The unlikely story behind Hi-Fi Rush: Pitching the most \u201cun-Bethesda\u201d game to Bethesda Tango GameworksHi-Fi Rush\u2019s director, John Johanas, sat down with us at Dexerto to discuss how the game was brought to life despite being so different in comparison to his previous works and frankly, different from anything else on the market. Nobody could\u2019ve predicted the huge success of Hi-Fi Rush. Suddenly announced during Xbox\u2019s January 2023 Developer Direct, and released shortly after, the game was not only a massive departure in tone and gameplay for Tango Gameworks, but nobody knew anything about it beyond the quick announcement. It was a surefire surprise for any who jumped in right away. Before its debut in the Dev Direct, there were no trailers, no demos, nothing. It was a sudden stealth drop the likes of which we scarcely see due to the obvious risks involved. Yet, the game in all its colorful quirkiness and unique rhythm action gameplay managed to captivate the masses. Here came a new project by Tango, creators of The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo, stealthily dropping as their most vibrant game by a mile, one that felt more Edgar Wright than their previous John Carpenter-esque releases. So how just exactly how did Hi-Fi Rush come to be? We went straight to the source and spoke with the game\u2019s director over lunch in a recent interview. Hi-Fi Rush\u2019s departure: A post-Evil Within production John Johanas, fresh off directing The Evil Within 2, Tango\u2019s second game, and working on the horror series for seven years, wanted to create something different. During that time, Ghostwire: Tokyo was already in development as the studio\u2019s next big title, however, Tango was slowly being recognized as a horror-only game dev team. Johanas remarked, \u201cIf we\u2019re gonna try something different, we gotta try it now because we\u2019re getting further and further pigeonholed to this horror image.\u201d And it was around that time he felt the studio\u2019s next game could be an opportunity for them to create something remarkably different. However, he added that they didn\u2019t want to make something different just for the sake of it, that it had to necessitate its uniqueness. In fact, Tango\u2019s founder, legendary game director Shinji Mikami, who\u2019s responsible for Resident Evil, Phoenix Wright, and a whole host of classics, also felt the same way. \u201cMikami-san at that point, also didn\u2019t want the studio to just be a horror studio. So he was like: \u2018OK, so all these things we\u2019ve been talking about for a long time? Now let\u2019s actually do it.\u2019.\u201d And just like that, Johanas\u2019 and the team\u2019s idea to create a game that was brighter, more colorful, more fun, and an overall departure from what they\u2019ve done previously, became a reality. Pitching the most \u201cun-Bethesda\u201d game to Bethesda Johanas once remarked that Hi-Fi Rush was the most \u201cun-Bethesda\u201d Bethesda game to come out. But just like any game, it started off with a pitch. \u201cThink of it as two phases,\u201d Johanas explained to us, detailing how the first phase went. \u201cI pitched it internally to [Tango Gamework] as the next project that would be interesting to us as developers, and as developers, we were excited about it.\u201d Shinji Mikami, who was also present at that pitch, was in full support of the game. \u201cAt that point, Mikami-san was looking at the project and was like: \u2018This is really cool, it\u2019s interesting, and it\u2019s different than what we\u2019ve done before, but is also a good challenge.\u2019\u201d Luckily for the team, there was a Bethesda executive producer also present at the pitch meeting, who also thought the game\u2019s concept was \u201cvery cool\u201d. But this EP wasn\u2019t quite as convinced. \u201cI also pitched it as that, this is the most un-Bethesda game possible. And they were like: \u2018I agree. They\u2019re probably not going to say \u2018ok\u2019 to this\u2019,\u201d Johanas joked of the unnamed executive\u2019s reaction. The pitching meeting wasn\u2019t a unanimous agreement. Before getting the green light, the devs were asked to make a prototype of the game, without all its trademark art, just to show off their idea because many higher-ups couldn\u2019t wrap their heads around it in theory. \u201cYou don\u2019t expect us as a horror studio to make this game that\u2019s fun, rhythm action\u2026 Like what does that even mean on paper?\u201d Johanas recalled. \u201cEven in that first meeting, people didn\u2019t quite understand what that rhythm action means.\u201d However, the gameplay presented in the playable prototype was, as Johanas remarked, \u201ceerily similar\u201d to what the final game would be like, which goes to show just how strong a vision the team had for their idea. \u201cIt\u2019s like the same game,\u201d he said. In fact, the prototype in itself was already such a departure from Tango\u2019s other works that people who internally checked out the game didn\u2019t even know it was them who were responsible for it. \u201cPeople played that without knowing we were making it\u2026 and people played it and were like: \u2018This is really fun! My god, who\u2019s making it? We should make this game.\u2019 The second phase was bringing it to Bethesda. With concept art, which he admits wasn\u2019t exactly finalized, and a playable prototype that people loved in hand, they approach the video game giants to possibly greenlight to project. Of course, they eventually got the go-ahead, but it wasn\u2019t without a fair amount of hesitation. \u201cWhile there was some, \u2018we don\u2019t know, we\u2019ve never done something like this before\u2019, there was a lot of excitement about doing something different.\u201d Creating Hi-Fi Rush\u2019s gameplay: Rhythm action is the future When explaining his influences for the game\u2019s combat, Johanas briefly pointed out a particular action scene from Shaun of the Dead by Edgar Wright, of which it\u2019s quite clear the teams took quite a bit from inspiration. The scene was the bar fight scene in which the main characters fight off a single zombie with their attacks synced up to Queen\u2019s Don\u2019t Stop Me Now. Naturally, that idea was morphed into their prototype build which was surprisingly similar to the end product. However, the idea of rhythm action wasn\u2019t exactly as well known as today with games like Bullets Per Minute, Ape Out, or Sayonara Wild Hearts. \u201cWhen I pitched the game, I felt like there was nothing like this that existed, so that\u2019s why I think it\u2019s kind of worth doing,\u201d Johanas said of their initial idea of Hi-Fi Rush, saying they didn\u2019t choose to do it because it was something other devs had already jumped on. Rather, he puts the proliferation of the specific style of action gameplay down to the fact technology has made it much easier for devs to sync up audio and gameplay. Yet while these earlier examples found some success, they weren\u2019t an exact clone of what the team was looking for. \u201cIt didn\u2019t give me the feel that I was personally looking for at the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich was that combination of character action game of you being in control and full freedom of your character, with everything syncing up like a music video.\u201d And that shows in the game\u2019s combat. During non-boss fights, each hit from our character, Chai, feels as if we as the player were composing the song off the cuff yet also swinging our makeshift axe\/mace around in sync to a preexisting track. And even when a Nine Inch Nails or Fiona Apple song is played non-diegetically along with our fights, it doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s just a song to add to the atmosphere of the fight, rather it feels as if every action is in tune with the beat. But did the steady drip of rhythm action games discourage the team from their vision? No, it did not. Rather, it helped them justify the fact there is a market for rhythm action games and that they were on the right track. \u201cIt was actually almost reinforcing,\u201d Johanas said. \u201cThis is an idea people want. People are making these games, they\u2019re spending time making these games, they\u2019re maybe in a different direction, but the idea of this music combined with the gameplay is something that inherently has an audience that are enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The unlikely story behind Hi-Fi Rush: Pitching the most \u201cun-Bethesda\u201d game to Bethesda Tango GameworksHi-Fi Rush\u2019s director, John Johanas, sat down with us at Dexerto to discuss how the game was brought to life despite being so different in comparison to his previous works and frankly, different from anything else on the market. Nobody could\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}