Hydrophobia: play area big enough to drown you silly

September 10, 2008

Hydrophobia is set in the Queen of the World ocean liner. Ever wondered how huge the playing area would be? Get this: 1.5 kilometers long, half a kilometer wide, and six decks deep. That’s huge compared to the Titanic. But… is this big enough to be a sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto? Not so fast, bub. Time to dive into an interview for all the juicy details!

I’ve been on the look out for Hydrophobia since way back in January 2007 when its first press release came out. That’s even waaay before they showed the E3 08 trailer that finally captivated the larger gaming populace.

Today, we hear of an interview Three Speech conducted with Blade Interactive‘s Rob Hewson and Pete Jones. In between talking about the story of how the terrorists eventually ended up hijacking the Queen of the World liner, the developers reveal to us how huge the game actually is, in terms of playing area.

See, as Rob Hewson explains, the ship is 1.5 kilometers long, half a kilometer wide, and six decks deep (The real-world Titanic, which is 269 meters long and 28 meters wide, is tiny compared to this). Calculating that, we get a total play area of 4.5 square kilometers in Hydrophobia‘s ocean liner.

Huge much? Hearing this, I now picture GTA4‘s map for Liberty City, but then that’d be comparing apples and oranges. Liberty CIty is, after all… a city, while the Queen of the World is a ship – a very huge ship.

As if anticipating this GTA4 land area comparison, Pete Jones actually clarifies that Hydrophobia shouldn’t be seen as a sandbox game. They have, however, put a lot into consideration to make the whole ship (and of course the water) work so well together:

ItÂ’s not a sandbox game, itÂ’s a narrative driven adventure, but we had to approach things differently because of the water. Anyone who has seen floods on the news can appreciate that the behaviour of large volumes of water can be difficult to control and predict because they affect everything at once and move on very quickly.

If this wall gives way and a stray bullet shoots out that window, the water flow is dramatically altered. As such branching in the levels becomes more a result of endlessly testing the simulation in each area to cover every possible scenario than a cut and dry level design decision.

The result is levels that feel fluid as you play through them, you wonÂ’t always take the same path, and itÂ’s not always because of a conscious choice.

Every system in the game, including the systems driving the narrative, has been designed from the ground up with this fluidity in mind.

That bit about how a small bullet hole in a room could change the course of water is just downright amazing. I could already imagine just sitting for hours playing in the water and fooling around with it!

Anyways, since I absolutely positively can’t get enough of it, let’s see that E3 2008 trailer once again, shall we? Just for kicks!