Hands-On: ‘Red Faction: Armageddon’ Gameplay Footage

At Comic Con, we had the opportunity to speak with Associate Producer Dan Sutton from volition inc, the developers behind Red Faction: Armageddon and get footage of a developer walk through of one of the levels. Dan told us that what they enjoyed working on with Red Faction: Armageddon was that they were able to take the base premise of destroying everything that was established by Red Faction: Guerilla and improving upon it.

While Red Faction: Guerilla was fairly open world, Red Faction: Armageddon will be a more linear experience with much more focus on story. This time with a longer development cycle to play with the engine they built for the previous game, volition was able to design a world completely around this wholly destructible premise.

As you will see below, there has been a focus on not just having destruction but taking that destruction and using it to encourage creative gameplay. One such example of this is the new magnet gun. A simple premise, point and shoot at two objects and they will go cascading into each other. This can be done with enemies, buildings, objects or any combination of them.

They have also taken the idea of destruction and turned it on its head with the Reconstructor, part of the nanoboard that the main character Darius wears on his arm. Any object you destroy can be re-targeted and pieced back together. A great example of this comes from blowing a hole in the side of a building while being chased and sealing that hole behind you to provide a much more secure escape route.

Some weapons they discussed with us that we haven’t seen include a black hole gun. This is what it sounds like where a miniature black hole is shot into an area and it begins to suck up everything around it and spit it back out at a player. Because the story of Red Faction: Armageddon takes place fifty years after the events of Red Faction: Guerilla, the team was able to take some of people’s favorite weapons from Guerilla and enhance them.

In terms of single player, Dan told us that not only were they looking to extend the campaign length, but they wanted to also provide a stronger story along with it as well. The story will be further helped along by a two hour pilot headed to SyFy in March called Red Faction: Origins, which volition is obviously hoping will get picked up to be a miniseries.

Darius Mason, the main character in Red Faction: Armageddon is the grandson of the protagonist from Red Faction: Guerilla and the son of Jake Mason who will be the focus of the SyFy special. Darius, a man with a mining background, is being blamed for the release of the aliens that are causing the chaos in the game’s world and is on a mission to set things right.

Multiplayer wasn’t discussed much other than letting us know that more will be revealed soon but they are putting a strong focus on it.

Also briefly touched upon was the Achievements and Trophies coming to the game. Like the unique and creative style of the weapons, these Achievements and Trophies will focus on encouraging outside the box gameplay as opposed to grinding gameplay for just a high number of kills.

Red Faction: Armageddon is being published by THQ and will be available for the XBox 360, PC and PlayStation 3. Make sure to check out our exclusive gameplay footage from Comic-Con below.