Redefining the Matrix

Design Manager Shawn Berryhill talks on remaking the Matrix as both a game and a franchise.

The game design team for the Path of Neo at Shiny had a two-fold task: to create a challenging new Matrix game while overcoming the less that stellar legacy of the gameplay-challenged first effort. Much of that responsibility fell on the shoulders of Shawn Berryhill, design manager, and his group.

GamePro: Shawn, tell us what you and your team are doing for Path of Neo.

Shawn Berryhill: Basically, I'm the overseer of flow for the game and I manage nine designers. We create all the main game mechanics; the fighting system and the shooting system, and we make sure that they flow across the game. We tune them for the right highs and the right lows during the course of the story.

GP: How was kicking off Path of Neo different from Enter the Matrix.?

SB: The first game was different because it was a little more tied in to the movie.

GP: It would seem that a lot of basic conceptual ideas would be in place then.

SB: In all fairness it was a little more boring. The movie was already down, so it was about just adding a little more interest to the game. But the premise for the game was less interesting because there was actually less for us to grab from because we didn't have a lot of conceptual leeway. That made it harder to come up ideas that would make the game interesting. This time the Wachowski's threw us a lot more bones.

SB: They said, "We'll come up with some crazy stuff." So now, for instance, when you go into the Industrial Hall you have to go through a bunch of other locations. They gave us areas like a TV mega-store and a senate floor. They came up with things that they thought would be fun from a gameplay standpoint.

GP: You weren't bound by anything that the Wachowski's more or less set in stone on the big screen?

SB: Yeah. They took sort of a Star Trek Holodeck attitude. They came up with different environments and different locations that were recreations of some of their favorites from the films and then just let us play with them. That gave us more creative freedom with the Path of Neo, but it also made it more challenging for us. We created all these new environments that we now have to actually build out (laughs).

GP: How do you "build out" an environment?

SB: In the last game we had basically eight locations. In this game, the locations have all these mini-levels. You jump all over the place. You're constantly shifting locations and constantly changing who you are fighting. It's much more involved, but more interesting from a production standpoint because you get to add more variety to the game.

GP: How is the process different from that of the first game?

SB: The last game we had three level designers, and now like I said we have nine, including some guys that are dedicated systems designers. That means the number of levels we have to split up among the designers is much less than with Enter the Matrix, so we can focus much more on each level and take a more active role in the design of the levels.

GP: Do you work with gameplay programmers?

SB: We still have gameplay programmers but the designers work with them via a very visual in-house tool that's like a high-end video editing program. The gameplay programmers do the hard stuff and the tool makes it easy for us to come in and do the fine-tuning.

GP: What's an example of something you might fine-tune?

SB: We're finishing up a level right now we're calling the A.I. Tutorial, which is actually a horrible name but it was originally for an A.I. tutorial. It's a big street fight where the initial setup is very involved because there's a guy with a grenade launcher. With a scenario like that there's a high degree of tuning necessary. You look at the time between his shots, how fast the bullets move, and when he decides to shoot. The programmer sets it all up in the initial format. But then he can hand it off to a designer, via our in-house tool, so that he can essentially bring it to perfection.

GP: How does that differ from the process with Enter the Matrix?

SB: For the first game that process was very painful. A designer had to literally sit right behind the programmer to work with him to get a scenario tuned, and that took so much of the programmer's time that overall there just wasn't that much tuning time we could actually get in on the game.

GP: Enter the Matrix was a commercial success by any standard, but it took a lot of critical hits for gameplay. How did you react to that?

SB: We agreed completely (laughs).

GP: Then you saw it coming?

SB: Enter the Matrix was Shiny's first PS2 game. We were happy that we learned to master the PS2 and get a game out on time. But we were all disappointed that we really didn't have the tuning time at the end and it was all we could do to just get it out the door for that critical ship date. It was disappointing to spend three years on a project and then not get to put the final touches on it, which really makes all the difference. We knew that would show.

GP: Still the game sold.

SB: We made some smarts moves about appealing to the masses. We knew wanted a mass-market game with mass-market appeal, and we knew there would be some big critical hits we would take as a result. But we knew it would be important to keep the general public happy. That paid off, but at the same time it wasn't a game that we could personally be totally proud of (laughs).

GP: What would be some of the key things that make the production of Path of Neo different from Enter the Matrix?

SB: This time around we know the PS2 and we're really pushing it.

GP: Are you discovering new potential with the PS2?

SB: The PS2 is constantly surprising us as we discover more things that it's capable of doing. From a design a standpoint it's a little bit challenging because we make breakthroughs that aren't always planned for. It's like, wow, we were going to have to 25 guys onscreen, but we just found out how to get 1500 guys onscreen! You get used to being flexible.

GP: Are you working more closely with the Wachowski brothers?

SB: We do our best to interpret what they give us (laughs). But we're pretty well off because I was a gigantic Wachowski fan before they offered this project to us. I spent a lot of time studying up on the Matrix and understand more about it. Once we got license that was all the excuse I needed to dive into it. There are a number of us here that are really into the philosophy of the Matrix.

GP: Was it a challenge to stay true to the film?

SB: That movie is probably the most philosophical action movie out there. We try to stay true to the underlying rules the brothers created, which is kind of tricky because they never really come right out and say what they are. It's just not their style. But we've basically created our own bible.

GP: What have you come way with from working on this game and with the Wachowski brothers?

SB: They have a very specific vision and they have a way of making the people who are making that vision come life feel empowered like they are an active participant in the vision. As a team we've structured ourselves with the idea that it's far better to have people feel that have contributed to an idea rather than telling then what has to be done. They'll have a much greater sense of ownership that way.

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