GAMESREVIEWS
VIDEOS
COMMUNITY
Rising (10+)Notable (20+)Popular (30+)Promoted (Front Paged!)
People you followTaggedGeneral - Opinion/EditorialCommunity ReviewsOff-topicCommunity PodcastersBloggers Wanted ResponseLetters to Dtoids EditorsGet InvolvedGeneral BadassnessJoin a Live Stream EventListen to CommunitoidJoin a Playdate EventCompete in a ContestHow Treyarch created a realistic premise in Black Ops II
Up until now, Treyarch had history to play with in crafting their stories. History is given an entertainment spin to fit their needs, sure, but a lot of what you see and do in their games are grounded in reality, to some extent. Black Ops II, however, is a first for the studio as it's a tale of the unknown future intertwined with the past. Dave Anthony, Head of Story at Treyarch, still wanted to present a realistic story, so he used a resource that governments all around the world use to craft the game's 2025 setting. "The thing that was most important for me working on this thing is that I wanted it to feel real," David told me. "I didn’t want it to feel like it was Star Wars or something. Star Wars is a great movie, but it has a certain feel to it. It’s all shiny and laser beams everywhere, and it’s very very far in the future. I didn’t want it to feel like that. I wanted it to feel grounded, gritty, and authentic like it could actually be an extension to what could happen to today’s world. We take the real world, and we either present stories which happened in the real world that you weren't aware of or we extrapolate the real world outwards. And then present what we think that looks like. "The first place we started was I worked with a consultant called Peter Singer. He’s an amazing guy, a Senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington. That is essentially a think tank for the US Government. In a weird way, it’s funny when you think about it in these terms, it’ll sound a little bizarre, but it’s actually true -- the Government kind of has the same problem as I do, or I did when I started making this game. The Government needs to know what’s going to happen to the world in the next 10-15 years. Because that’s how they’re planning what’s going to happen to the country. That’s how they plan military budget, and defense strategies, and those kinds of things. So who do they go to when figuring out what to do? They don’t know themselves, they actually use consultants."
"The person they go to, is actually Peter at Brookings," David continued. "He meets with world leaders all the time -- literally meets with world leaders. That’s benefit number one with Peter. The second thing is that before we even started working on this game, he’s an author and he wrote this book called Wired for War -- which is just awesome, you should read it, it’s an easy read based around what’s technology going to look like in the next 10-15 years, weapons, robotics, all that kind of stuff. So he’s an expert in that. He’s also an expert in geopolitics. What’s happening politically with the world right now, where is the world trending in the next 10-15 years. So we get the benefit of the technology with him: weapons and vehicles, and that sort of thing. Plus he can actually describe to us what our world is going to look like in 15 years -- what is the conflict going to be over? "This is one of the first places we started because look at conflict today, it’s all kind of about oil. You look at a country like Iran, which controls about 10% of the oil, and look at what a problem that is, controlling 10%. Right now there are these things called rare earth elements -- any sort of new technology has rare earth elements in it. Not just consumer goods. It’s things like military technology, drones, robotics, things that kill people -- it’s all built from rare earth elements. So right now you’ve got Iran controlling 10% of the oil, and what a problem that is -- as of today, China controls over 95% of the rare earth elements. "In fact, the funny thing was, in March of this year, President Obama gave a live telecast saying how he’s filing a case with the World Trade Organization against China -- live on CNN, because they are monopolizing rare earth elements. So we’d actually started working on this a year before that. We’re into the story and excited about it, and I’m watching this thing on CNN and I’m just like …'What the fuck is going on?!' It’s all unfolding around us, while we’re writing this story that’s based in this conflict around rare earth elements between America and China." David wouldn't be surprised if the Obama administration had consulted Peter directly about this issue. "That’s how this game I think is rooted in authenticity. The best way to do it is to get someone who lives it. And that’s what we did with Peter." Check back tomorrow for an in-depth interview with David on how the story of Black Ops II was created. Did you know? You can now get daily or weekly email notifications when humans reply to your comments.
1:30 PM on 05.16.2013 Diablo III celebrates its one-year anniversaryWell, it's been a series of ups and downs (that could have all been avoided if the Auction House was taken down), but Diablo III is now one year old. To celebrate, Blizzard is adding 25 percent extra Magic Find and experience...
6:30 PM on 05.15.2013 These are the 20 best-selling brands from this gen[Update: Telltale is mistakenly credited for the LEGO games in the source report, but it should be Traveller's Tales.] French game studio Ubisoft released its fiscal year 2013 earnings earlier today, trumpeting its tidy profi...
11:30 AM on 05.14.2013 Raphael SMASH in this TMNT: Out of the Shadows trailerThe bad boy of the Turtles makes his proper debut in a new trailer for Activision and Red Fly's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Compared to Mikey, Raph is a lot more aggressive and brutal -- watch him Izuna...
11:00 PM on 05.09.2013 Black Ops II's multiplayer is free on Steam this weekendThere's a little special on Call of Duty: Black Ops II over on Steam where you can play the multiplayer component for free all weekend long. Yup, you have full access and not only that, the game is 33% off on Steam right now....
4:15 PM on 05.08.2013 World of Warcraft drops 1.3 million subscribersOffering a status update on World of Warcraft during an earnings report, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick revealed that the popular MMORPG lost 1.3 million subscribers during the quarter -- "mainly from the East, but in t...
12:00 PM on 05.08.2013 The Deadpool game is a lot of dumb, immature funDeadpool has been a favorite of mine ever since I got into Marvel comics years ago. So I was pretty delighted when High Moon Studios announced it'd be working on a Deadpool game. The studio has done a rather good job with the...
3:15 PM on 05.02.2013 Sledgehammer suggests it isn't working on CoD: GhostsGiven its prior work on the franchise, it wasn't unreasonable to expect Sledgehammer Games to be involved with Call of Duty: Ghosts. That does not appear to be the case, however. "Congrats to Infinity Ward on [Ghosts]! O...
11:15 AM on 05.02.2013 Activision won't say if CoD: Ghosts is set for Wii UActivision announced the next entry in its billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Ghosts, which be showcased in more detail at the next Xbox unveiling on May 21. But there was something missing from that announc...
12:00 PM on 05.01.2013 Infinity Ward announces Call of Duty: Ghosts for next-genIf nothing else, the teasers for Call of Duty: Ghosts left almost as quickly as they arrived. Although we now have the official word on this Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and next-generation title from Infinity Ward, there ar...
9:52 AM on 05.01.2013 Call of Duty: Ghosts is official kinda [Update][Update 2: Confirmed!] [Update 1: GameStop has listed the game, giving it a November 5 release date. They even have preorder bonuses listed!] Remember those Ghosts we thought we saw? They're real. Ghosts are real. I was in my...
| timeline following: |
surf dtoid with 
follow
