Characters and their Inspirations

[WilliamGreywind]

So, we pretty much can tell that Brian Deckard is basically Rick Deckard from Blade Runner, and that Shalem 11 is just Golgo 13, but what about the other characters?

 

Is Internationale, Banks, Nika, and Dr. Xu based on any other characters as well? I'm rather curious to find out what inspirations helped to make these characters.

[InvisibleThunder]

So, we pretty much can tell that Brian Deckard is basically Rick Deckard from Blade Runner, and that Shalem 11 is just Golgo 13, but what about the other characters?

 

Is Internationale, Banks, Nika, and Dr. Xu based on any other characters as well? I'm rather curious to find out what inspirations helped to make these characters.

 

Deckard is stuffed with augments. Hardly a Rick Decard from Blade Runner, just a cliché **** noir. Shalem could be inspired by Golgo but certainly not based on him. I think its as simple as: the game has a few mechanics and each character has an ability that gives them an advantage over a specific game mechanic.

 

Seriously, Private **** gets sensored?

[5thHorseman]

Seriously, Private **** gets sensored?

This made my morning. I didn't see the final comment and spent a little time sussing out what you said. I feel like I graduated "accidental smut filter" class sigma cum laude.

EDIT: And of course...

[Shirsh]

There were thoughts on the forums that Banks reminds Carmen Sandiego and Tony Xu can be refference to Tony Chu from "Chew" comic book

[KidneyBeanBoy]

Personally I think Nika is supposed to be a direct reference to the guards in the game. Personally I've always thought her headshot animation and outfit look really similar to theirs.

[Zhuzha]

Tony Xu can be refference to Tony Chu from "Chew" comic book

 

Nah, I don't think so, they don't have much in common, except ethnicity and first name. If they had similar powers or similar backstory or similar looks - that'd be another story.

[WilliamGreywind]

Deckard is stuffed with augments. Hardly a Rick Decard from Blade Runner, just a cliché **** noir. Shalem could be inspired by Golgo but certainly not based on him. I think its as simple as: the game has a few mechanics and each character has an ability that gives them an advantage over a specific game mechanic.

 

Seriously, Private **** gets sensored?

 

Well, Deckard is definitely a bit more of a private detective-esque Film Noir style character, but at least Deckard's GUN is something of a shout out or reference to Blade Runner.

[Kevin]

Friendly neighbourhood game writer here. Our character creation process is very collaborative and iterative for this game, so the inspirations differ greatly by character.

 

I came on to the project relatively late, after the initial core group of agents was already in-place. Their looks and names, for the most part, were set by a the artists and the game system designers, so my task was to work with what was there and create a backstory and theme for each that fit them into a consistent world.

 

Decker's look is obviously modelled after the character in Blade Runner. His appearance, name, and gameplay stats were all defined when I got to him. I'm a big fan of both cyberpunk and film noire, so I kind ran with the obvious. He became "Brian Decker", the alcoholic ex-corporate security officer from Los Angeles with the following biography:

Decker affects a persona from a bygone era as an act of protest against a world gone mad for technology. Quick on his feet and with his fists, rumour has it that he's packing more augmentations than he's willing to admit. He was chief of security for K&O's California branch until an escalating love affair with the bottle chased him out of the Corporate world.

 

 

 

Decker is described by Central this way:

I found Decker living in a bottle after his termination. He's cleaned up since then, but I keep eyes on, just to be sure. The 20th century thing is an unfortunate affectation, but I'm not paying him for his fashion sense.

 

 

 

This game is pretty ludic, so you don't want your characters taking breaks form the action to deliver monologues. But they do occasionally give one-liners at the start of missions - it's an economical way to provide a tiny bit of characterization without interfering too much with the player's flow. Decker's lines make him seem a bit world-weary:

"No resistance at the entry point. Amateurs.",

"Let's get this over with. I need a drink.",

"All of these places start to look the same after a while.",

"I'm getting to old for this crap.",

"I wonder who does their security. They aren't doing a very good job so far.",

"We're in the building. This shouldn't take too long.",

"If I were running this joint we wouldn't have made it in so quietly.",

 

 

Deck's a bit of a pastiche, but he was fun to write. Other characters were more of a blank slate, so I was able to take them farther in different directions. Banks became an Irish hacker with brain damage. Internationale became a Cuban guerilla fighter. Shalem became a licensed assassin/medic from Lebanon. Xu is an academic with a dark side.

 

Central and Monst3r were invented to serve the narrative of the agency, and end up being the faces and personalties that you see the most as the story progresses. They were characters that I was able to shape from the start, which was a really fun process.

 

I'm looking forward to you guys getting to experience the full story presentation once the game is completed. I can't say much else a the moment, because we don't want to ruin the surprise!

 

 

 

[WilliamGreywind]

And Kevin once again swooping in with lore! Thank you Kevin, for every time you do this. You just help me to make me even more and more excited for this game.

