Skip to main content

Insomniac’s CEO talks about why co-op games like ‘Fuse’ prefer four players

Fuse 4
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Fuse has such an apt title. The first non-PlayStation exclusive console release from Insomniac Games feels like it’s a fusion of the studio’s two most well-known franchises: Resistance and Ratchet & Clank. You’ve got wacky weapons, colorful characters, an equal focus on delivering compelling co-op and solo play experiences, and a sci-fi universe that toes its way carefully between gritty, hard-edged fiction and light-hearted fun. It feels like a fitting current-gen swansong from a studio that has grown and evolved significantly over the past decade-plus.

Ted_Price,_2013
Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games Image used with permission by copyright holder

Digital Trends got to sit with studio founder and CEO Ted Price at 2013’s Game Developer’s Conference for a final hands-on look at Fuse before it ships to stores on May 28. The demo in question showed off a new section of the game, in which the starring Overstrike 9 squad is sent off to a secret research facility overseen by a brutish Eastern European named Slovenko. It seems that Slovenko is working closely with the Raven organization – Fuse‘s primary antagonist – as he performs experiments using the game’s titular substance. It quickly becomes clear during the level that fusing… err… FUSE with human DNA is… not good.

The level is typical of what we’ve seen from the game so far, which is to say that it’s a series of arenas connected by corridors. Each battle space presents a fresh array of tactical opportunities, including turrets, flanking routes, and ambush opportunities. The setup might sound rote, but the play is quite the opposite. Insomniac managed to nail a great balance between the different characters and what they can do. In fact, Price tells us that this was one of the biggest challenges during development, and one of the key reasons that the game announced years ago – as Overstrike at the time – took so long to bring together.

 “Despite the fact that a lot of us still play by ourselves in a dark room, a lot of us also like to play with friends. Over this generation I think this trend has been accelerating.”

“The biggest challenge was making sure that the four multi-faceted weapons worked well together. It’s a simple thing to say, but practically, it was brutally complex,” he explained. “At the heart of that complexity are these very different weapons and the ways they all interact together. Getting to the point where we actually felt that each of the weapons stood on their own as a fun experience but could be combined took a lot of work and re-work.”

“Then, on top of that, making sure these character archetypes that we were developing – Dalton as the tank, Izzy as the healer/crowd-controller, Nya as the AoE/stealth specialist, and Jacob as the distant damage dealer [and] trap expert – getting those archetypes right so that they were clearly communicated by the weapons that you pick up early was hard.”

Each character’s Fuse weapon brings a unique quantity to the battlefield. Dalton’s energy shield blocks incoming fire while active, though it can also be unleashed as a devastating short-to-mid-range melee attack that insta-kills all but the hardiest of foes. It’s a force to be reckoned with on its own, but when you then combine it with Izzy’s Shattergun – which effectively freezes enemies in place with sustained fire – you can literally shatter a crowd in a matter of moments, and net yourself a nice XP combo boost in the process. As fleshed out and complex as the universe of Fuse is, it’s actually the cooperative focus that game first for Insomniac.

Fuse 3“The very first thing we decided was to make a great four-player cooperative game that was also just as much fun for an individual who doesn’t want to play co-op,” Price told us. “We knew that was going to be a tough challenge because most games are good at one or the other. Furthermore, we knew that we’d be biting off a lot by trying to make four individual, very unique characters with four very different weapons work together.”

Four characters together actually gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of designing believable spaces…”

“Thematically, Fuse [the substance] came along very early in the process, in terms of the heroes’ focus in the story. What they were trying to achieve. It evolved into this substance discovered in the 1940s by the government. It wasn’t until relatively late in the process that we decided to make it much more a part of the gameplay. At first it was more of a plot device and we were just using it to drive the story, but now it’s integrated into everything.”

It’s easy to look at Fuse as a potential testbed for Insomniac as the next generation of hardware arrives, but Price sees the game’s enhancements over previous efforts from the studio as more of an evolution of overall philosophy, particularly with regards to co-op play. Fuse offers four-player, drop-in/drop-out co-op, a feature that we’ve seen more and more over the course of the generation, though it is still a relative rarity. It’s something that is changing, but slowly.

