Interview - Ben O'Donnell (Syndicate)

After our recent hands on time with futuristic shooter Syndicate, we spoke with global marketing manager for the game Ben O’Donnell about rebooting a classic title, the change of genre and just why they decided to announce the game so late in development.

CLICK: Can you set up the story for Syndicate?
BOD: So the game is a reboot of the cult classic from 1993. It’s basically corporations going after each other with dirty business practises. In the single player campaign you are an agent that works for the largest corporation in the world and you are their latest prototype agent with a military grade chip in your head. So you’re able to breach the environment and breach people around you to make them do your every will. In co-op, it’s a little different – you have your own syndicate that is going up against the three largest in the world, So you’re starting fresh and working your way to the top and trying to take down some of the big boys in the business. So lot of replayability, lots of depth to co-op and it’s kind of like the second half of the game.

CLICK: So there’s an entirely separate storyline for the co-op mode?
BOD: Yea, co-op is not just a sub-mode like in many games. It’s actually another game in itself. It’s very deep, lots of fun to play and very different to single player.

CLICK: The original Syndicate is known as being an isometric strategy game – why did you decide to make such a change to the genre and gameplay?
BOD: There were so many decisions to make that choice. One is there are 60 million shooting consumers out there that appreciate games in HD and another one is that we wanted to tell the story from a different perspective.

CLICK: Literally!
BOD: Yea! Previously, you were a CEO overlooking four agents and controlling their minds. Now you’re able to enjoy the game as the top agent in the syndicate. And we also wanted to give this reboot everything that we could, giving players a great sci-fi single player shooter that immerses them in this sci-fi world. There are a lot of elements that tied around it but we appreciate the core fans and we love the original and the isometric view but it was just time to move elsewhere to tell the story in a different way.





CLICK: You’ve only announced the game recently, are you finding you have to re-educate consumers on the franchise?
BOD: We definitely want to pay homage to the original, we have a video that was released recently called Syndicate Deep Dive Origins (find it and more here) which lets you see the original game and shows consumers who might not have known the original and also showing those consumers that might have been hesitant to get behind us because we weren’t an isometric shooter, to show them that there are many elements from the original. This game has a deep history that we wanted to pay respect to.

CLICK: The development was kept very quiet, how long have you guys been working on it?
BOD: More than a few years. We decided from a marketing perspective that we wanted to engage the consumer at this time. Relatively speaking it might seem a little late to announce but what are we really losing because our whole goal here is to announce the game and then educate the consumer on a bi-weekly cadence with great assets and relentless engagement. And then prove out our gameplay.

CLICK: Instead of having a CG trailer 18 months before release, you’re able to show gameplay now.
BOD: Yea exactly, a lot of people have the same question – why did we announce so late? But the fact of the matter is when you look at the majority of the titles that are announced 18 months out, you don’t see anything again until six months out. So we wanted to try something different with Syndicate, we wanted to give consumers this relentless engagement, to give them what they want – high quality assets on a bi-weekly cadence.

CLICK: Does that make your job very different? It’s much more intense…
BOD: Very intense, very concentrated. It gives me the ability to appreciate the work and really hone in on the consumers and understand they want to see. How much they want to know about the game and give them what they want essentially. Rather than giving them what we want and then basically doing nothing for a two or three month period.

CLICK: How do you go about promoting a game like this?
BOD: We wanted to show consumers that we understood that we’re announcing late but this is all gameplay, we’re not messing around. We want everyone to come to our shows, to get hands on – let us know how they feel about the game. So far it’s been great. Everybody that’s touched the game has said its great, everybody that hands seen it but is an original fan is saying that they’re very disappointed but all we can tell them is we appreciate their enthusiasm and that they should get hands on, give it a try. We feel very strongly about the game, it’s a lot of fun, it’s surprising a lot of people and our job is easy from now on. Making those great trailers is easy because the gameplay really stands on its own.

CLICK: Finally, you mentioned that you wanted to target a core shooter audience with this game. The market is full of first person shooters, what sets Syndicate apart?
BOD: The through the gun experience is of the level of the top, top shooters out there. So it feels great through the gun and the way we differentiate ourselves is with the four player co-op where you and your friends get the chance to move forward in the world, along with the chip enhanced gameplay where you are able to breach the environment and the people around you, rather than just shoot them. I think that we have this cyberpunk feel and a true core shooter experience that people are going to appreciate. The story is fantastic in the singleplayer and it’s a lot of fun in co-op so I really believe that we can differentiate ourselves. There are a lot of shooters out there but this co-op really sets it apart.

Syndicate is coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on the 24th of February 2012. Read our hands on preview.