Q&A: SYPHON FILTER 3 (PS)
JEFF ROSS, LEAD DESIGNER, SONY BEND STUDIO
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"Tom played Syphon Filter 3 to death in the twilight years of the PSone. Despite offering bucket-loads of entertainment, it’s become something of a forgotten gem. We got in contact with the game's lead designer Jeff Ross, to help shine a light on the concluding chapter of this memorable trilogy…" Posted 14th January 2015.
By Tom Clare © 2015 |
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An introduction from Jeff:
Thanks for your interest in Syphon Filter 3. I’m partial to it since it was my first gig as Lead Designer. But I figured I’d start things off with some more back-story about the game’s development to lend some more context to my answers. Richard Ham was the original Lead on all three games, but he left the company about six months before we shipped SF3. So the entire game was mapped out (missions and weapon list), and all I had to do was finish it. Way easier said than done. For games 1 & 2, Rich did the lion’s share of the work and I was his wingman. But on SF3, by the time Rich had left only a few missions had even been started (none were finished), and the mini-games were prototypes he had just started. The workload in front of me was daunting, and that’s why take a lot of pride that we cut just two levels, kept the mini-games and multiplayer, AND finished a week early. Most of the engineers had moved onto developing tech for what would become The Omega Strain, so development on SF3 was two designers, an associate producer, a handful of artists, and two-ish programmers. Having said all that, on to the questions!
Thanks for your interest in Syphon Filter 3. I’m partial to it since it was my first gig as Lead Designer. But I figured I’d start things off with some more back-story about the game’s development to lend some more context to my answers. Richard Ham was the original Lead on all three games, but he left the company about six months before we shipped SF3. So the entire game was mapped out (missions and weapon list), and all I had to do was finish it. Way easier said than done. For games 1 & 2, Rich did the lion’s share of the work and I was his wingman. But on SF3, by the time Rich had left only a few missions had even been started (none were finished), and the mini-games were prototypes he had just started. The workload in front of me was daunting, and that’s why take a lot of pride that we cut just two levels, kept the mini-games and multiplayer, AND finished a week early. Most of the engineers had moved onto developing tech for what would become The Omega Strain, so development on SF3 was two designers, an associate producer, a handful of artists, and two-ish programmers. Having said all that, on to the questions!
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SF3 played to the series' strengths: fast-paced and full of action. Was it a concerted decision to move away from the stealth levels that were prominent in the second game?
Most people considered the original Syphon Filter to be way too hard, so Rich Ham and I made a concerted effort to make SF2 a much easier game. Man, we thought we’d nailed it, but when the game came out most people considered it to be even harder than the first. This was well before focus tests and metrics-driven development were the norm. Part of this gap between what we thought and what others felt was our expertise in the game. We had been playing the series for years by this point and knew the combat setups so well we were the worst people to make this kind of subjective judgment call for what felt “just right.” |
So with SF3, I was fully aware of the difficulty bias phenomenon, but still didn’t have any tools to accurately gauge if we were hitting our goal to be easier while still challenging. It’s funny because we took heat for making it easier. But, mission accomplished.
SF3 has so many memorable moments, was there a standout level or moment for you?
I loved the wide range of levels and gameplay setups. I haven’t thought about them in years, but now that I’m reflecting on it, boy did that game have a ton of variety. It’s not possible for me to choose just one standout, so I’ll just riff about all of it.
Tokyo: Loved the fixed position sniper sequence with the James Bond spy shenanigans; speaking Japanese to the hotel desk clerk, casually striding to the hotel room, and listening in on the conversation in the room across the way.
Costa Rica: Loved the flashback missions that re-told the events surrounding the very first cinematic in Syphon Filter 1; finding Ellis’ body, playing the same dialogue, and even introducing Rhoemer (the final baddie from SF1).
Africa: Loved telling some more back-story in an “origin” mission for the franchise’s secondary characters. In this case it was Mujari parachuting into the gold mine to free his enslaved brothers.