Fuse 1“We believe gamers are becoming more and more connected, more and more social,” Price said. “Despite the fact that a lot of us still play by ourselves in a dark room, a lot of us also like to play with friends. Over this generation I think this trend has been accelerating. The consoles from the very beginning were connected and… the games have brought about great matchmaking, and continued to push forward ideas like drop-in/drop-out co-op. We don’t think that trend is going to slow down. At all. By delivering features for co-op that we believe raise the bar, we are simply flexing out muscles as a company focused on multiplayer co-op game design.”

Four always seems to be the magic number in co-op scenarios. Look at Borderlands, look at Call of Duty’s zombie mode, look at Gears of War, look at (the admittedly troubled) Aliens: Colonial Marines. It’s rare that you see more than four players on a co-op battlefield. Gears goes up to five in Horde, but ratchets the number down to four in the campaign. Insomniac is one of the rare studios to have experimented with significantly larger numbers for co-op: Resistance 2 supported eight in a separate mode. Important lessons were learned from that experience.

Fuse 2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“With Resistance 2… we had to build the levels in a very different fashion because the amount of space necessary for eight players is pretty significant. We found that it was difficult to make indoor areas in Resistance 2 feel believable. Four characters together actually gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of designing believable spaces, in terms of door sizes and window sizes. It’s funny how much that matters when you as a player are playing through, but it’s those subtle cues that are really important in creating that sense of immersion. If you have to make all of your doorways crazy wide to accommodate eight players, it throws off that sense of scale that we all take for granted in most of these games.”

“The other thing that we felt was important was the sense of quick communication. In a game like this where every character has a different role to play, with four players in a high action game, it felt like the right mix. I could easily communicate with three other people and tell them what I’m doing. If I communicate with seven other people and we’re dealing with seven different archetypes, things can get chaotic much more quickly.”

Adam Rosenberg
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…
Three classic Grand Theft Auto games are coming to Netflix next month
Key art for GTA: The Trilogy on Netflix

Netflix and Rockstar Games revealed that Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition will come to the services game catalog in December.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is a package that features remasters of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was first released for PC and consoles in late 2021. Although the ports were derided for having a plethora of technical problems at launch, they have improved since then. Now, Netflix is making a major play by bringing these remastered GTA games to the service around the same time a Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer is expected to drop.

Read more
Nintendo Switch vs. PlayStation Portal: which portable device is best?
playstation portal review remote player vs switch oled

Handheld gaming has come back in a big way this past generation. Nintendo formerly held the crown as the king of the dedicated handheld market with its unfathomably successful DS line, which would eventually combine into a home console with the equally impressive Switch. PlayStation attempted to get into this market with the PSP and PS Vita but appeared to bow out of that competition when the latter failed to achieve much success. However, the new PlayStation Portal device could provide players with an alternative to Nintendo's aging system.

If you're debating between the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Portal, here's a full breakdown of how the two devices stack up.
Nintendo Switch Vs. PlayStation Portal specs
When it comes to specs, let's start with the easy comparisons.

Read more
Best Buy deals: Save on laptops, TVs, appliances, and more
best buy shuts down insignia line smart home products store 2 768x768

One of the best places to shop for almost anything involving electronics says so right in its name: Best Buy. The retail giant has a ton of departments with some of today’s most popular devices, components, and appliances for sale. It also offers a lot of these at a discount, which is certainly what we’re seeing right now. Some of the best TV deals, best tablet deals, best laptop deals, and best phone deals can currently be found at Best Buy, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve tracked down all of the best deals you can shop at Best Buy right now, so read onward for some gift ideas for yourself or a loved one and for some great ways to save.
Best Buy TV deals

There may be no better place to purchase one of the best TVs than Best Buy. There is almost always some huge savings to find on TVs at Best Buy, and that’s certainly the case right now. You’ll find deals top TV brands like Sony, Samsung, and LG, and more budget-friendly brands like TCL and Hisense are in play, too.

Read more