Interviews// Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Ubisoft is giving the Call of Juarez series another shot with Gunslinger, and this time the publisher is working with Techland to try and refocus the first person shooter franchise. That means a look back as well as a step forward - Gunslinger goes back to basics with the Wild West setting, but Ubisoft is taking the series to digital distribution platforms in a fresh new strategy.

The game is a retelling of a number of classic Western legends, with the lead character narrating his encounters with a swathe of famous names such as Billy The Kid and Pat Garrett. Levels change on the fly as the story evolves and the narration changes, leading to some gameplay stages that ask a lot of questions of these mythical Wild West characters.

It’s an arcade-style title full of short, sharp gunplay - stages last around 15-30 minutes each, with the game supported by a separate trials mode to compete with other players for a high score. I spoke with Ubisoft’s associate producer Nicolas Joye to learn more about Gunslinger’s new direction.


SPOnG: Gunslinger feels like an arcade game in terms of style. Almost like a shooting gallery, inspired by titles like Mad Dog McCree. Was that your intention?

Nicolas Joye: Totally. We wanted to start back from Bound in Blood. That was [our best Call of Juarez game]. The thing is, we had released The Cartel afterwards, so we wanted to return to something simpler. Something digital. When we decided on aiming for the digital market, we wanted to create a game where you could hop in and out of play easily. Nothing like Skyrim, where you need to dedicate a few hours per go.

So it’s intentionally more arcadey, with easy accessibility for players to jump in and out. That’s why we have the episode structure, with different episodes that last around 15 minutes a piece. It’s really fast-paced and immersive in its own way.


SPOnG: Speaking of The Cartel - how would you describe that? That took Call of Juarez in a completely different direction - a bit more modern. Would you have said that it ended up being something of an experiment that didn’t quite work out?

Nicolas Joye: I would say... exactly that [laughs]. The game didn’t work out at all. We tried it - it was, as you say in French, a ‘fake good idea’. It didn’t work out, and I guess the question is why did we ever do it? But, those that don’t try [new things] never fail.


SPOnG: So would you say you wanted to go back to basics with this game? Is this a reboot of sorts - an attempt to claw back what was lost with The Cartel?

Nicolas Joye: I don’t know - people define ‘reboot’ in many different ways. Yeah, we definitely wanted to go back to the Wild West - the typical Wild West - and we wanted to tell stories. During the pre-production phase, we all sat down and tried to determine what it is about that era that makes it so cool and appealing to people. It came down to the stories - the legends, the lawmen, the outlaws.

From there, we knew we had to focus on the narration of the story. That’s where we departed a bit from Bound in Blood, and went a bit more arcade in style in heading towards the digital platform. We also changed our graphic style, there’s a big graphical difference that helps with the arcadey nature of the game.


SPOnG: It seems that you’re taking more of a creative and artistic liberty with Gunslinger too. The art, as you say, seems very ‘graphic novel’ in style, and the levels change as the story evolves. How did you approach the overall design of the game?

Nicolas Joye: Well, we started from scratch really. We realised that the last game wasn’t that good, and we knew that Bound in Blood was good but we didn’t want to do the same thing. So we took the concept of the Western, and asked what we could do that was cool. We knew we wanted to do digital this time, so we decided on something that could be pretty easy to play, but difficult to master.

When we came to the story, we thought of narratives that would be interesting, featuring outlaws and lawmen, all these crazy famous people from the Old West legends... and we noticed that a lot of men in these Wild West myths get some facts distorted somewhat. So we thought that, to tell a great story in the same vein as a legend unravelling itself, we needed someone telling that story in a narration.


SPOnG: Do you feel you’re able to do that, since that it’s a digital title?

Nicolas Joye: Yeah. I would say so. I don’t know if everyone will agree, but I think that digital can have that indie aspect - where, since you’re not a retail product, you can be free to try some more interesting stuff. In a way, if you fail, there are less consequences too.

That was a really interesting factor for us going digital. Because it is completely different to Bound in Blood, we’re able to put it on the digital platform and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else next time. But we feel pretty confident with Gunslinger, we think it’s great quality and Techland did a good job this time around. Much better.


SPOnG: Call of Juarez has always been this AAA disc-based series. When some consumers see a franchise like this hitting digital, the first thing they think of is ‘spinoff’. Is this how you’re treating this, or is Gunslinger a proper sequel?

Nicolas Joye: For us, it’s a proper sequel, just on a different platform. As a gamer as well as a consumer, I know that once something goes digital there’s a worry as to the quality of the game. I honestly think that people won’t notice Gunslinger is a digital product at first, because we’ve tried to pack in as much as we can here.

And I don’t know what some of the reactions will be, that this is a digital product. There’s a bit of a misconception that these things are offered as a cheap thing... that wasn’t the intention at all for us. We did a full production phase, full pre-production - we just had a smaller scope this time around.


SPOnG: The fact that it’s digital - obviously you were targeting the digital platform from the get-go, but do you think part of that decision says something about where the AAA disc industry is heading?

Nicolas Joye: Definitely. If you’re not AAA [on disc] you’re nothing, more or less. With Call of Juarez, we’re obviously not going to be [as big as] Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed, so this led to us having a new strategy [for Gunslinger].

There’s also a really strong will inside of Ubisoft to develop for the digital platform because we know that this is where the video game industry is going to evolve. It’s important to have some strong franchises on the digital market, and Call of Juarez is a perfect fit for that.


SPOnG: If Gunslinger does well, do you see a future for Call of Juarez on digital?

Nicolas Joye: Good question. I can sincerely say I have no idea what is planned for the future. I will say that, if something works right the first time you usually end up building on it afterwards. But I have no specific information. I don’t even think the top management knows right now. If it works, we’ll continue on the platform I suppose. If not, then... we might not.


SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.

Nicholas Joye: Thank you.