Afghanistan: Gabe and Lian working together before he recruited her into the agency. I loved the non-linear above and below-ground flow of Kabul. I loved Gabe working and bonding with fellow Rangers in the convoy mission. And we had a tank boss fight.
SF3 has so many memorable moments, was there a standout level or moment for you?
I loved the wide range of levels and gameplay setups. I haven’t thought about them in years, but now that I’m reflecting on it, boy did that game have a ton of variety. It’s not possible for me to choose just one standout, so I’ll just riff about all of it.
Tokyo: Loved the fixed position sniper sequence with the James Bond spy shenanigans; speaking Japanese to the hotel desk clerk, casually striding to the hotel room, and listening in on the conversation in the room across the way.
Costa Rica: Loved the flashback missions that re-told the events surrounding the very first cinematic in Syphon Filter 1; finding Ellis’ body, playing the same dialogue, and even introducing Rhoemer (the final baddie from SF1).
Africa: Loved telling some more back-story in an “origin” mission for the franchise’s secondary characters. In this case it was Mujari parachuting into the gold mine to free his enslaved brothers.
Afghanistan: Gabe and Lian working together before he recruited her into the agency. I loved the non-linear above and below-ground flow of Kabul. I loved Gabe working and bonding with fellow Rangers in the convoy mission. And we had a tank boss fight.
The Montana levels melded real and fictitious locations
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Kabul allows you to track snipers from above and below ground
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London: More secondary character back-story, this time for Maggie Powers. I loved the cloak-and-dagger tone set by that scoundrel Nigel (you just knew he was a bad guy). I loved how the inner-workings of the ship had a very authentic integrity to it (it felt like a real ship, at least in as much as videogame on a machine with 2 megs of RAM could muster).
Australia: EVEN more secondary character backstory with Dr. Weissinger. This mission was one of our test beds for hybrid Stealth/Open Combat. In previous games, entire missions were dedicated to one or the other, and we felt this was a good opportunity to throttle difficulty and make the mission feel more dynamic.
Montana: The entire militia approach, compound, and secret bunker served as the backdrop for ANOTHER character origin story, this time for series stalwart Teresa Lipan in her days as an ATF agent. I created 3D layouts for the compound and bunker after a trip to visit my wife’s family one summer in western Montana. I found a remote, eccentric house near her parents, and I just thought it would be a great video game level, and talked John Garvin into working it into the story. The compound was 50% real and 50% made up, but the bunker was 100% fiction. The bunker was probably the most audacious thing we’ve ever designed; players had to escort a family to safety, and even deliver a baby.
In Lian Xing's Kabul, Afghanistan level, you acquire an insanely brilliant gun (the AU300) that can fire through walls whilst making them appear partially transparent. Was this a difficult effect to achieve on PSone and were there any other technical sleights-of-hand you were especially proud of?
I’m always pleased in a MacGyverish way to think about how we pulled off a lot of our special gameplay by hacking the existing system. For instance, the mortar launchers from the Convoy level were really just NPCs inside the base firing grenade launchers into the air. The tank boss was basically just an NPC shaped like a tank that responded to our standard scripting hooks.
More characters. This flashback-heavy story had a huge cast of characters, and we had to push our streaming tech and mission planning to make it happen; ensuring characters were in the same level but not all appearing together, and had decent distances in-between so we could asynchronously load new models (there was never any consistency with how long an asset would load from one PSone to the other).
Mini-games were a huge accomplishment in that they pushed our scripting language to interact with the menus. This was the first time SyphonScript was used outside a level. The mini-games themselves were accomplished with no new code, and we had to come up with a strict population plan in order to have one set of scripts drive the behavior of all mini-game levels.
Australia: EVEN more secondary character backstory with Dr. Weissinger. This mission was one of our test beds for hybrid Stealth/Open Combat. In previous games, entire missions were dedicated to one or the other, and we felt this was a good opportunity to throttle difficulty and make the mission feel more dynamic.
