Hello, my name’s Takashima. I was in charge of the cut scenes in Anarchy Reigns.

Or, to elaborate, I head the cinematics team that makes cut scenes that advance the story.
While Anarchy Reigns is a game made for long bouts of multiplayer online pummeling, the diversity of each original character really comes together to make a solid campaign mode. Which, owing to, our team never went hungry as far as workload went.
In actuality, I sat around eating so many snacks that I gained weight… which is often how the story goes, but anyway… I’m here to talk about what went behind making this game’s cinematics.

The goal of our cinematics team was to execute development as effectively as possibly while staying loyal to the game’s production style. Making each scene requires a lot: models, motions, effects, UI, sound and sound effects, and so on. First, we allot some time for previz and make a rough layout of the choreographing in each cut scene. We figure out what would be a good amount of cut scenes for the game and what needs to go in each scene. This lets us be flexible for when we start working on the actual cut scene itself.

If you’re unsure what previz is, take a look at this video. A video will probably describe it a lot faster than words. You’ll see a comparison of our initial outline, and the almost final copy (look forward to the final-final copy when you play the game)

• Notice the girl just kind of sliding around in the previz version. But you get a picture of how you need to make her move.
• At first, we had Jack put his right (chainsaw) hand up to his ear, but later we changed this to his left, real hand to make him appear a little less machine-like.
• Even samples of effects are made to give us an idea of what effects we want to use at what timing in the cut scene.

For faces, we tried making a rig that would be able to express the individuality of each character. By narrowing down the number of recorded expressions, we were able to achieve a controller that could produce most of the expressions we wanted. In order for the expressions we recorded to mix well when we blended them, we prepared something in between individual and plain expression.

In campaign mode, you the player chase after Max, a wanted criminal, with one of the story’s two heroes: Jack or Leo.
Along the way, a whole mess of original characters cross paths, block paths, or travel along with who you pick for the main character. To find out what world they live in, and why they fight, experience the engrossing environment of Anarchy Reigns and find the character you feel best letting loose with.