In the Microsoft exclusive TV/game hybrid, players will see different versions of each episode depending on certain choices they made during the previous chapters. According to Remedy narrative designer Greg Louden, there are “40 different variations of the show in total.” That number of scenes, combined with the size of the video files, led the team to use online streaming to deliver the scenes.
“I can’t give you an exact size, but it is big, so we wanted to create this high quality game experience and use all the disc space to maximize the visual effects qualities of the animations and all that stuff. So for us, it was kind of like a natural choice,” Louden said. “Also, our desire to really make it change… I think if we only had one show, it probably would have fit, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to do this active experience where you negotiate the story and change it, so this was the only real solution to our problem. When we figured out how big the data was, we had to backpedal and think of some good solutions and this made sense.”
While this will not affect many players, some may be turned off by the fact that this single-player experience will require an internet connection. Even players who can connect may lack the consistent, speedy internet connection necessary to enjoy the game without interruption. Louden said players who want to avoid buffering and other pitfalls related to streaming video would be able to download the episodes on Xbox One, but not on the PC version, which will feature larger 4K videos.
Quantum Break will be available on Xbox One and Windows 10 April 5.
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