A Way Out‘s Josef Fares has delivered one of the most rousing gaming experiences of the last few years with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and he looks set to repeat the feat with the upcoming A Way Out, a unique story driven co-op game. A Way Out is unabashedly and unapologetically a co-op game- there is no way to play it by yourself. And even though you can play it co-op online with a friend even if said friend doesn’t own a copy, it’s a setup that can potentially alienate the market.
Is that not something that Fares was worried about, creating a game that was so rigidly sticking to its vision that it might alienate players? Speaking exclusively to GamingBolt, Fares responded to that notion.
“Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really give a f**k about the market,” he laughed. “I’m a passion driven man, and if this feels right, this is what it’s going to be. Even if someone tells me, ‘you will sell five million units more if you do this’, I will say ‘no, I don’t care.’ This is the vision; this is what the game is. It’s about a split screen experience, the vision is about that story for two players. That’s what it’s designed to be from the get-go, from day one. It was never a single player game. So, that pretty much makes it very unique, it hasn’t really been done before. Most games are single player and then go to split screen. For me it was important to say, ‘no, split screen from day one. That’s it.’”
Fares went on to add that while he cares about the money, he is more worried about meeting his creative and artistic vision for what he thinks the game is. While financial constraints are a real thing, for him, meeting his artistic vision is important, too.
“Developers always make choices based on what the game’s vision is, and never based on economics or stuff like that,” he said. “I’m not saying I don’t care about money. Of course we need money to make a game. But I’m just saying, for me it’s important to follow what you believe in.”
In the end, I have to admire his tenacity and his drive to stay true to his own vision- and given the ability for players to play the game co-op even if they or their friends don’t own a copy, I hope it can overcome the natural resistance it might have otherwise met in the market.
