Interview: Pirates of the Caribbean (Wii)

With the third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise on a smooth course through cinemas worldwide, and Jack Sparrow's first Wii adventure entering the hearts of fans stepping into the famous pirate's shoes, we sat down with developer Eurocom's Senior Producer Nicholas Bridger to talk about bringing the pirate's life to Wii.

Nintendo of Europe: Mr. Bridger, how does one go about re-creating the massive personality of Captain Jack Sparrow and bringing his humour and mannerisms to life in a video game?

Nicholas Bridger: "It's a very difficult and time-consuming task, especially trying to bring such a distinctive character to life in games where the screen time is a lot more than in the films. To achieve the task, we enlisted the help of the film's scriptwriters, hired a Johnny Depp motion-capture actor, and spent a lot of time getting the models and dialogue right. We also wanted to incorporate his persona in to the gameplay, approaching situations as Jack would and design the levels and features from the outset to take advantage of his unique characteristics."

NoE: Your company has transformed quite a few feature films into video games. How much of a challenge is it to give a game a unique voice while staying true to the cinematic plot and settings?

NB: "It's a huge challenge. From the outset we wanted to create a game that was not just the poor cousin to the film, but something that stands up in its own right and isn't judged by the film. It's very difficult trying to stay true to the cinematic plot, especially one as complicated as Pirates', whilst concentrating on the most important thing: gameplay. What works on celluloid doesn't necessarily work in games, so we need to be very creative about the pieces we want to emulate from the films, the new stuff we want to include whilst staying true to a deep, detailed plot!"

NoE: Does the film company, Walt Disney Pictures in this case, give you an opportunity to see rushes from the film as you prepare for the game? Do you work off of story boards and set designs, or do you design and create off of something entirely different?

NB: "Absolutely. There's still a stigma in Hollywood surrounding videogames which makes it difficult to gain their trust and receive the huge amount of material needed to create these huge games. We were lucky on Pirates as we have built up a good report with the Studios, which has allowed us unprecedented access to a huge amount of materials, including all of the dailies [unedited footage directly from the set, ed.] and storyboards.

"As games take longer than films to produce and create, due to the long production time needed, we usually work from storyboards, blueprints and whatever pre-production material we can get, along with working with location managers, unit photographers and the writers to really get a head-start on creating the immense amount of assets we need, whilst also introducing a ton of our own stuff."

NoE: With the free-motion controls of the Wii Remote and the many possibilities that accompany them, how did your team finally decide what the best use of the Wii Remote was for the sword-fighting aspects of the game?

NB: "We've learnt a lot from this iteration of Pirates. We want the player to really feel like they were swinging the sword, but found that our combat can be quite intense, which changed our approach slightly to make it less tiring! The Jackanism [special sequences in which different activities are required to play more like Jacp Sparrow, ed.] feature also really allows us to utilise the controller in different ways whilst offering a nice break of pace to the player from standard melee combat."

NoE: In the game, players perform plenty of action moves with the Wii Remote, and then the game will occasionally switch to prompt-based gameplay. What made you decide to include such different styles of gameplay within the same game?

NB: "It's really about variation and fatigue. We want the player to feel part of the world, not just tacked onto it. Using the Wii Remote in a number of ways really helps build that attachment. It's also to add variation for the player so it gives them something different and breaks up the game whilst not giving them arm cramp due to the high intensity of the combat! "

NoE: Mr. Bridger, thank you for your time!

Come back soon for an intervew about the Nintendo DS version of the game! Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is in shops now, for Nintendo DS and Wii.