36 A Way Out
It takes two to keep these escaped convicts out of sight
PC, PS4, Xbox One
Josef Fares, it seems, is the new face of story-led game development. The Lebanese-Swedish film-director-turnedgame-maker would have risen to the top of anyone’s list regardless, but his journey to notoriety was expedited by his appearance at The Game Awards in December, with an exasperated Geoff Keighley trying to rein in the outspoken studio head. While his ‘fuck the Oscars’ patter was funny enough, and his line about EA and loot boxes (“all publishers fuck up sometimes”) had PRs loosening their collars in abject terror, one message rose above the din. With A Way Out, Fares might just be onto something special.
Telling the story of Leo and Vincent, convicted felons on the run after a prison break, A Way Out plays out as a story-led, co-op only adventure. Players will take control of one character or the other, either locally or online (either way in split-screen) and guide the escape artists on their way, making decisions as they go and getting to know one another as it progresses. And just to reiterate: it simply cannot be played alone, unless you’re able to successfully manipulate two controllers at the same time.
After playing A Way Out with Fares, there’s little doubt this is a concept with real potential – and the director’s confidence backs that up no end. With a relatively small team (starting at ten, growing to around 30) and a budget to match, at least by EA’s typical standards ($3.7 million from the publisher’s Originals imprint), Fares’ endless bravado can’t disguise the fact that it’s been hard to get this ambitious game up and running. “From the perspective of the small team we are, it’s been challenging for us,” Fares explains. “I made six feature films before
A Way Out and Brothers, and they’re nothing compared to making a game. It’s way harder. It’s way harder because of many things.
“When you make a movie, you pretty much have a solid idea of how the product should go; you can plan it better. In a game, you can’t really plan that out, especially if you’re doing something that hasn’t really been done before.” Fares and many of the returning Hazelight team worked on 2012’s well-received Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons before jumping almost straight into work on
A Way Out – and as we quickly approach launch we’re left with a game that feels, and looks, remarkably similar to what the team’s original plans set out to achieve. “I’m making the game I want to play with my friends,” Fares tells us. “I think playing a story together is an underestimated genre. It doesn’t all
have to be run-and-gun, you know?”
This distinction is one that’s hammered home repeatedly during our time with Fares – while the initial reveal of A Way
Out during E3 2017 prompted speculation about its production values and just how open-ended it would really be, concerns were unfounded. This is a linear story, where every scene goes from A to B: you will see variations in how you get to B, sure, but the outcome of the scene and the story will always be the same. Additionally, this is a game being made by a smaller team and will be released at a lower-than-full price. And, as Fares says, this really isn’t a run-and-gun kind of thing.
Speaking of money, Fares beams with pride as he tells us all about the Friends Pass: a system he and his team pushed for that allows a player to purchase and share one copy of
A Way Out with an online pal to be played, in full, from start to finish. When something is mandatory co-op it does seem a mite unfair to expect everyone playing to have to fork out, so small acts of kindness like this are very welcome – and may help repair at least some of the damage EA’s reputation has suffered in recent months.
It’s not a ‘true’ indie game, but the spirit behind A Way Out is invigorating. The specific action of robbing petrol stations, going fishing, sharing tender family moments and generally evading police capture might not be unique to this game, but the mechanics of the thing certainly are. Bespoke animations for each characters’ interactions, countless incidental touches, some superb flourishes and a real need to cooperate combine into something that, for all its maker’s bluster, more than lives up to its billing.
“I’ve done six feature films, and they’re nothing compared to making a game”