The 32-bit Getaway

Before The Getaway was ever a Playstation 2 title, it began life on the Playstation

The prototype let you choose one of five different car types. The player, after viewing a cutscene of a bank robbery and a subsequent scene where robbers entered the getaway car, would aim to evade the Police in a high-speed chase.

At some point during the prototyping phase of what eventually became the PS2 classic, the game ‘Car 2’ was renamed The Getaway, complete with the font that would be later used in the finished product.

Even at this stage, seeing The Getaway in action brings forward thoughts of Team Soho's other games. With that in mind, The Getaway can be seen as a natural progression from games like 1997’s Porsche Challenge.

It wouldn’t be a proper chase through a city without frantically driving through random cardboard boxes down an alley. This style of hightempo gameplay found its way into the final product, albeit in a far more realistic fashion.

Though known as Car 2, most of the team simply called it ‘Minis in a field’. Once the team decided to bring it to the PS2, it was to time to supercharge everything. Chun says, “No one was particularly excited by a game called Car 2.”

The entirety of the Playstation prototype is centred on London Bridge, which would lay the foundations for how Team Soho eventually recreated ten square miles of London for the final version of The Getaway.

Fitting with The Getaway’s cinematic inspirations, the initial Playstation version of game featured a Mini Cooper driving through the streets of London, making a call back to the classic British crime film The Italian Job.

Though management loved Team Soho’s prototype, the team needed to choose if they wanted to make a great, if safe, Playstation title or a PS2 title that tried something entirely new. Team Soho choose the latter.