Interviews// Singularity Producer: Kekoa Lee-Creel

SPOnG: We don’t want to say that the main character is… well, ugly at all, but he’s not exactly your kind of staple first-person shooter hero. Was that intentional at all for any reason? He seems kind of bland.

Kekoa Lee-Creel: It’s a valid point! The main drive for the hero was that we wanted to make the character as a kind of ‘Everyman’. We didn’t want him to be a standout badass or a pretty boy; we wanted to create someone that you can’t relate to. He’s just a guy who’s put in a really bad spot at the wrong time and thrust into this world that he knows nothing about. The hero is essentially you, so we wanted a character that wasn’t going to be over the top and “I’m awesome, I’m going to kick some ass” – someone who’s rather average looking and… I don’t want to say unmemorable, but someone that you probably wouldn’t recognise right away.


SPOnG: Singularity was once a third-person game, but now it’s clear that you’ve changed to a first-person mechanic. What was the reason for the change?

Kekoa Lee-Creel: We experimented with both third-person and first-person perspectives, and we pulled it back to first-person because the third-person experience kind of draws the player out a little bit. You start to become disconnected with the main character and that leads to all sorts of questions about who he is, what he’s doing there and all that stuff. He’s no longer you, he’s just this guy, and if that happens he has to have a character and personality that doesn’t necessarily reflect you.

That’s not to say Wendell is a ‘nothing’ character, he certainly is someone with a personality and intelligence, but we gave him basic traits so that the rest can be reflected on how you play.


SPOnG: The game’s fiction is rooted in the throes of the Cold War between the West and Soviet Bloc. Even though the story is fiction, did you reference a lot of history to help make the experience a little more realistic?

Kekoa Lee-Creel: Strangely enough, we didn’t research into the history an awful lot. The majority of the concept came from the co-founders at Raven Software, they just had a perception of what most Americans generally thought during the Cold War. In that time, wherein the Russians were a superpower and they could threaten the US at any time, there was an innate fear of the Soviet Union.

So, you factor that in and that almost becomes mythological, like an urban myth that Russians were these ever-present monsters. And that was the mindset of the American public back then, and that culture and modern mythology was what helped create the scenario that you find in Singularity.

Of course, when you couple that with the 1950s universe, that was also heavily drawn upon the popular culture of the time too. So, when you see rifts of the past later on in the game it all starts to look a little like Forbidden Planet with shiny brushed metal and round cylindrical features and things. So, the entire game is less a basis on history and more a cultural mash-up of modern day horror and action with 1950s science fiction.


SPOnG: Is there scope for a sequel to Singularity? Activision have always said that they like to focus on games that can become long-standing franchises. Is that something you’ve considered?

Kekoa Lee-Creel: Well, I certainly hope so. I mean that would keep me employed (laughs)!

SPOnG: Would a possible sequel be called Duality?

Kekoa Lee-Creel: (Laughs) Yeah, there’s actually a joke about that, but seriously I think there is scope for a franchise here. The biggest thing now is that we want to capture the audience and make sure that this is something that people like. One of the things we don’t do typically is serialise something that just has no value in the market. We want to make a franchise here, Singularity is a fantastic idea with a lot of potential, and we can travel outside the realm of Russia, we can go and do a lot of different things. It’s a strong story and in regards to a franchise I think that’s something that can become a real possibility.


SPOnG: Thanks for your time.