Montana: The entire militia approach, compound, and secret bunker served as the backdrop for ANOTHER character origin story, this time for series stalwart Teresa Lipan in her days as an ATF agent. I created 3D layouts for the compound and bunker after a trip to visit my wife’s family one summer in western Montana. I found a remote, eccentric house near her parents, and I just thought it would be a great video game level, and talked John Garvin into working it into the story. The compound was 50% real and 50% made up, but the bunker was 100% fiction. The bunker was probably the most audacious thing we’ve ever designed; players had to escort a family to safety, and even deliver a baby.
In Lian Xing's Kabul, Afghanistan level, you acquire an insanely brilliant gun (the AU300) that can fire through walls whilst making them appear partially transparent. Was this a difficult effect to achieve on PSone and were there any other technical sleights-of-hand you were especially proud of?
I’m always pleased in a MacGyverish way to think about how we pulled off a lot of our special gameplay by hacking the existing system. For instance, the mortar launchers from the Convoy level were really just NPCs inside the base firing grenade launchers into the air. The tank boss was basically just an NPC shaped like a tank that responded to our standard scripting hooks.
More characters. This flashback-heavy story had a huge cast of characters, and we had to push our streaming tech and mission planning to make it happen; ensuring characters were in the same level but not all appearing together, and had decent distances in-between so we could asynchronously load new models (there was never any consistency with how long an asset would load from one PSone to the other).
Mini-games were a huge accomplishment in that they pushed our scripting language to interact with the menus. This was the first time SyphonScript was used outside a level. The mini-games themselves were accomplished with no new code, and we had to come up with a strict population plan in order to have one set of scripts drive the behavior of all mini-game levels.
"The Beast" utilised clever A.I. manipulation to create a cool boss
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A weapon cap prevented a more period-appropriate sniper rifle for Mujari
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Speaking of guns, there's a ferocious armoury of weapons. Which was the most fun to design?
I have to give credit to Richard Ham on these. He finished the handful of new weapons before leaving. As far as my favourites go, I just like how everything new was familiar but on adrenaline; the Falcon pistol had the firing impact of a shotgun, the AU300 was a sniper rifle that sighted and fired through walls, and the Mil-15 had explosive bullets.
Were there any interesting ideas that had to be scrapped during development, either because of technical limitations or time constraints?
I remember the only things we cut were two levels (forget now what they were), and that was only a nod to the schedule after Richard left. As hinted at above, I feel like we accomplished a lot with the toolset we’d known for years, but I was a little frustrated when we hit a limitation in the number of weapons we could have. Although we had new weapons in SF3, it turns out we’d hit our limit and couldn’t add any more (some hard-wired limitation we probably could have fixed if discovered sooner). This meant that the Mujari flashback missions had him using a high-tech sniper rifle that wasn’t invented until after the mission’s time period. Not a lot of people noticed that, but it led to me designing a robust weapon database tool for Omega Strain that allowed us to create and add new weapons without engineering support (unless the weapon required major new technology). That tool allowed us to create weapons that could fire other weapons (Grenades were a weapon, but they were also ammunition for other weapons like the Grenade Launcher). It was fun to play around with and have machine guns firing other machine guns.
The Bag Lady cracks me up to this day. How did such a character come about?
Through SF 1 & 2, there were only two designers (Richard Ham and myself). We expanded the design department by one person by hiring Mike Chrzanowski, a super-creative designer who was coming off Thief II at Looking Glass. The Bag Lady was all his, and I never delved into her genesis.
I have to give credit to Richard Ham on these. He finished the handful of new weapons before leaving. As far as my favourites go, I just like how everything new was familiar but on adrenaline; the Falcon pistol had the firing impact of a shotgun, the AU300 was a sniper rifle that sighted and fired through walls, and the Mil-15 had explosive bullets.
Were there any interesting ideas that had to be scrapped during development, either because of technical limitations or time constraints?
