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Developer Diary: Danny Belanger on Location & Setting in Shanghai

In Army of Two: The 40th Day, Salem and Rios fight their way through Shanghai in order to survive as the city is destroyed by the 40th Day Initiative. The decision to set Army of Two: The 40th Day in Shanghai was ultimately crucial in developing fun gameplay and an intriguing story, and as you will see it will be an all around awesome experience!

Shanghai was initially chosen as the location for The 40th Day simply because we knew we wanted to choose a place that is relevant and interesting in today's media and culture. China was an obvious choice in this respect since they were host to the 2008 summer Olympics and within the last year made world news with their space program. This was important for us because we wanted to choose a setting that is well suited for our theme of destruction. We wanted to make sure that our setting occurred somewhere significant, but also remote, so that it would feel real and believable for the player. The alternative, setting our game in a place like New York with Russians attacking, could very easily come off as being cliché or corny. Furthermore, people understand their own politics and social situations, so suggesting that a private military organization is laying ruin to New York becomes very unbelievable without a lot of fiction to support it. By choosing China, a foreign country where the politics aren't well known, the invading destruction theme becomes more believable and real, simply because it is unfamiliar. Everything becomes much easier to digest for the player and as a result the story and themes become more enjoyable.

Caption: A street market in the Yu Garden area of Shanghai

It was also important for us to pick a setting that was relatively unique. There are an enormous number of games set in Russia and the US, and even Africa has been represented in a number of high profile games recently. This made China a much more appealing choice from this prospective.

Shanghai was also an ideal choice from a technological perspective. We use Unreal Engine 3, which is excellent at rendering modern industrial environments. As a result the modern city of Shanghai was an ideal fit.

It was also very important for us to ensure that the look and feel of Shanghai were replicated in-game. We took a trip to Shanghai where we took literally thousands of photographs and high resolution videos for reference. We literally walked around the streets and back alleys of Shanghai taking pictures, as well as visiting a hospital, the Shanghai zoo, various skyscrapers, and many other locations. It was an interesting experience in many cases because we didn't know how people would react. We met a doctor in a hospital who eagerly invited us in after our guide explained that we were making a game, but later on we were kicked out for taking photographs!

Caption: Eric Chartrand (Lead Multiplayer Design), Danny Belanger (Lead Designer), Alex Hutchinson (Creative Director), Reid Schneider (Executive Producer), Steve Dupont (Animation Director), Sarah Stewart (Line Producer), Lewis James (Lead Audio Designer), Marco Beauchamin (Art Director)

One thing that really surprised us was to see how clean and modern Shanghai is, which did not suit our theme of destruction very well. In The 40th Day Shanghai is being destroyed, but clean and modern Shanghai does not look or feel the part. We went out of our way to find some pretty dirty areas and side streets for reference. This ultimately led us to create a sort of exaggerated reality of Shanghai: a Shanghai where things are dirty and falling into ruin. Our goal was to not replicate Shanghai street-by-street, but instead to take references from Shanghai so that we could recreate the feel and look. This was important because the various places that we visited in Shanghai looked very cool, but weren't a good fit for the sort of flow that we wanted to have. For example, we couldn't simply recreate the Shanghai zoo because the layout of the real Shanghai zoo would have been pretty boring. As a result, the in-game version of Shanghai zoo has a layout that is designed specifically for coop gameplay. However, anyone who has visited Shanghai zoo will easily recognize it. Various aspects, such as the walls, fences, sign posts, the ground, and statues are all taken directly from the real Shanghai zoo. It is the same situation for the city itself. The Pudong skyline will be easily recognizable to anyone who has visited Shanghai. We took pictures of the skyline and recreated that view.

Caption: Vendors on a street in the Yu Garden area of Shanghai

We also wanted to ensure that despite basing the entire game in Shanghai there would still be new experiences for the player from place to place within the city. In the original Army of Two variety of locations wasn't a concern for us because each new map took place in an entirely different part of the world. Because of this we deliberately chose locations within Shanghai that are cool and offer unique experiences. We tried to stay away from typical shooter scenarios like warehouses and train stations, instead choosing more interesting locations like a zoo, hospital, and even a temple. Even our more standard venues that shooter fans will recognize, like the office building and hospital, are interesting and unique because we took that standard experience and completely flipped it upside down. For example, office buildings are a relatively common locale for a shooter game, but in The 40th Day the building itself is literally crumbling and being destroyed beneath the player's feet. The hospital too, is interesting because we had to imagine what happens to all of the people in a hospital when it is being invaded, and make that play out in the game.

All of this is also very important from a gameplay prospective, simply because it's vastly more interesting for the player. We wanted to put players in scenarios that they would feel comfortable in, but then surprise them with dramatic changes. In one moment they are fighting in an office building, and the next they are fighting on the collapsed walls of that same skyscraper-giving a high adrenaline and scary feeling. These are scenarios that while unrealistic, are ones that the player can easily imagine being real.

Caption: Houses along Zhu Jia Jiao Creek in Shanghai

Check back next week for the second part of this developer diary, where Danny Belanger discusses variety of locations, the impact on story telling, and gameplay. Check us out on Twitter @Army_of_Two for updates, and on Facebook!