'...and let slip the blogs of war!'

So I didn't really want to muddy up the stats we were collecting and tracking for this during the actual development of it, but for those who never found it, we were maintaining a fictional blog for the character of the journalist Reuben Oluwagembi who you meet in Far Cry 2.

The blog was loosely conceived by myself, LP (the producer), Pat Redding, and the writer Kevin Shortt. Once we got the concept nailed down, Kevin mostly handled it by himself and did an excellent job keeping it real, managing the voice of the character, and building a rising tension that would lead into the start of the game such that the world described in the blog on the launch date of the game would be the world the player finds himself in when he started to play. It also develops some interesting backstory for the warlords Mbantuwe and Tambossa and sets the stage for the collection of the "Jackal Tapes" scattered around the game world (all of which are available to listen to on the blog if you didn;t find them all in-game).

In support of the writing, Kevin also worked with Stefan Koziol, one of our artists to do some photoshopping and image compositing on photos the guys took while they were in Kenya. This ties back to some of the reference material we used for actual buildings in the game and gives the whole blog a kind of hyperreal quality that I love.

There were a quite a few regulars showing up, leaving comments and - for the most part - participating in the fiction we were creating. A few of them (judging both from posted comments and from some emails sent to 'Reuben') even seemed to mistake it for a real blog from a real war correspondant on the ground in our fictional African country.

Anyway, I must admit that I would have loved to get this richness of backstory into the actual game itself, but the longer pipeline of game asset development and integration made that impossible. Even though we're definitely not the first to try such a thing, I think you learn the most by doing, and there are definitely some lessons we can take away from this that will help us in the future.

Comments

[Matt]

Good to know that Mike's has wifi.

[Ludwig K]

I wish I'd seen this before I played the game. Reuben felt like the most consistent (I almost want to say "immobile") character in the game. He was involved in one of the missions too -- was it possible for him to die?

[predding]

Reuben can't be killed in the game. He serves as a "bookend" figure in the scenario, a witness to the events of the whole game regardless of how they ultimately play out. His presence is somewhat dependent on player action. If the player invests time in collecting The Jackal Tapes, Reuben will show up at Mike's (or the Marina in the south) to receive them. Depending on how often that happens, Reuben will give additional details to the player during their final meeting in Act Three.
Because FC2 is a shooter, the player is automatically inhabiting a character who uses violent means to defeat the challenges of the game. It just happens to be true that the background conflict here is more morally grey than in most games. So we wanted a sympathetic character who represented a typical everyman (and most importantly, African) point of view on the conflict; someone who was struggling with his own doubts but had enough integrity to stick around and be a witness to the events.
Yeah, funny thing about Internet connectivity: In many parts of the world, it's more reliable than landlines or electrical power (we didn't make that up)!

[jAK-47]

I like the idea of creating a "fake" blog to get more game depth. But since FC2 is in the state it is, you should put more effort in testing the game for bugs and make a good MP. MP is the part that keep the game alive. Heck I played Rainbow six: Black Arrow online on the first xbox for years. Even played it when 360 came out. The best game I ever played online.

"Less is more" consept is great. Keep it simple, but good.

[rogerm]

There seems to be a bug with the final meeting with Reuben. I arrived at the Marina bar in the early morning by boat. There is nothing and no way to get into the bar. neither door will open, and nothing else works. If I wait around for hours the odd mercenary shows up outside and I kill him, but there's no way in unless you go back in the game and arrive in some other way. After the boat arrival I can leave and come back in another vehicle, go start a fight in town, take out more patrols, etc., but nothing will open up the bar except going to an earlier save and taking a bus. This is surely a bug.

[Neil]

With regard to those who 'mistook' Reuben for a real person, it could be possible that they were emailing him in-character. There was some speculation over at unfiction.com (including myself) when Reuben's URL flashed up in the Far Cry trailer, that it might be an ARG. If so, those emailers would have been trying not to break the illusion.

Either way, great job guys - it made for good reading.

Neil