I remember the only things we cut were two levels (forget now what they were), and that was only a nod to the schedule after Richard left. As hinted at above, I feel like we accomplished a lot with the toolset we’d known for years, but I was a little frustrated when we hit a limitation in the number of weapons we could have. Although we had new weapons in SF3, it turns out we’d hit our limit and couldn’t add any more (some hard-wired limitation we probably could have fixed if discovered sooner). This meant that the Mujari flashback missions had him using a high-tech sniper rifle that wasn’t invented until after the mission’s time period. Not a lot of people noticed that, but it led to me designing a robust weapon database tool for Omega Strain that allowed us to create and add new weapons without engineering support (unless the weapon required major new technology). That tool allowed us to create weapons that could fire other weapons (Grenades were a weapon, but they were also ammunition for other weapons like the Grenade Launcher). It was fun to play around with and have machine guns firing other machine guns.
The Bag Lady cracks me up to this day. How did such a character come about?
Through SF 1 & 2, there were only two designers (Richard Ham and myself). We expanded the design department by one person by hiring Mike Chrzanowski, a super-creative designer who was coming off Thief II at Looking Glass. The Bag Lady was all his, and I never delved into her genesis.
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Syphon Filter 3's pre and post 9/11 US box-arts. The game's initial release date was held back from September 2001 until November 2001
Now the dust has settled, do you feel the press were fair on Syphon Filter 3 at the time of its release? IGN rather unhelpfully wrote 'It's no "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty"', and I remember a lot of magazines seemed more preoccupied with their PS2s...
They were right, but I don’t believe they were fair. This game was slated to come out on September 21, 2001 – a good month and a half before MGS2 and GTA3 hit store shelves. The 9/11 attacks coincided with the most unfortunate game box art in the history of games (the US Senate being destroyed in a terrorist attack). Sony voluntarily recalled a bunch of game copies already produced and swapped out the art. After the delay, we wound up releasing in early November alongside some heavy competition. I can only imagine game magazines everywhere where three reviewers sat down to review games that month, and the guy assigned Syphon Filter 3 would peak around his cubical walls to watch others playing MGS2 and GTA3. We didn’t stand a chance. And it’s a shame because the game may have seemed dated, but we put a lot of effort into making sure each mission had a fresh spin on existing mechanics.
Lastly, at the conclusion of the most recent Syphon Filter, Logan's Shadow (2007, PSP), Gabe is left in a bit of a pickle. Should SF ever return, would you prefer it to be as a series reboot (in the manner of the recent Tomb Raider), or as a direct sequel?
As a developer, a big NO COMMENT on what is or isn’t happening with Syphon Filter.
But speaking as a fan of the series, I think a lot of stories have already been told in the Syphon Universe, and any new title would have to be fresh one way or another (a new storyline, a gameplay genre expansion, or possibly a reboot).
They were right, but I don’t believe they were fair. This game was slated to come out on September 21, 2001 – a good month and a half before MGS2 and GTA3 hit store shelves. The 9/11 attacks coincided with the most unfortunate game box art in the history of games (the US Senate being destroyed in a terrorist attack). Sony voluntarily recalled a bunch of game copies already produced and swapped out the art. After the delay, we wound up releasing in early November alongside some heavy competition. I can only imagine game magazines everywhere where three reviewers sat down to review games that month, and the guy assigned Syphon Filter 3 would peak around his cubical walls to watch others playing MGS2 and GTA3. We didn’t stand a chance. And it’s a shame because the game may have seemed dated, but we put a lot of effort into making sure each mission had a fresh spin on existing mechanics.
Lastly, at the conclusion of the most recent Syphon Filter, Logan's Shadow (2007, PSP), Gabe is left in a bit of a pickle. Should SF ever return, would you prefer it to be as a series reboot (in the manner of the recent Tomb Raider), or as a direct sequel?
As a developer, a big NO COMMENT on what is or isn’t happening with Syphon Filter.
But speaking as a fan of the series, I think a lot of stories have already been told in the Syphon Universe, and any new title would have to be fresh one way or another (a new storyline, a gameplay genre expansion, or possibly a reboot).
The Pixel Empire would like to thank Jeff for his sparing us his time, and for granting such a vivid, detailed insight into the game. Tom is already mulling over a host of hypothetical Q&As for the other Syphon Filters, like a true fanboy.
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