. When I reached the final confrontation and the characters faced off I couldn't help but feel that the whole thing was pointless - why was she going through it all to defeat someone quite so ridiculous?

    Tonally, the story of HS was all over the place. It had lots of elements that could have been great, but there seemed to be no narrative control, like a film where the director has let every actor rehearse by themselves, then films all their performances separately without guind them to a uniting vision.

    (And yes, sometimes I do this stuff for a living.)

    EDIT: Sorry Firvulag, I didn't mean to pick on you, but the pretty universal praise that HS gets in the industry really irritates me. It just reminds me how incredibly far behind other story telling mediums we are when that kind of glaringly inconsistent writing is considered worthy of praise.
    Edited by 1 at 18/09/09 @ 13:39

  • cianchristopher #11 2 years ago

    Heavenly Sword was a forgettable game.

    I remember 2007 well, the absolute low-point for the Playstation 3. Almost every cross-platform game was significantly worse than its 360 counterpart - and Sony's big exclusives were shite like Heavenly Sword and Lair. (Okay, Uncharted was great, but that's about it!).... But that launch price! Jesus, I despaired for pretty much that entire year! I'd look at the 360 jealously with all their rave reviews for Halo 3, BioShock, Forza 2, etc. We had nothing! And that fucking launch price!

    We've come a long way baby! (Or have we? Not quite far enough, tbh!) At least I also have a 360 now.....

  • Widge #12 2 years ago

    Sounds great!

  • Darkedge #13 2 years ago

    hmm sounds interesting but DO NOT get Albarn involved the music to that Monkey Opera was terrible.

    I think the cross platform-ness of this will help make it a better game than Heavenly Sword - I think sony meddling and pressure made that more of a graphical showcase than a good game

  • ybfelix #14 2 years ago

    Maybe Ninja Theory has some unused Chinese-ish material leftover from Heavenly Sword.
    Journey to the West is insanely popular in China. We have its TV adaptation rerun on every single school holiday:D Everyone know Monkey from as a child. I think this game is going to be imported (and pirated, have to admit that) a lot.
    Edited by 1 at 18/09/09 @ 14:28

  • Retroid #15 2 years ago

    The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!

    \o/

  • Razorus #16 2 years ago

    Andy Serkis is WIN.
    And the best thing is that he is my mum's friend's cousin. We''ll probably invite him round for tea when he's not so busy.

  • Natas_Enasni #17 2 years ago

    I'm not afraid to say it; I'm in love with Alex Garland. One day his screenplay for Halo shall be produced, and the lord shall smile that day. Also his books were what destroyed sodom and gomorra, and that's a compliment.

  • metallicorphan #18 2 years ago

    Andy Serkis has been busy in the video game voice department lately..he and John Rhys Davis(Gimli in LOTR)are voices in next months 'Risen' game

  • MrsPacMan #19 2 years ago

    Think I've done everyone now