Previously the camera would just pan out so you’d occupy the same space on the screen as you would on foot, but the team felt it robbed a certain level of immersion.
Spark Unlimited is developing Lost Planet 3 and they’re happy to bring that ”colonial frontier/pioneers theme” full circle by making the player feel like a ‘truck driver’.
”For single-player, a lot of it was to show the size of the rig because it was the largest unit we ever had in the series that’s controllable. Here’s the problem: in Lost Planet 1 and Lost Planet 2, when you go from being on foot to the VS, the camera pulls back,” Szymanski tells Gamespot.
“So what that means is that the amount of space that the player character takes up doesn’t change. Even if you’re in these giant machines, the camera pulls back in proportion to that, so what you see is similar and what you’re playing still very similar.”
“One of the thoughts when doing this part in first-person is that we can change that feeling. You’re actually looking down at the environment to show the scale. An object within Jim’s line of sight will be a crushable speck when on the utility rig, like the spiral-looking akrids,” he continued. “It’s also another way to immerse the player like he/she is driving a mech. You could say that Jim’s a truck driver, which brings the colonial frontier/pioneers theme to full circle.”
Lost Planet 3 releases on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 August 27th in the US, 30th in EU.
