Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Preview

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Eurogamer: Even saying that, though, you must be tempted to go back - once the game is finished - and use all the technology you've built to create a multiplayer experience.

Cameron Suey: I will not rule anything out, but I would say that's probably more than a temptation! We've just built this whole brand new system, which is really several systems playing together, and we're definitely going to keep exploring its potential. You're going to see more from it.

Eurogamer: The game focuses on simulation and generating responses from AI and physics, rather than on scripted sequences. Why did you go this direction, when so many other developers are making more and more elaborate scripted sequences?

Cameron Suey: Because, for one thing, the moment you see a scripted sequence the second time, you know it's not a real sequence - you know it's been hand-drawn and hand-animated. Now, we do have scripted sequences in the game; there are definitely moments that we wanted to come off exactly the way we had planned, and we had a very specific vision for them. But part of what makes videogames exciting is their interactivity, and the fact that you have so many possibilities with them.

We thought it was really important that, where appropriate, to really have a world that reacted incredibly realistically and felt very real. The moment you see that same Stormtrooper fall over in the same way twice, your brain instantly takes out one level of involvement with it. You get pulled out of that reality because you realise that you've seen this animation twice.

So the more we can keep you feeling like you're really engaged and really immersed in that experience, the better - and simulation technology really does that to a T. It just means that the payoff for everything you do is that much more enjoyable each time, because you know that every time you see something really incredible, you may be the only person who's ever seen it that way.

Eurogamer: Given that the character you play is essentially a superhero in the Star Wars universe, doesn't that make it difficult to make the game challenging? You're never really going to meet anyone you can't just flick into a wall...

Cameron Suey: Absolutely. That was one of the key challenges to the game, originally - the fact that players could waltz through just about any kind of situation. We didn't want to tone down the player's powers, so what we did is create characters and enemies that were sometimes resistant - and we had to make that fictionally appropriate. Why would someone be resistant to a Force power?

So at one point we have these golems, which are made out of all these bits of metal, held together with the Force. They're very resistant to being Force pushed because they're actually built out of the Force. However, because they're also made out of metal, they're very susceptible to lightning. In that sense, we wanted to give players more of a tactical approach to every situation.

The other thing is sheer numbers. If we overwhelm the place with enough Stormtroopers, well, you can only focus and push and lightning and shock and grip so many Stormtroopers at once, before they overwhelm you. Having mixed tactics types - we have ones that stand back and fire, and ones that go directly up for melee combat. We also have some very large and impressive enemies, and it doesn't matter how powerful you are - they're still going to stand their ground.

It was a variety of techniques we used to create a gameplay experience that was still definitely very engaging.

The Kitesaber. Or not.

Eurogamer: Your big boss encounters all end in a Quick Time Event - why do that, when you have such an enormous library of moves for the character to use?

Cameron Suey: We wanted those boss moves to feel completely cinematic - and while the character does have some really incredible moves that he does, the Quick Time Events are going to be things that could only be scripted. Things like tossing someone into the maw of a Sarlacc, or grabbing onto the roof, slamming someone repeatedly into it and then thrusting them into the floor. We wanted those things to be really big, cinematic pay-offs.

The other tactic there is that we want you to go from playing the game into these movies where you're just passively observing it. We wanted that to be more of a natural flow - so when you beat the boss, you're now in a totally new style of gameplay where you're just matching buttons, and appreciating this big cinematic finisher, and then you go into the cinematic. It's definitely a much more natural flow.

Eurogamer: Given how much technology you've created for The Force Unleashed, is it fair to say that this is only the first of a range of games you'll be building on this technology?

Cameron Suey: It's absolutely the first product from LucasArts to use this technology. We've previously announced the Indiana Jones game, which is going to use Digital Molecular Matter as well, and we've built this brand new engine, which is incredibly powerful, in conjunction with ILM. We'd be fools not to be using it.

Eurogamer: Do you have any plans to license the technology to other developers?

Cameron Suey: Well, Digital Molecular Matter [a major part of the game's physics] is by PixelArts, and Euphoria [part of the AI system] is by NaturalMotion - those are both outside groups that we have relationships with. Some of the other technology, like the facial capture and the cloth, that's all developed internally at LucasArts.

I think we probably could license that out, but I think it's probably best, for the industry, to have people try to develop their own technologies to create this realism. It's that competition, creating greater and greater realism, that's going to really advance the industry - not just doing the same thing repeated over and over again.