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Since way beforeThe Matrixhit our screens, we’ve had an obsession with seeing people getting hurt and hit in a variety of fast-paced ways. Be it the kung-fu flix of the 70s or the more recentJohn Wickfranchise, we love to see inventive takedowns and destructive and dangerous moments in our action films.
Many video games have tried to recapture this, but few have managed to accomplish it. I was lucky enough to discuss the latest to take up that challenge,SPINE -This is Gun Fu, both at Gamescom and more recently over a written interview, and really get to the bottom of what the devs over at Nekki are aiming for.
[This written interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.]
‘SPINE – This is Gun Fu’ Is More Than What We’ve Seen Before
Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions! For those FandomWire readers who may not be aware, who are you, and what do you do?
Thank you for asking them! My name is Dmitry Pimenov and I’m the Game Director ofSPINE. I supervise the game vision and production process. That means working with all of our teams: game designers, animators, artists, screenwriters, and tech teams to fit everything into one game that players would hopefully love.
Would you mind explaining what SPINE is precisely?
In the universe ofSPINE, Spines are powerful combat implants that are attached to the host’s spinal cord, connecting to their nervous system, boosting their reflexes, and providing useful tactical predictions in combat with a specialized AI model.
You have a good memory! We wanted to have an open dialog with our audience from the beginning, whether it be people unfamiliar with Nekki, or fans of our previous games.
They are very rare and usually belong to the captains in the totalitarian system governing the city where the game takes place. Although there are some exceptions to that.
The spinal hardware is unique, how did you come up with it?
This idea has been in our studio for quite some time. It nicely combines the explanation of why a character can parry bullets with a katana without being tired, with the cyberpunk universe and the idea of gun-fu.
What inspirations would you say you had, besides the obvious John Wick?
When thinking about the current concept of the game, we thought ‘Why not make it an anthology of things the team and I love’? So we drew inspiration from everywhere. We’re mostly focused on Gun Fu movies –The Raid, John Wick, Extraction, The Matrix, Equilibrium,but also we’re fans of other forms of action like parkour – that’s why we also likeDistrict 13,for instance.
We treat each mission of the game as a short movie of its own, referencing different things and adding our own style, including even movies likeThe Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. In terms of dialogue, I’m a fan of the catchy characters of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.
This ‘meta’ approach with lots of references makes working onSPINEvery fun. The challenge here is to maintain your own style of storytelling in the middle of all these great movies. That’s why we have detailed guidelines for our project teams.
Of course, there are some inspirations in games as well – from older games likeOni/Remember Meto more modern beat ‘em ups likeBatmanorEn Garde. To make a good beat ‘em up, you need to know the current trends, so we regularly play new games in this genre.
How does SPINE influence the game, beyond just giving Redline increased skills?
We think that game design works best if game entities work on different levels. That’s why Spine behaves as your constant companion both in combat and outside of it, talking to you with full voiceover, developing a relationship with Redline, which leads to acquiring new ability points and even developing goals of its own (because we’re telling a story of the relationship between humans and AI).
The game is still in development, so at Gamescom, we demoed the game using some placeholder dialogue with text-to-speech. For us, text-to-speech is a useful tool to draft voice acting in games.
It also gives Redline an AR interface which is very useful to convey combat information to the player. Spine is a character of its own, constantly being with you, but also a lot of gameplay mechanics are based on it.
During our meeting, you compared Sifu to a kung fu simulator and SPINE to gun fu. Would you elaborate?
I think thatSifuencapsulates the feeling of becoming a kung fu master perfectly. First, you struggle with controls, then you have to learn your opponents, then you die and die again, and spend a lot of years together with your character to overcome your challenges. It connects you to the character, you feel that you’re overcoming something constantly and getting better, becoming a kung fu master in the end. That’s the best interpretation of a kung fu movie feeling I ever saw in a game.
SPINE is a different thing. Gun Fu is a genre that is not about the struggle of becoming a master, but more about luck, pathos, unique skills, and wits that help the character deal with huge waves of opponents. You have to feel overpowered quite often, that’s what makes Gun Fu fun to me. We want to encapsulate this Gun Fu movie feeling in our game. The end goal is to make our players say:“Oh yeah! This is gun fu!”.
Unreal Engine 5 Is Just the Starting Block to Ensure Individuality
You’ve been very vocal about Unreal Engine 5 being important to the development and success ofSPINE. Would you have struggled with implementing the same ideas, features, and mechanics if not for UE5? If so, why?
Being a popular engine, it makes it easier to find specialists who know how to work with it. Also, people want to work with it and that motivates them to improve their knowledge of the engine on their own. UE is constantly developing, and we like using its new features.
A lot of graphic technologies work in UE “out of the box”, and that’s great, but creating an action movie experience in a cyberpunk world means having cool visuals, art, and effects of our own as well – reflections, lighting, weather, etc. And UE5 really shines at bringing that to life.
How are you making sure SPINE sets itself apart from similar games?
I feel like our combat mechanics, being focused around third-person close combat with guns, are quite unique. We also have our own animation software (Cascadeur) and very experienced animators working with it. People notice and like our animation quality.
When thinking about the current concept of the game, we thought ‘Why not make it an anthology of things the team and I love’? So we drew inspiration from everywhere.
We’re also committed to creating a very cinematic action – not with a QTE/cutscenes approach, but translating this feeling to game mechanics – we work here with various action movie specialists etc. We feel like we’re doing something that players will enjoy and they’ll want to share it with their friends.
The red paint spray paint mechanic is unique. How did that come about?
