GameSpot: What's the premise behind Too Human?
Denis Dyack: Too Human is a game trilogy, where you play as a cybernetically-enhanced God who must protect Earth from hoards of machines. It combines swordplay and gunplay, and there is tons of Norse mythology in the game; you might say Too Human is like Lord of the Rings meets The Terminator.
GS: Cool. And perhaps a little The Matrix, too, with the protect-the-world-from-evil-machines theme.
Dyack: Sure. Too Human is different from other third-person action games in a few ways, though. For one, the player will increase in skills over time so it's not like the hundredth fight is the same as the first; new skill sets will be acquired and used as the game progresses. Also, I've said this before--video games will be the dominant [entertainment] platform in the 21st century--and we're really pouring in Hollywood-style production values into the Too Human trilogy. For example, our intelligent camera system knows when to gracefully pan in and out and around to suit what's happening onscreen. The camera may pull out when there's an epic fight so you can see how realized our game world is, or may zoom in if you're looking at, say, a statue. Also, it will be a lot more accessible than other video games.
GS: But Too Human has been in development--off and on--for a very long time, hasn't it? More than 10 years?
Dyack: [Laughs]. Well, it's a long story but let's say the kernel of the game, the concept, goes back as far as 1994 or even earlier. The short story is that we worked on Legacy of Kain, and then after that, in 1996, we were going to work on Too Human for the PSOne, but then started on Eternal Darkness, originally for the Nintendo 64. It eventually came out for the GameCube and then we worked on Metal Gear Solid [for GameCube]. So it wasn't really until we spoke with Microsoft about the Xbox 360 platform that we started to actually work on the game, which hasn't been that long.
GS: When is the first Too Human game set for release?
Dyack: Late 2006, but it may get pushed.
GS: You were a second-party developer for Nintendo, but this didn't work out. What happened?
Dyack: We're not talking about business details. They wanted to move in a different direction than we did, so we parted ways.
GS: What direction is that?
Dyack: They wanted to create smaller and simpler games and we wanted to make deeper and more epic game experiences.
GS: Off-topic, but what do you think about the Nintendo Revolution controller?
Dyack: It looks cool and innovative, but I haven't seen the games yet so it's hard to say. It does seem very interesting and I think it opened a lot of eyes.
GS: Can you predict who will win the next console war?
Dyack: It'll be close, but I think the Xbox 360 will do a lot better than people may think.
GS: So do you predict the Xbox 360 will outsell Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution?
Dyack: It will be close, but it always boils down to who has the best games. It will certainly be tight but yes, it is possible this time for Microsoft to beat Sony.
