Lucas Lagravette Syberia III Interview

Yeah, since we worked so close with Benoit Sokal, he decided what we can tell or not in the story. I was involved in the writing of Syberia 3, but I was the help. He is the leader of the story, it's his universe. But, with the fans, it's touching. Because everyone has expectations and lots of them were asking what is the story going to be? Is Kate going back to New York?

What is great about Benoit Sokal's universe is that he takes reality and just does a little step on the side of what we know. It's our world, but a bit different. So for instance, in this one, we have our own version of Chernobyl. It's really nice, we can get interest in any subject, and afterward you have his vision on it, and it becomes the Syberia version of reality. With this method, we can take whatever interests us in reality, but erase all the flaws, all that is not interesting. Once he said ‘When you arrive in a town now, you have everywhere McDonald's, Apple Store, and underneath that we have the core of the town.’ And his vision allows us to erase McDonald’s, and just have very strong identified towns.

Well, that's a hard question because now I've heard [Sokal] answer that question, so that's mixed my head up. But for me, at the beginning, Syberia is first of all a universe: somewhere where old and new is in conflict, and you have a mythical vision of the past; the mechanical world. And Benoit often says that for him, Syberia is the story of the 20th century in Europe. For him it's kind of the conflict between steam technology, automatons, mechanics; and electricity, modernity. You can see this throughout the game.

I've done script writing study, and for me, Syberia has the structure of a road trip story. You have different destinations, very strong meetings in each of those destinations, and all of that changes the character, and this is what happens with Kate. So you have all those very strong and funny characters that, at the first look they are almost, caricatures, but if you dig inside them, they are all more complex. There’s sadness inside, there's a lot of melancholia in Syberia.

It's funny you say that, because when I first started on the game one of my biggest fears and actually, I still have this fear, was: ‘Are gamers still ready to spend ten minutes to just walk, or enjoy a background? Can people be happy to have periods without feedback or reward, other than their own imagination? I was really afraid about that, and from what I've read from the previews, everyone is saying that it's different, but it's cool, and I hope players will feel the same.

We use a dynamic music system; the idea is to have subconscious feedback. So the more you progress through puzzles, the more we add layers of music and instruments. At some point you begin with a very small loop and you end up with a true symphony.

Thank you. I supervised the animation and it was amazing to see. You know, you can't do motion capture with those so it's all hand animated. When you play the game, wait in front of one until it scratches its ear, it's very impressive.

We kept the DNA of Syberia one and two, so you have scripted cameras, so it's not free camera like in Last of Us or Tomb Raider, but it's more like Resident Evil. But thanks to the 3D, with the right stick, you can move the borders of the cameras. The idea is keep what made Syberia special, but use new technology to add more dynamism and immersion and this is what we also did for the cutscenes and dialogue scenes. So now we can have true directing with changes of camera angles etc.

Tough question. Well, I guess at some point we had the clash between modernity and tradition on the choices with the dialogue. I grew with games like Deux Ex and The Witcher, and for this is what is exciting to me in the way of videogame storytelling; the possibility of being interactive and really offer true choice and consequences. But for Benoit; for the best story, you give it the best ending, you don't give it one great ending you like, and two minor endings for the sake of it. At the beginning, we were thinking ‘should we do it, should we not?’ And I think he was right [to go for a single ending story] because with the gameplay we've stayed really faithful to Syberia and it would have been a bit fake if we had done it. On other Microids games maybe, but not on this one.

Deus Ex, the first one, and I guess The Witcher 3: everything works, and everything is perfect, especially in the writing. It's one of the few games that I laughed in front of my screen, and that never happens. I love the way they have very few gameplay [mechanics]. You have investigation, combat, moving, and dialogue, and they do such a great combination of it, I really admire those guys. And all the Remedy games, I'm a big fan of Max Payne 2 and Alan Wake in my heart. More narrative driven games I guess, but with gameplay.

When we started on Syberia III, there was a junction for adventure games between old school, new things or formulations, like Telltale. I really like what Telltale does with immersion, but we have puzzles and where do we place them?

I think, and I hope, that we managed to have this immersion thanks to the narrative, and keep the gameplay. Most of the previews that we have had tell that we managed to keep the puzzles logical regarding the story, and for me, that's winning the battle. How can I not be too fake on the obstacles?

Our main inspiration for the puzzle system [Where the movement of the control sticks is relative to the movements on screen] was a game on mobile actually called The Room. Syberia is known to have very down to earth puzzles, it's not Monkey Island. You have to drive a truck, so you will find the ignition key and turn it. But with this system we can have some more intense puzzles. At one point as an example, you can free someone from a tight chair, and in the puzzle, you can talk to him as you complete it and he reacts to you.

Nothing solid that I can tell you, but if you buy the Collector's Edition, you get one and two inside the box.

It's Benoit Sokal who decided to show Oscar in the new trailer. He told us: ‘show it. Now is the moment, show it’. We were asking: ‘what should we share that is short enough with all the gameplay in it, but is sexy?’ And he said: ‘just pick this sequence’. So yes, Oscar is back, but I won’t spoil it and say how.