When we created Redline as a protagonist, we thought about ways she can ‘rebel’ against the system, to show that she’s a person and not just a cog in the dystopian city surrounding her. Graffiti is a very cool thing that conveys this idea, and we don’t have a lot of games featuring it.
So it immediately spread into our branding style, combat mechanics, and story. I’ve mentioned before that we like when game mechanics work on different levels. That’s why we try to use her spray paint in various ways, both in combat and outside of it.
What different skills are there for Redline and how do they factor into the game?
The game is quite linear in its structure, so it features a tightly focused skill tree. However, we want to tell the story about relationships between humans and AI, how Redline learns to trust her own AI (Spine), and how their improving rapport leads to her acquiring new combat skills.
That’s why many of the unlocked abilities would change the gameplay somehow – and we want you to feel that changes, when you acquire a dashing mechanic, an ability to counter-attack a gunshot, etc. Each of them makes you a bit more of a Gun Fu hero.
Games like Wanted: Dead, Sifu, and even the Batman: Arkham franchise rely on variety to offer the players options during combat. With that in mind, how many unique moves are there in total?
I think that good beat ‘em ups sometimes feel like you’re playing a piano – hitting all the right notes if you want to play efficiently. So our approach is to give various types of opponents that provoke you to use different mechanics, using breakers against enemies blocking you, forcing you to come around them to find an opening if they have a riot shield in their hands, finding an efficient weapon to get rid of them quickly (because inSPINEyou can disarm and take away different guns from your opponents), etc.
There are a lot of small tactical decisions you have to constantly make during gameplay. I can’t give you the exact amount of attacks as of now, but there are lots of them, and there are different weapon styles – pistols, shotguns, other small firearms, etc. – which have different movesets.
You also discussed the Hardest mode during our time together at Gamescom 2024, and mentioned the sunglass-wearing, one hit kill being a throwback to old action films. What other modes do you have in store for us?
Right now we’re focused on creating a main story mode and not diluting our attention, so to speak. We have ideas for New Game+, a Hardcore Game mode you’ve mentioned, and maybe some other challenge modes for speedrunners/boss-rushers, but that’s only being discussed as of now. After all, we’re still deep in the production of the main game and we really want it to be good.
Any news on the proposed film/TV series you have in the pipeline?
We announced a partnership with Story Kitchen to bring theSPINEuniverse to TV screens. We’re in the talks right now, discussing possible variants, scripts, etc. We’ll share more news when we’re able. We’re looking forward to it!
Co-op SPINE Ass Kicking When?
Originally, I remember seeing SPINE touted as a multiplayer game with different classes available, and compared to the likes of Overwatch etc. What prompted the change to the now single-player, story-intensive narrative?
It connects you to the character, you feel that you’re overcoming something constantly and getting better…
That’s why we announcedSPINEearly on when a small team and I were looking for the best idea for our company’s new IP. In the end, we came to the conclusion that at Nekki we are best at animation, art, characters, fluid combat, and story, and we agreedSPINEwill turn out much better as a story-driven game. We couldn’t be happier with this decision!
Will there be any multiplayer/coop modes available, or even added at a later date?
It’s not planned as of now. But we developed various prototypes ofSPINEin the beginning, so we have some interesting ideas for multiplayer lying around as well. We’ll see in the future.
You admitted to AI, and text-to-speech being used for some voice-over work to get it show-ready for Gamescom 2024. Will this be replaced by human actors by the time it is released?
Nothing beats the chemistry and art of actual voice actors. We’re in the middle of the casting process right now and we have begun recording some characters already.
The game is still in development, so at Gamescom, we demoed the game using some placeholder dialogue with text-to-speech. For us, text-to-speech is a useful tool to draft voice acting in games. you may immediately set up the voice lines inside the mission, check its script, timing, localisations, and directing, and make a fast iteration when it doesn’t work. This used to be done by team members in the past, but today we use this handy tool before turning to voice actors for the final performances.
What platforms are you planning to release for, and when?
We announcedSPINEfor PCs/PS5/Xbox Series. We don’t have the release date right now. We’re considering other platforms as well, but we’re not ready to make any announcements just yet.
If SPINE is a success, does that mean you’re more likely to focus on console games over mobile going forward?
Sure. Our studio is all about animation, action gameplay, and artwork and we think our work shines on PC and console. IfSPINEsells well, that means there’s a market for games like this – intense action, focused on the emotions, without watered-down gameplay experience, and so on. We’d definitely like to continue working on games like this in the future.
How do you plan on supporting the game post-release?
We don’t want to announce anything right now.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
We would like to ask people to join our Discord community. We like engaging with the community, hearing player’s ideas, and being more communicative as developers. I attempt to answer the questions there regularly, we have contests in which the best idea might make it into the game, and so on. We love our audience and the game we’re making, so it’s always great to talk!
Lastly, I’m not sure you’ll remember, but I suggested the ability to slide for Redline, but only during wet levels. Any chance you’ve decided to implement that yet?
Yes, we remember that! It’s been so busy since Gamescom that we haven’t had the time to consider it but we appreciate the suggestion. As I’ve said, it’s great to hear new ideas about the game mechanics! Bring it to the Discord!
Luke Addison
Former Head of Gaming
Articles Published :462
Luke Addison is a Former Video Game Critic and Gaming Editor. As likely to be caught listening to noughties rock as he is watching the latest blockbuster cinema release, Luke is the quintessential millennial wistfully wishing after a forgotten era of entertainment. Also a diehard Chelsea fan, for his sins.
