Dark Sector First Look Preview

Dark Sector has had somewhat of an interesting development history. You might remember it as the first next-gen game you saw, but things have changed a lot since then. It was pure sci-fi, with gameplay that seemed to throw a nimble Sam Fisher-alike into a tight suit and pit him against numerous enemies who looked more than suitable for the part. The third-person action game that will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October 2007 will be quite different though. Things have become rather dark and grim.

The team working on the game at Digital Extremes is apparently full of Resident Evil 4 fans and this is quite apparent from the look of Dark Sector. Gone is the sci-fi sheen, replaced by the kind of drabness seen in Resident Evil 4 and Epic’s more recent Gears of War. It’s a huge departure from the game’s original visual style, but according to producer Josh Austin, this was necessary in order to sell the game to publishers. Sci-fi simply wasn’t appealing enough.

In the game you play as a CIA agent whose body has been fused with some kind of new technology. This is most obvious through the use of his spinning blade weapon that is actually part of him. It’s his primary tool for taking out enemies and a good one at that. The presentation started with a rather brutal decapitation and the violence continued throughout. According to Josh the main character is a little bit Jack Bauer, in that he’ll be in contact with his superiors, but will more often than not do things alone and run off into trouble.

Although clearly in need of the polish a game receives during its final months of development, there’s no denying that Dark Sector is looking extremely promising. Immersion is something that’s been a key during development and because of this you won’t see a HUD; everything you need to know will be conveyed via indicators. So, for example, your gun will blink when it’s low on ammo and health will be indicated by the way you’re moving around. It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, but it makes for a clean appearance and lets the smart visuals take centre stage on their own.

While it seems that you’ll have access to the usual array of guns, it’s the boomerang-like blade that currently seems most interesting. As well as acting as a devastating death bringer in its own right, it can take on the properties of things it hits. Fling it into some fire and it’ll start to flame; smash a light with it and it’ll be charged with electric. These new properties can then be used to interact with the environment and solve the many puzzles that bookend sections of combat. One area in the presentation was inaccessible due to a growth that blocked a doorway, so a simple puzzle had to be solved in order to create a fire. It’s simple stuff, but will break up the action without causing too many headaches.

The pace seems very Splinter Cell, with plenty of opportunities to assess the threats in an area before running in. Standard enemies don’t appear to represent much of a challenge to our action hero but you’ll encounter a lot worse than men with guns. One particular nasty is called the Mauler. This guy wears a gas mask and sprays poisonous gas into the air; this debilitates whoever breathes it in, allowing the Mauler to come in and finish things off with his machete. Later enemies will range from slightly mutated freaks to full-on monsters, but each will have their weaknesses that can be exploited if you know what you’re doing.

The Mauler also allowed the gathered journalists to see the lengths Digital Extremes is going to in order to ensure a realistic game world. The gas tank can be shot to prevent him from spraying it into the air and the mask can be dislodged – seeing him wriggle it back into place was a really nice touch and instantly added some believability to the character. The environment during the brief demo didn’t give away too much but the lighting on display was incredibly impressive, with light realistically creeping through windows and slits. The smoke that hung in the air during an early section of the demo could even be moved around by throwing the blade into it, and this is apparently more than a nice visual effect.

Every new next-gen game that’s announced seems to be using Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, so it’s somewhat of a surprise that Digital Extremes (who previously worked closely with Epic on the Unreal series) is using its own engine. We’ll have to wait until more of the 15+ hour adventure is revealed before passing judgement, but it’s currently looking great – although, perhaps tellingly, was only seen running on the Xbox 360.

With more than six months of development still to go, the fifteen-minute presentation provided a lot to be excited about. The gameplay takes elements from the likes of Resident Evil 4, Splinter Cell and Gears of War, blends in a few puzzles, uses a great looking next-gen engine and spreads it all out over more than 15 hours with branching paths for good measure. Multiplayer is still something of an unknown at the moment but it’s said to take the best parts of the single-player game to create a unique multiplayer experience. Should it deliver the goods D3 Publisher and Digital Extremes might have a real hit on there hands come October 2007.

For more on Dark Sector head over to Pro-G TV where you’ll find an exclusive 15 minute video presentation with producer Josh Austin.