Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture Dev Wants You to Own Your Experience

The Chinese Room’s Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is serious about introducing as much emotion as possible with its upcoming adventure game. Speaking to Gamasutra, creative director Dan Pinchbeck says he doesn’t want players getting their “Halo face” on while playing.

“We, as a company, will never make a mechanic-heavy game. This is what we do, and people like it. We want as much emotion and immediacy as possible. You just don’t need a lot of that stuff.”

Pinchbeck’s approach to development has been inspired by Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist/neurobiologist, who “developed this whole series in which he says we tend to want to split up intellect and emotion, when actually all thought is emotional thought.

“[That] inspired me in terms of game design, that all game design is emotional game design. It’s about saying, ‘This is an emotional experience first and foremost.’ If you are having an emotional experience with a game, you’ve got agency with it.”

As for the “Halo face” Pinchbeck explains that, “When I’ve got my ‘Halo face’ on, that slack-jawed ‘aaauuugh’ face, I’m not necessarily experiencing agency because I’m not particularly feeling or thinking about anything that’s going on.

“That’s our target: we don’t want anyone getting their Halo face playing our game. I love, adore Halo, don’t get me wrong, but what was really important, what we wanted to get towards, was a much stronger sense of the player thinking, ‘What I did made this happen. I found the story, and I own my own experience.’”

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture will release on August 11th for PS4. What are your thoughts on Pinchbeck’s design philosophy? Let us know in the comments.