There is now new Tron movie, that's the official word from Disney.
But with the way Monolith is developing Tron 2.0 – the PC game – you won't need to watch Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges flitter about onscreen. Instead, you can just lean back in your desk chair, play the game, and imagine it as a movie sequel.
Tron first came out in 1982, and the game reflects that 20-year gab: You play as Jet Bradley, the son of Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, who also provides his voice for the game). Alan suddenly and mysteriously disappears, and while investigating his father's fate, Jet is digitized into the Tron world, smack-dab in the middle of a big conflict among the three factions of the ICP, the Corruption, and fCon. And who knows – while navigating weird and wild levels like the Progress Bar or Internet Hub, Jet might run into the legendary Tron himself.
COLOR COORDINATION
The first thing you'll notice about Tron 2.0 is the glow effect, courtesy of the LithTech Triton engine (an enhanced version of the LithTech Jupiter engine that powers NOLF2). Through sheer technical wizardry that I can’t even begin to understand, LithTech Triton allows for an even more striking version of the soft, electronic glow in the movie. "If we didn't have the glow, we wouldn’t have the game – it’s that simple,” says Eric Kohler, the art director for Tron 2.0.
The way the glow interacts with color is another important aspect of Tron's design, Kohler explains, "The primary focus of the art design is the supersaturated color glow. More than in any other game, the simplicity of color was the key to the whole art direction." Color theory is used even in depicting various characters: The police are painted red, universally recognized as "stop," while the Corrupted are done in dizzying fluorescent yellow, and the power-hungry fCon are bathed in regal purple. Helpful neutrals display a cool, detached blue.
In defining the look of the game, Disney gave Monolith free reign. "Even though we had the freedom to design an abstract computer world, we still had to make things recognizable, like doors and such. So, our only limitation was that we couldn't get too wacky," says Kohler.
He also adds, "Besides the movie itself, and the design work of Syd Mead and Moebius, the only other influence art-wise was anime. We looked at how anime uses shapes in designing cities and vehicles, and applied some of those principles to Tron."
CYCLES OF DEATH
The most iconic aspect from the movie – the one that fanboys are most anxious to see – is the lightcycle race. And the vehicles make sense in the context of the game: They're not just random lightcycle levels to please Tron fans – they fit into the game plot as well as they did in the movie.
For example, in the first lightcycle level (the tutorial). Jet is captured and forced to race for freedom, much in the same way Flynn and Tron raced back in the movie. Lightcycles use just three controls: left, right, and camera control. Most races play pretty much like in the original arcade game or in the movie: You zip around and try to make three A.I. racers crash into the wall-trail that you leave behind. The camera automatically cuts to a third-person view, but you can alter the angle and zoom of the camera, and even switch to first-person mode.
Why the heck would you want to pilot the lightcycle in first-person, you ask? It will be useful when you're being chased in the city.
That's right, besides lightcycle matches on the game grid, you'll also use lightcycles in chase sequences. You’ll have to navigate the streets of a huge city (lightcycles are so fast that Monolith had to design large levels to drive them on), and since you just want to see where you’re going, it’s better to be in first person for these scenes.
THE TRON ARENA
Another signature Tron aspect is the Pong-like arena games that the programs were forced to participate in. The developers realized this would be an ideal multiplayer environment.
Instead of a traditional Deathmatch mode ("This won’t be Quake with Tron skins," says senior producer Cliff Kamida), there will be arena combat, just like in the movie. Two or more players will be placed on floating discs and will basically play a lethal version of Pong. Besides knocking the disc back and forth at each other, they can also destroy the ground underneath the opponent. Matches can be anywhere from one-on-one to (conceivably) six-on-six, depending on how the levels are designed. Currently, there will be five multiplayer arenas, including a Discs of Tron arena (straight from the movie) and an arena inside an Intel CPU. Monolith plans to release mod tools so users can make their own weird, abstract Tron arenas.
Spectator mode won't just be a free-floating camera, as in other games. Instead, you'll be an in-game spectator, watching from the skybox and waiting for the match to end so you can take on the winner. There will be free-for-all games (similar to exhibition matches) and organized tournaments, where the current champion wields a gold disc during the match.
