XIII Executive Producer Julien Bares

Xbox.com: Can you give us a rough sketch of the game’s story and setting? Who do you play, what are you trying to do, and how are you going to do it?

Bares: XIII is an epic conspiracy-driven political thriller. The story is inspired by several infamous conspiracies including the Kennedy assassination. The game’s action takes place after a mysterious presidential assassination. You embody a man rendered with complete amnesia who wakes up on a beach just a few days after this murder. The only clues that link him to his past are a tattoo and a key to a New York bank deposit box. He soon finds himself hunted by killers from a mysterious organization, the XX, and by FBI agents who accuse him of having shot the president. Players must survive being exterminated by the XX or captured by the FBI to recover their past and discover their true identity. Have you really shot the president, were you a member of a conspiracy against the U.S. government or were you trying to thwart it? XIII is a game where you can trust no one, and the plot twists and turns and will keep players guessing to the very end.

Xbox.com: What made you decide to pursue such a radically different look for the game? What’s this effect called, and how is it accomplished?

Bares: The most eye-catching feature of the game’s visual style is of course the use of cel shading. Several video games had already used this cartoon effect, so it wasn’t really innovative in itself. Because the effect had already been used, the main challenge was to take it even further and create a coherent vision of our style.

The system gives 3-D shapes a flat-tint rendering that’s close to 2-D. The object is permanently surrounded by a black line that changes for each image, reconstructing depending on your point of view. On surfaces, the lighting effects don’t create a classic 3-D gradation of shades but clearly defined shadows, splitting shapes into two tones. We wanted to treat everything with this plug-in, but the process is heavy on memory, and, to get good results, the shapes have to be fairly complex in 3-D. You can’t cheat by using false textured surfaces. That’s why we chose to use it only on characters, weapons, and certain interactive objects. The decors are all illusions, with faked textures, and this required a lot of meticulous work from the graphic designers. They had to apply the outlined textures to all the objects to make them appear surrounded by black silhouettes.

Xbox.com: The graphic novel effects and story components are both original and authentic. Could you describe how these elements came about, and how they work into the gameplay?

Bares: The XIII style was really something that evolved. We reached the final style through trial and error, getting rid of anything that didn’t work. I’d say we found the definitive XIII style in December 2002. (The pop-up windows were only grafted onto the game this summer!)

The only term you can use to describe this style is “theXIII style!” In short, I’d say that the style is a hybrid between the realism of the proportions and a more obviously sketched treatment. And we had to make sure it remained strongly consistent throughout the game. The characters are cartoon characters, but they have human proportions. The decors look sketched, but the special effects are realistic, with visualized voice effects that take you back to the strip cartoon style. That’s what I like most of all in XIII, the mix of true and false that’s always kept in balance, and, above all, it’s well thought out from beginning to end. Everything “holds together.” Nothing is overstated. And that’s an amazing feat!

Xbox.com: Are these individual panels and the general art direction the work of an individual artist or a team? Did any comic book veterans advise and/or work on the project?

Bares: At the beginning of the XIIIproject, there was a small team consisting of a technical director, artistic director, and artists on the graphic team. We ran various tests on different engines: textures, lighting effects, modeling, and so on. We looked for frames of reference in the classic works on architecture, and we created the XIII style with the new ideas brought in by the graphic designers who were gradually joining the team. The XIII style was really something that evolved.

Xbox.com: Dazzling graphics must be supported by cool gameplay. What’s unique about the play style of XIII? What cool moves and attacks can you pull off?

Bares: XIII possesses many diverse challenges, so the game offers players both furious gunfights and special stealthy, tactical gameplay. The wide variety of gameplay really compliments the building story arc and visual style well. The range of weapons, including human shields and silent weapons, as well as XIII’s internal “sixth sense” (demonstrated by comic-style text across the screen), offers players different options to play the game.

We developed a whole new experience with a strong comic style, a deep story that is based on history events, and we provide some really good features for the player that you will not find in other games. You can use objects from the environment as weapons; you can take someone hostage to face enemies without being shot; and every weapon has two types of uses. All these things, in my opinion, make the game a unique experience for the player.

Xbox.com: Does XIII support co-op or multiplayer? If so, what game types will we see? Will XIIIhave Xbox Live functionality?

Bares: Xbox gamers can dive into four-player split-screen offline multiplayer or enter into online battles with up to eight players. The exclusive Xbox Live mode is “Sabotage,” where two teams compete to take control of different strategic points. One team must defend the control points, while the other team must sabotage them within a certain time limit. The defending team wins if time runs out, whereas the attacking team wins by destroying all of the defense points.

Xbox.com: What different environments and textures will we see? Do the multiplayer levels differ radically from the single-player levels, for example, and if so, how?

Bares: There are 13 different chapters in the game for a total of 35 maps from indoors (military facility, bank) to outdoors (cliff, jungle, etc.) Players can play in the same environments for both single and multiplayer modes.

Xbox.com: Please describe a few of the characters we might encounter in single-player and/or take on in multiplayer.

Bares: Here are some of the characters players will encounter in XIII:

Major Jones: Jones serves as XIII’s guardian angel. She runs to his assistance whenever he’s in trouble. The game features collaborative gameplay between the gamer and non-player controlled characters with extremely advanced A.I. For example, the first time players meet Major Jones, the mission is to progress on the roofs of a city infested by gangsters. Players must cover her when she is climbing, and she will in turn cover players.

General Carrington: General Carrington is Interservice Chief of Staff—the highest military post in the land. He’s a man who hates following rules laid down by other people and, when William Sheridan, President of the United States, is assassinated, he decides to conduct his own inquiry.

Carrington discovers that the hitman’s name is Steve Rowland, a former commando he recruited a few years earlier before losing all trace of him. But Rowland is executed by his own bosses before Carrington has time to question him. The General concludes that Sheridan’s assassination is only the starting point of a vast conspiracy. Trusting nothing but his own instincts, and judging that time is of the essence, he sets up a trap to flush the people behind the plot out of their lair.

Mongoose: Mongoose is a member of a mysterious group called the Twenty. He is Number 1’s henchman. His job is to eliminate NumberXIII after XIII has fulfilled his contact by assassinating the 42nd President of the United States. He executes the hitman quickly and cleanly, but has to escape from the cops before he has time to retrieve the body. So he can’t believe his eyes when XIII resurfaces a few months later.

Mongoose resolves to correct his error and sets off in relentless pursuit of the man he believes to be Steve Rowland, alias NumberXIII.

Xbox.com: What did the Xbox offer you as developers that helped fulfill the potential of theXIII?

Bares: For the multiplayer part, we have one exclusive mode for each format, and obviously for Xbox, we are Xbox Live. Concerning the solo part, the game is the same for all formats. Obviously, we take advantage of some specificities of the hardware. So for the Xbox, graphics are more polished, and we use the Dolby Pro-Logic 5.1.

Xbox.com: Do you anticipate releasing any additional components via Xbox Live download?

Bares: Right now, we are determining the downloadable content ideas. After the game has shipped, we will fix a timetable for releasing new content. We will probably launch new maps first, but we're looking to create additional unique downloadable content items, such as special story lines, alternate endings, and new gameplay modes and features.

Xbox.com: Here’s an easy one: What’s so cool aboutXIII?

Bares: There is a level I really like that takes place in the middle of a snowy mountains. You escape from the area using a cable car. Suddenly, you are attacked by soldiers with bazookas. You can hardly see between the snow and the fog. This is a really stressful map, and it really showcases the superior action sequences within the game. That is really cool.