[INTERVIEW] NEVERDEAD : Immortal is not invincible

Posted in: Now / Gaming

Tags: Bryce Boltzmann, interview, Konami, NEVERDEAD, Shinta Nojiri

February 4th 2012

By Samy Zakari

AMUSEMENT met with Shinta Nojiri , the deviant brain behind Neverdead : a game where you will lose your head, your arm and your leg… and never die.

Bryce Boltzmann is a demon hunter who is nothing like the others. Since the murder of his wife made him – literally – lose his head, he just let his body be cut into parts by monsters. But it doesn’t matter: even if he loses an arm, a leg, the other arm and the other leg, Bryce never dies. Provided he manages to reassemble and glue together the scattered pieces. We we’re a bit apprehensive about the idea of meeting the deviant brain behind this crazy game concept, but we just went ahead and asked Shinta Nojiri to explain the strange things that happens in Neverdead. With some relief we are proud to announce that contrary to Bryce who loses his head at the slightest flick, the game director has managed to keep his head tightly screwed on his neck. At least for the duration the interview.

Shinta Nojiri (c) Raphael Farfart

With Bryce Boltzmann, you created a character that gets dismembered, throws his arms to ennemies, and is still fighting even with his head ripped off and rolling along the floor. Do you have nightmares when you sleep at night or what?

Well, I just wanted to create something different and came up with the theme of immortality. Personally, I don’t want to play a perfect guy, since i’m myself far from being perfect, and I don’t like super heroes. Bryce was originally a normal human, who defied the king of demons 500 years ago, but unfortunately he lost his wife. He is now cursed by immortality, so even if Bryce is wounded or dismembered, he cannot die. One of the main focuses of the game is to find out how to use this immortality as an advantage, since the player is immortal but not invincible. For example, in other titles, you have to keep some distance away from explosions, but here, it’s actually good to be close and detonate it. There is also a risk to be caught by small demons who wants to eat your head, so you would want to kill therm first. However if you take some calculated risks, you may find out new benefits.

Besides falling into pieces and playing with his members, does Bryce has other tricks up his sleeve?

Fortunately, Bryce has a lot of strengths. First, he can develop specific abilities by spending experience points depending on the player’s preferences. For example, you can develop the ability to use volontary dismemberment to throw your body parts and make them explode. Bryce can learn over 70 abilities. There is a multiplayer mode when 1 to 4 players can play online, and each one can use his favorite setup of abilities. My favorite combines explosions, dismemberment and fire bullets. During the development, I noticed that few guys use the fire bullets, they prefer melee combat with the sword. It’s very interesting to watch the others play i their own way. Bryce can also rely on his Sixth Sense. When you equip it, when a danger comes close to you, the action is slowed down, so it’s easier to manage.

How is the cooperation between Bryce and his female assistant Arcadia managed ?

The 500 years forced hyatus changed Bryce to a sarcastic character with an awful temperament. Aracadia is always annoyed by Bryce’s nasty jokes. But they try to keep it professional: Arcadia is working as a secret inspector for the government and Bryce was hired as a demon hunter. This is just work, nothing private is going on. After all, Bryce still remembers his dead wife.

Video games are infested with monsters, zombies and demons. Why this appeal for disgusting and scary things?

Usually in the movies, monsters are quite predictable, they provide the same experience again and again. In games, monsters can provide a wider range of experiences, not only related to fear, but also with the action of shooting and destroying them. Since they are not human, we have more freedom to do crazy things and have more fun.

Neverdead includes a song from the hard-rock band Megadeth. How was this collaboration made possible?

We are big fans of Megadeth…yes, we are not that young! Actually, we thought that Megadeth and Neverdead was an interesting opposition. Since death is the core concept of Neverdead, we just contacted the band and tried to explain the concept. And they really liked it, even if they haden’t seen the game before. So they worked on the idea and came up with a great song. I did not stop listening to the theme song during the developement. The crazy thing is that the song Neverdead will be included in their new studio album.

Previously, you have been working on the Metal Gear Solid series. What did you learned from this experience?

I learned everything from my ex-boss, Hideo Kojima (the mastermind behind Metal Gear). I started 16 years ago as an assistant in the first Metal Gear Solid then I became director for the Metal Gear Acid series on PSP. I used to work in an environment where we implement a very Japanese way to provide a unique experience. This time, I tried to keep the same attitude regarding development, even if I am working with a UK development house, Rebellion, which is located in Oxford. But I managed to finally apply some methods inherited from the Metal Gear production, where typically, the director is deeply involved and decides on everything, I’m not sure if it’s the best method out there but it’s the japanese way.

Last year, Konami surprised everyone with a Castlevania game developed by a Spanish developper – MercurySteam Sand which turned out to be really good. Is this the same kind of collaboration we should expect between you and Rebellion?

Japanese people are really different from the rest of the world in terms of the way they think, their tastes and sensibility. The start is always tough, as the western methods are very different from the Japanese way, but after some time, we always manage to get on the same wavelength.