TCP/IP A.I.
Enough with the movie references and rehashes: How does the game actually play? Some hands-on time revealed that it’s a logical progression of Monolith’s story-driven style when it comes to shooters. Thirty levels scattered across 11 missions make for lots of eye candy as mission locales range from Internet servers to the original Tron mainframe from the first movie. Puzzles within these levels include breaking through a firewall or tracking down the source of corrupted data within an Internet hub.
A.I. for both enemies and friendlies has been tweaked specifically for Tron 2.0. Mercury – seen on the cover – is a friendly program (she is also a romantic interest, providing more character interaction between bouts of shooting), and she will often help Jet fulfill objectives. Ma3a – Alan Bradley’s new A.I. – will provide objectives and advice. Sometimes you’ll be able to ask NPCs for advice, and any pertinent info will be added to Jet's objectives screen: think of the NPCs as a built-in hint system to help players who are stuck. Enemies, such as the ICP, can and will call in reinforcements, and are smart enough to switch between melee and ranged weapons when appropriate.
USER UPGRADE
Then there’s the whole role-playing aspect. Inspired by System Shock 2, and done invisibly in NOLF and visibly in NOLF2, you can customize your character so he can handle any situation. The heart of this is the subroutine menu, a disc that displays available subroutines and your vital stats. You'll find new subroutines (think of them as weapons or abilities) on enemies or data archives, and how many subroutines you can have active at once depends on the RAM of the computer you’re in. So, if you’re in a PDA, you can probably have just one subroutine active, but when you’re in a huge Internet server, you can have almost everything you've collected active simultaneously. Subroutines include flash buffer, which makes weapons quieter, megahertz for damage boosts, and fuzzy routines to make your footsteps quieter. Sometimes you'll accidentally pick up corrupted or virus-filled software and will need to do things like disinfect or defrag your system in order to repair yourself.
Additionally, you can get build nodes that increase your version number. You can then distribute these nodes to stats like health, energy, recharge, and so forth, in order to shape Jet's growth. He starts as version 1.0, and if you work hard enough, he can go all the way to 10. Lead designer Frank Rooke is hoping that players will use the subroutines and the build nodes to individualize Jet to their playing style.
Monolith's commitment to making a strong, cinematic game shows in everything in this design. Whether it's imagining the language that computer programs use in their speech to each other, figuring out what color glow to put on different characters, or designing what a PDA level would look like, Tron 2.0 looks like a game designed to capture the interest of both hardcore gamers and Tron fans who haven’t kept up with computer gaming. Who needs a new Tron movie when you can play the story instead?
Syd Mead discusses TRON work and design
Syd Mead is best-known for his work on the design concepts for Tron and Blade Runner. We caught up with him to see what he thought about Tron 2.0.
CGW: How much of the game have you seen? How involved are you with it?
SYD: I last saw the game at E3 and got to look at the firewall level in particular. The art team did a good job of maintaining the movie's look and feel while updating it. My sole contribution to the game is designing the new supercycles.
CGW: What were the major differences in designing the old lightcycles for the movie and the new ones in the game?
SYD: Well, due to the limitation of technology at the time, the old lightcycles were more of an exercise in design with solid, geometric shapes rather than actual car or motorcycle design. In fact, the reason the lightcycles were closed is because computers couldn’t properly animate a person riding one at the time. For the new supercycles, I had to reacquaint myself with current motorcycle design. I just went to my bookstore and bought magazines and books to see how people customized theirs, and what manufacturers are making nowadays.
CGW: Do you think sci-fi design was better back in ‘82 (when Mead designed both Tron and Blade Runner] – with limited tools and technology – or nowadays, with CGI being used everywhere?
SYD: In my mind, limitations of technology make you work harder and result in better overall design. Most of the CGI designwork I see nowadays resembles demo reels from Industrial Light & Magic rather than artistic and conceptual design. Basically, you can have a really bad idea, and all you can get from those multimillion-dollar computers is a multimillion-dollar bad idea.
