The Saboteur
We got a first hand look at Pandemic’s upcoming “The Saboteur” and came away very impressed with the technology behind what’s sure to be a big hit for the studio behind Mercenaries, Mercenaries 2, and Lord of the Rings Conquest.
The Saboteur’s plot is considerably more literary and involved than most games in the action genre; big questions are raised about motivations, methods, and morals. Ostensibly, it is a revenge story—a very personal struggle set on the much larger stage of the Nazi invasion of Paris in 1940. The challenge set before Pandemic was to make a game that takes place in Paris, during World War II, while avoiding making “yet another World War II game”. From what we saw during our visit to Pandemic Studios, they’ve succeeded.
The hero is an Irish race car driver who through a series of unfortunate events becomes involved in the French Resistance, despite the singular motivation for revenge that drives him. The gameplay is open-world “sandbox” style; you can choose to take missions that aren’t necessarily in line with your primary objective, or you can go straight for the confrontation Sean is looking for. The world is rich enough to provide a great deal of content and replayability.
From what we’ve seen, they have done an amazing job of modeling Paris ca. 1940. Pandemic put a great deal of effort into making sure that major landmarks and buildings were geographically accurate and placed appropriately; while they didn’t model the entire city house-for-house, the roads and major landmarks are all recognizable. If you are familiar with the streets and neighborhoods of Paris, you will have an easy time getting around the Paris of The Saboteur.
Listen all y'all it's sabotage
The game uses a brand new engine codenamed “Odin” which is being developed in-house. We got to see first hand how the engine performed in a world with almost infinite draw distance; no matter how far off a building was nor how fast you were traveling, it was being rendered on-the-fly with no drop in framerate. We plan on having more in-depth coverage on the Odin engine soon.
We’ll be covering The Saboteur as it is being developed; Pandemic is shooting for a fall release.
Sean Devlin outside of the brothel he calls home
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