 

 

 

Decker is described by Central this way:

 

 

 

 

And does this mean that we'll get to see Central describing each of the Agents we get in the game? Because I down for more character lore. Hell, I'm down for whatever lore you got.

 

You got a great backstory here, Kevin. You truly are great.

[Cyberboy2000]

I'm looking forward to you guys getting to experience the full story presentation once the game is completed. I can't say much else a the moment, because we don't want to ruin the surprise!

 

Does that mean we can't spoil what we find in the strings files?

 

[Kevin]

Does that mean we can't spoil what we find in the strings files?

 

Leeks is leeks! I would wrap stuff in spoiler tags to be polite to people who don't want to know. And don't take anything that you find as immutable - things do change a lot during development.

 

I was referring more to the new stuff that we've done since the last update. I don't think the current steam version has much of the story content in it (although its been forever since I've played that particular build).

 

In fact, I thought that the Central descriptions of the characters was already live. Oops!

[WilliamGreywind]

Leeks is leeks! I would wrap stuff in spoiler tags to be polite to people who don't want to know. And don't take anything that you find as immutable - things do change a lot during development.

 

I was referring more to the new stuff that we've done since the last update. I don't think the current steam version has much of the story content in it (although its been forever since I've played that particular build).

 

In fact, I thought that the Central descriptions of the characters was already live. Oops!

 

Actually they aren't! All we got are their On-File and Archived versions and quotes from an agent during the beginning of a mission! Beyond that, there's really no other story except through whatever information you find through agent augmentations and unique items.

 

Besides, the fact that Deckard moves around in efficient, silent, painful agony thanks to his augments is both distressing and a bit funny.

 

Man, the year 2074 is crazy!

[InvisibleThunder]

Leeks is leeks! I would wrap stuff in spoiler tags to be polite to people who don't want to know. And don't take anything that you find as immutable - things do change a lot during development.

 

I was referring more to the new stuff that we've done since the last update. I don't think the current steam version has much of the story content in it (although its been forever since I've played that particular build).

 

In fact, I thought that the Central descriptions of the characters was already live. Oops!

 

They were in the beginning, but some of it got bugged out during the great game files clean up (u7, I think). Some of it has been fixed, but not all. So nothing you have said was news to me. It has however been suggested, long ago, that some characters might receive an overhaul in back story. They can still be red in the game files, then again, so is some of the Alpha stuff, so....

 

[Kevin]

This was one of the first things I wrote for the game. It may not be super accurate to the final vision, but it's what I had in mind when I started:

 

 

60 years from now, the world has been ravaged by unchecked climate change. Brutal Resource Wars have destabilized existing nation-states and impoverished much of the former developed world. North American governments have collapsed, leaving a network of rival mega-citystates that dot the retracted coastline.

 

Massively powerful corporations have emerged as the defacto government. Most came to power supplying the various sides of the resource wars, and rushed to fill the power vacuum as traditional governments fell. While the San Francisco Accord of 2064 ended open hostilities and provided a nominal framework for inter-corporate peace and governance, covert actions and proxy wars continue to reshape the balance of power.

 

The vast majority of citizens eek out an existence in the shadow of their corporate overlords. Natural and engineered diseases are rampant, and antibiotics haven’t worked in decades. Pollution from industry and continued fallout from nuclear exchanges in the Resource Wars make food production difficulty. Legitimate access to goods, energy, services, and education are all tightly controlled by intellectual property laws and monopolies. Official prices are kept high, and most citizens need to participate in the pervasive black market to meet their basic needs.

 

These laws are usually unenforced, but provide a useful pretext for prosecution should the need arise. Corporate profits are ensured by millions of citizens working off punishing ‘contracts’ handed out for subverting the corporate economy. More serious economic crimes are met with deadly force by corporate security.

 

For those within the corporate power structure, however, life is good. The Resource Wars saw huge advances in technology, especially in those areas applicable to warfare. Nano-fabrication allows for the quick construction of almost any manufactured good, and advanced medical technologies can keep people alive and healthy as long as they have the cash to pay for it. Ubiquitous robotics and drone technologies allow for safe and cost-effective law enforcement. The ultra rich live in exquisite arcologies and high-security towers, and vacation at sea in one of the many man-made corporate mobile islands. But even those near the top know that they are just one ‘rightsizing’ away from exile with the unwashed masses, or worse.

 

 

 

[KidneyBeanBoy]

This was one of the first things I wrote for the game. It may not be super accurate to the final vision, but it's what I had in mind when I started:

-snip-

Pretty brutal for companies that hire decked-out guards and station them facing a corner to "watch for intruders".

[WilliamGreywind]

This was one of the first things I wrote for the game. It may not be super accurate to the final vision, but it's what I had in mind when I started:

 

And in comes the Loremaster Kevin again with more info! I REALLY am just wondering what the lore is going to be with the final game. But these little bits and teases are still quite amazing. You, sir, do amazing work as always!