Lost Planet Campaign Interview

Lost Planet™:Extreme Condition has already stormed retailers and its exciting take on the third-person shooter genre is rocking across the Xbox 360™ community. Xbox.com recently had a chance to fire off a series of questions to the game's director, Kenji Oguro, focusing on the game's single-player campaign mode.

Keep moving.

Xbox.com: After spending time with the game, it's clear that one of Lost Planet's more unique features is its use of energy. The need to power up your suit to keep from freezing adds constant tension to the gameplay. Can you talk about how this mechanic was conceived, and the challenges it brought to level design?

"Basically the further you get into the game,
the farther you get from the snow."

Kenji Oguro: First of all, we wanted something that would fit into the game's setting of this planet with extreme weather: The freezing cold. So we came up with this heat energy, or Thermal Energy as it's called in the game. Without it, you die very quickly outside. In order to incorporate this into the gameplay itself, we put that energy into the enemies you kill. That way, you have to keep killing enemies and collecting the Thermal Energy in order to stay alive. Plus, this energy is used like a fuel to power the robot vehicles, or Vital Suits. Even though this is the first time a system like this has been included in a game, I think it's straight-forward enough for people to be able to understand right away.

This figures into the gameplay in that we wanted players to constantly be on the attack, constantly moving forward and going after the next enemy. By having the energy constantly draining, it pushes you to stay on the offensive. The slower you go, the more you try to hide and take out enemies from afar, the longer it takes and the more Thermal Energy you lose in the process. We put lots and lots of enemies in the game to attack, but the player still has to constantly push forward.

Vital Suits come in all shapes and sizes.

Xbox.com: Little is known about the game's core storyline. Can you talk a bit about the premise of the game, and what your purpose is in Lost Planet?

Oguro: The basic premise has you playing as Wayne, a soldier who loses his memory at the beginning of the game. Wayne's father was killed by Green Eye, one of the monsters, or Akrid, that are native to the planet. Wayne gets knocked out and loses his memory right after that, and when he comes to, all he remembers is his father, Green Eye, and piloting a Vital Suit vehicle. So with only those few memories, all he can think about is going after Green Eye.

Along the way, he meets up with someone named Yuri and his fellow snow pirates, encounters other factions of snow pirates that have banded together, and starts to discover the truth behind his past and where the mega-corporation NEVEC fits into all this.

Xbox.com: Beyond the frozen, icy environments of the demo, what different kinds of locations will players encounter in Lost Planet?

Oguro: The original demo showcased some snowy areas, with the player heading into a massive cave that holds an Akrid hive. Players will also find themselves working their way through abandoned cities, up mountains, into volcanoes, and more. Basically, the further you get into the game, the farther you get from the snow.

The mayhem is never ending.

Xbox.com: Can you talk about some of the equipment and weaponry not seen in the demo? What's your favorite weapon or gadget in the game?

Oguro: The single-player demo released after E3 last year represents only a small slice of the game, including the kind of weapons that are available to the player. There were also a few Vital Suits shown in that demo. In the retail version of the game, there is a whole array of weapons, both human-sized and the large Vital Suit weapons that you can also carry around on-foot. On top of that, there are a host of Vital Suits in the game that the player can commandeer and pilot.

One of my favorite weapons in the game is an energy-based weapon that feeds off of your Thermal Energy reserve. Normal shots where you just pull the trigger let out these rather weak green energy blasts. But if you hold the trigger down and charge the shot before unleashing it, you can do something very cool with it. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it's very useful, especially in multiplayer games.

Xbox.com: What can we expect from the different Vital Suits in the game? What different kinds of abilities can we expect from the different suits?

Oguro: The Vital Suits seen in the demo were mainly the 2-legged kind and the models were rather slow. In the world of Lost Planet, these are old and outdated, and during the game you will come across newer, much more advanced models. Some can slide or skate on the snow, and others have jump boosters. Others can even transform, with one Vital Suit in particular going from a walker to a snow speeder. Each Vital Suit has a main characteristic such as this, along with the various weapons they can be equipped with, so there is plenty of variety.

Thanks again to Mr. Oguro for taking the time out to answer our questions, and don't forget to check out our online focused Lost Planet developer interview here.

Article by Ryan Treit