How Synced’s story sets it apart from other sci-fi shooters

Third-person co-op sci-fi shooters are a crowded genre at the moment, but Synced has a few tricks up its sleeve that just might make it stand out as it gets ready to launch later this year.

Some of that is down to the game’s emphasis on narrative, which is something of a novelty in the free to play space – telling the story of a reliance on tech taken to the extreme. It’s a familiar theme for narrative designer Kevin Shortt, who was previously the lead scriptwriter on Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs. At a recent preview event for Synced, Kevin was kind enough to sit down with us to talk about the upcoming co-op shooter and what it has in store.

VideoGamer: So what sets Synced apart from the other co-op shooters on the market today?

Kevin Shortt: I think the big thing for us is the sync mechanic. That really is the differentiator for us, you know, you’ve got a lot of PvE and PvP games. Syncing with your Nano brings in another element. You’ve got this extra companion that you can play with in many different ways and we’re adding more and more to that.

So I think that’s something that, you know, I haven’t seen, we haven’t seen in other games, and I think it’s going to be something that I’m hoping players are going to gravitate to.

VG: What inspirations, if any, have you taken from that time in development and from other games in that period? 

KS: Yeah, there’ve been quite a few. I mean, you know, we’ve… we’ve drawn on a lot. Certainly, just, just society in general, where we loved, you know, this idea of tech and how involved we are in tech.

It’s funny, we weren’t inspired by the AI question, but it’s interesting now that that question is coming up, you know? Like that’s a big topic right now. It certainly wasn’t what drove us to make the game but it’s just interesting how that sort of… collided with the game because our game is really about technology and the hubris of going crazy with technology and where that can lead.

You know, we’ve drawn inspiration from a lot. There’s been there’s been different games. Different movies You mentioned, Destiny. Certainly. That’s… that’s, you know, an amazing game. Movies like Annihilation. Um, those sorts of things that have inspired us

VG:  And how much of the game’s story is going to permeate through the ongoing live game in terms of the long term game like the seasons and so on?

KS: Yeah, so that’s the whole thing. What you play didn’t really show you any of the story. It’s not there at all, it’s gonna come when we… as soon as we launch and every season. So we’ve got is what we call memory fragments. They come from the technology, the nanite technology that infected everybody and basically recorded every thought that people had, every… every idea – anything in your head was recorded. And so what you find in the world… we look at the world as this kind of haunted house in a way. You see the remnants of what used to be. 

And so these memory fragments are like our little ghost stories where you hear the stories of what happened before, you know, and it’s a mixture of everything – like as I said, the hubris of the company that was building all this stuff. You hear the panic, among people who are trapped in this collapse, You hear the joy. It’s a whole mixture of everything. We wanted to get a full breadth of what it was like. But those are… that’s our lore that you can find in the world. The story comes through them every season. You’re going to get Dead Sectors to go through and as you progress through each of those dead sectors, you’re going to receive more of the story. 

It’s tricky, you know, like we’re not a game like some of the big linear games that you might get like The Last of Us or anything. That’s not the kind of game we are, you know, We’re a A PvP/PVE. And what that means is you’re playing with teammates and it’s a fast-paced game. So we need to make sure that we’re offering up the story in a way that’s compatible with the pace of the game.

So it’s a softer story. You get it at the beginning and at the end when matches start. But each season is going to feature one full… A chapter of our main story And as the seasons go on players will be able to unravel more and more of what’s happening inside the Meridian. 

VG: Do you plan to deliver any parts of the story outside of the game in things like videos or mini-movies? 

KS: Like, you mean offline? Yeah. Yes, absolutely yeah. So straight off, the first thing we’re doing is if you go onto our website at launch you’re going to see stories. We’ve written short stories that tell other sides of, other aspects of what happens. So it’s going to give you… it’s a longer form short stories that tell you about the world. Yeah. 

VG: Is there a long term plan for the game’s story, and how long-term is that plan at this stage?

KS: So yeah, that’s an interesting question because yes, the short answer is yes, we have a long-term plan. We sort of had to map this out because we needed to have a story that has legs. Yeah, that we need to know that, you know, If players are going to be playing this for a while and we need to make sure that they’ve got enough, that we’ve got enough of an interesting story that’s going to go for quite a while.

So on paper, we have looked like four, five years ahead, quite frankly, we’ve sort of mapped all the way there. You know, as we get out to that year four and five, it’s thinner in terms of what we’re going to do because we know that once the players get their hands on it, we’re going to be watching them and we’re going to see what’s attracting them and what’s pulling them.

So, you know, you adapt the story a little bit based on where you see the player’s interests are going, You know, are they gravitating towards this or…? You know how it goes, right? You just draw from what the players are connecting with and it will… it can’t help but influence what you do.

In the short term. You know, we’re already working on season 3 – actively working on season 3. Season four, season five are already planned out so…  and season one is in active production. Season one and two are already in like, full-on production. 

VG: You’ve kind of pre-empted my next question but have you given yourself much room to manoeuvre the game’s story depending on player feedback?

KS: Oh yeah, we want to make sure we do, you know like… Um, you know, we won’t be… if players see something when the game launches, we’re not going to be able to change anything in Season One but we’re certainly going to be able to look at that and go. “Okay. You know, we’ll be able to apply this. You know, a couple, a few seasons down.”

We want to be, we want to react like that. It’s fun for us. It’s fun for the players.

VG: Do you have a favourite character and class?

KS: Do I? Yeah. It depends on which aspect. So if we’re talking gameplay. It depends If I’m playing, let’s say I’m playing PVP, I tend to go for Glory, she’s quite good with the sniper rifle. I like her smoke bomb ability in PvP. If it’s PvE I tend to go for Deadcut personally, I like the fire grenade. Very effective. 

Personality wise. It’s hard for me to say, I really… they’re all quite varied and they have a different tone and it depends on my mood, I have a soft spot for Ranya. She’s got this dark aspect to her. But It’s strangely… she delivers it so emotionally, so I love her. 

VG: Finally, what are you most looking forward to players getting their hands on with the game? 

KS: Well. I just want players to get in there and start… quite simply just start diving into… I would love to see them diving into the PvE. Yeah, you know that for me is like “Get in there!” That’s where I think the team play is particularly fun. In PVP, it is as well – it just depends what type of player you are. But PvE is also where we put the emphasis on the story. It’s hard to do it in a PvP. We’ve got the memory fragments in there, so it gives a little bit of lore and the PvP, but the bulk of our story is told in PvE So I hope players are going to dive into the PvE straight off and just explore the Dead Sectors and start learning about what the hell is going on in there, 

You saw a tease of our season content for the launch, the rifts? Yeah, so the riffs are season – our first, right at launch. It’s called Rift Chasers. So there are these rifts that you discover as you start playing through and go into the rifts and see what the hell’s going on in there.

Synced is set to launch this summer on the PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, and you can pre-register now to be informed when the game goes live. If you’ve not checked out our Synced preview yet, you can do so here.

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