Twisted Pixel Games‘ Defector is a virtual reality game that pays homage to the over-the-top spy flicks of the ’90s: explosions, high-tech gadgets, espionage, shootouts, and more explosions. It’s the kind of game where you drive a car off one plane and onto another, running over some dudes while you’re at it. It doesn’t yet have a release date but it will be arriving on the Oculus Rift sometime later this year.
I played about half an hour of Defector, and from what I can gather, the game is an enjoyable blend of hokey undercover agent tropes and semi-realistic gunfights. As a secret agent, I was on a mission to find out where the Big Bad, Pascal Rupert, was stashing toxic gas that he’d use for nefarious deeds. Of course, everything went south, and after a brief conversation with him, he called for security to drag me away. Luckily, I had a partner who was already undercover as part of Rupert’s entourage, and she helped me knock him out so that we could move him elsewhere.
Though you’re a James Bond-like field agent, you won’t be going it alone in Defector. Twisted Pixel social media director Amanda May says that throughout the game, you’ll slowly uncover parts of your backstory and develop relationships with the people you encounter as you bounce from continent to continent doing high-octane spy stuff.
“You learn more about your own history. But then also the relationships you build with the people around you,” said May in an interview with GamesBeat. “Who’s that woman who’s your partner on the plane? How does she tie into this story? The other people who you meet on different levels? You’re going to come into contact with a lot of different people, build relationships, get into different situations. You learn a lot, and you also experience a lot.”
May says that Defector was inspired by ’80s and ’90s action movies that used “no CGI, practical effects, real stuntmen,” as well as more generally blockbusters like Terminator and Mad Max. All this motivated Twisted Pixel to try its hand at a frenetic adventure game that continuously one-ups itself with the suave silliness of the action hero genre. But it also gives you narrative choices, like when you’re getting to know people or deciding how you’re going to attack a problem.
After my partner and I knocked out Rupert, we discovered only two parachutes in the room. That meant we could either leave Rupert behind and jump ship to escape together, or she could take Rupert first, and I’d find some other way to rendezvous with them. I chose the latter — hence why, 30 minutes later, I was driving a car off a plane.
“Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, this demo is the most toned-down level we even have in the game,” said May. “It gets much crazier than this, if that’s even possible. We tried to use humor. It’s a globe-spanning game. Every level you’ll be in a different location on the globe.”
If that sounds like it might be too much action for a VR experience, May says that the studio has tried to make the experience customizable for people’s comfort levels. Twisted Pixel also has a movie background — as a side project, the founders have a studio called Madisonian Films — which it used to create “naturalistic” dialogue and cut scenes to fully immerse players.
“We implemented many different setting controls, where you can say, hey, I want full control. Or I want my head motion to be considered also, so I don’t get dizzy and start spinning around,” said May. “You can set it to your own comfort level. We find that when people use those settings at the beginning of the game, they don’t get as motion sick.”
Another aspect of Defector that’s more realistic than Hollywood glam is its guns. Though you have an infinite supply of magazines for your sidearm, actually aiming and shooting takes a level of precision. May says that the team wanted to portray how difficult it is to be an espionage agent.
“I think that adds a certain level of intrigue to it. You don’t want it to be too easy, but at the same time, you don’t want it to be too hard either,” said May. “In terms of shooting and stuff, we said, OK, let’s really do the unload. Let’s have the mag. Let’s not have it automatically reload. It would be a lot more satisfying to actually grab a magazine, unload the gun, load it back up, and have cool gadgets too.”
So even though Defector has its share of wacky plane-exploding hijinks, it doesn’t simply hand everything to the player. The shootouts require skill, and navigating conversations with hostiles can be tricky. Via a high-tech contact lens, you can access dossiers on every character you encounter, and these give you hints on what kind of dialogue options will open them up to further conversation. Rupert, for instance, appreciated straight talk — so if you tried to be cheeky with him, then you’d fail your interaction with him and die.
A few studios have already produced enjoyable spy-themed games for VR — such as Schell Games’ charming puzzler I Expect You to Die and Stuido Studios’ party game The Take. If Defector delivers on its promise of action flick stunts and intrigue, it could be the next great spy game in the medium.
