FROM SAMURAÏ TO COWBOY
In 2006, Nintendo released the Wii. And because our developers have always enjoyed Nintendo’s challenges and consoles, they took on a crazy bet: to create a first-person shooter that took advantage of motion gaming, the new technology embedded in the console. From this challenge was born a game that will be remembered: Red Steel.
Released at the same time as the console, this Wii exclusive game offered a nervous gameplay that alternated sequences with firearms and sequences with a sword. A duality that made it possible to vary the way of playing and took full advantage of the capabilities of the Wii: each katana duel was experienced intensely, while each shootout depended on our ability to aim directly on the screen, and no longer via a joystick. And as a background to these clashes: Tokyo, a city in which our hero goes in search of his fiancée kidnapped by Yakuzas.
In 2010, the license made an incredible comeback by completely changing the mood to move away from the infamous Tokyo neighborhoods of the first opus. Our artists created a new environment, a daring mix of western movie and Japanese culture, with its desert environments, its villages worthy of cowboy movies with illuminated neon signs and populated by samurai. And to serve this daring artistic setting, the sets and characters in the game are embellished by a magnificent cel-shading. We add to this mix new features in terms of gameplay, with a focus on a greater variety of movements with the sword (made possible by the addition of the Wii Motion Plus), many special moves and shooting phases overhauled, and we get a really original game.
Red Steel is therefore a license that sums up the DNA of the Paris studio: strong artistic qualities, a desire to challenge and appropriate new technologies and, of course, the expertise to create fun and memorable games.
