inFamous Is Set For Release This May.

Whilst we were basically making out with the HD reveal of Heavy Rain, inFamous has took a little longer to catch our attention - something we discussed in a previous PushSquare column. However, those days are gone; we're currently staring at a calendar with a gigantic red "X" marked on inFamous' respective release dates (May 26th US, May 29th UK).

Sucker Punch boss Chris Zimmerman recently spoke to the Seattle Times about the upcoming inFamous and their relationship with Sony. We have some choice cuts after the jump.

From the Seattle Times:
[quote]
Q: Do you ever get any grief, being a Sony shop in Microsoft country?
A: We have good friends at Microsoft - friends in positions of authority at Microsoft now. They've actually been really good sports about the whole thing. When we started Microsoft wasn't really an option - our first game was an N64 game. We were really excited about doing PlayStation2 stuff - that was before Xbox really got off the ground. And I think they understand. There's a little bit of good natured ribbing that goes along with that.

Q: Microsoft has apparently cut back first-party game development?
A: It's hard. I can't comment on it because I'm not part of those decisions. I know that we've always been really impressed with Sony's commitment to using first party to get really great, unique innovative content out in the marketplace. You know, they keep pushing on it. They keep spending a lot of money to do really great games, like Killzone 2, games where they didn't need to do those, but they want to push the envelope.

Q: Do you think Sony has to be bold because it's in last place among the current consoles?
A: You could make that argument but I wouldn't, because they've been consistent. They had excactly the same strategy with PlayStation1, where they had dominant marketshare, PlayStation2, same strategy, dominant marketshare. This time, it's been more of a scuffle, obviously. But it's the same strategy - whenever we get around to doing the next generation (of consoles), I think there's going to be that same corporate, organizational commitment to pushing the envelope - to doing games and giving you experiences that you've never seen before. I think it's great.

Q: Has Seattle benefited from Sony's quest for new ideas, because it's out of range, off in the corner of the country?
A: I don't know. It's a very technical city, we've got the UW here, it's a place where lots of people want to live. When I'm recruiting at Sucker Punch and when I was recuriting at Microsoft, the fact that we're in Seattle was a huge plus no matter where you went.
I think that helps. And then I think there are just network effects. You get to the point where you've got an area with a lot of technical talent, companies will start up there - whether they're spinoffs, startups or new companies or old companies getting bigger, there's going to be a positive feedback loop. I think that's happened here.

<a name="continue">Q: How did you push the envelope with inFamous?
A: Our envelope got pushed a lot. What we tried to do here that was a little bit different was take an open world game - where you can go anywhere and do anything anytime - and provide content that had the quality of a linear game. Linear games are a lot easier to do in some ways - you know the player's going to be walking down a series of rooms, through this corridor, coming around this corner - you've got control over the whole experience. You don't have that in an open world game.
A lot of open world games have devolved into what we call walk and adopt missions - where it's like, go to this other part of the world, go to this dot on the map and throw a brick through a window. And that's the mission. Is it fun? Well, yeah, usually it's pretty fun to go through the game. But that's not what we did with inFamous. We pushed the envelope saying we want to have the same scripted setups, we want to have the same rich scripted experience, but we want to have it in an open world environment where we're really not controlling what the player does. We're just having the game react to the player's choices so they get that quality they get in a linear experience, no matter how they play the game.

Q: You had to get that right - that must be why you didn't add mutiplayer to inFamous right away.
A: That's certainly part of it. It would be fun to do multiplayer but honestly we had our hands full with all the other big shifts we were making with platform and genre, etcetera.

Q: Is inFamous good enough that people will go out and buy a PS3 to play it?
A: There certainly are people telling me that tonight so let's hope. I think that's why Sony has spent so much time and effort working on these original titles, is that each game is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back for someone, right? It's not like everyone across the country is going to say 'oh my gosh, I've got to play this game, I'm going to buy the PS3.' I know some people are, and if we keep doing games like that, I think we're going to sell more and more PS3s.

</a></blockquote>

And there you have it. A bit more about inFamous.