Prototype 2
Encyclopedia
Prototype 2 is an upcoming video game set for release on April 24, 2012 in North America. It is currently under development by Canadian developer Radical Entertainment
and is the sequel to 2009's Prototype
. Like its original, the game is set to be published by Radical Entertainment's owner, Activision
. The game is set to feature a new protagonist
, Sergeant James Heller, as he goes on his quest to destroy the Blacklight Virus once and for all. The story is also one of revenge, as Heller wants to kill Mercer after his family was killed in the outbreak of the Blacklight Virus. Set in an open world
shown in a third-person view perspective. The game was announced at the 2010 Spike VGA Awards with the tagline "Murder your Maker".
To give gamers more power in the game, the developers have added tendrils. Tendrils sprout from Heller's arm and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as reaching out into the game environment. Players can use tendrils to smash objects into other objects, such as a car into a tank or vice-versa. Also, players can string up enemies into "webs", much like the abilities of Spider-Man
, to make them vulnerable for further attacks. Players are able to rip enemies in half. Players will be able to dismember all enemies, a force that will become more useful as the game progresses. There are many more ways to kill enemies, ranging from throwing a tank at group of Blackwatch soldiers, hacking off a mutants head or using the tendrils. In the original game, there were limited options that allowed you to destroy airborne enemies. in Prototype 2 ,however, they have many more options available such as an uppercut, or the use of tendrils. When the player picks up a person, the game will no longer automatically kill them starting a combat sequence, Radical has tweaked this to become a useful tool, an intimidation factor.
Unlike the original, Heller will not be given his missions by a person, but rather choose them himself. Hacking onto Blacknet, a system of Blackwatch that details military operations and the three areas of NYZ, Heller chooses his own missions. Blacknet will allow Heller to find operations that he can disrupt or take control of for his own purposes, or find important people that will allow him to learn more about what he has become because of the Blacklight virus. It will also help him find out more about Alex Mercer and what his connections are to his family's deaths. The missions that are selectable can be sidequests (sub-missions) or extensions to the main quest that tell Heller more about the Blacklight Virus.
has been quarantined and blocked from the other boroughs of New York City
, which has been renamed New York Zero (NYZ). The boroughs of New York have been divided into three zones, the Red Zone, Yellow Zone and the Green Zone. Each region stands for how affected New York City is by the Blacklight Virus. The Red Zone is the home of Alex Mercer, in it the Blacklight Virus grows unhindered, thrives and mutates, the Red Zone is the destroyed Manhattan. The Yellow Zone is a triage area full of shanty towns and the poor, it is very crowded and while the virus grows there, it is at a minimum and Blackwatch is also using the Yellow Zone as a petri dish. The Green Zone is non-infected New York City, except there is a heavy Blackwatch presence. James Heller will have missions in each zone and each mission's difficulty will depend on which zone it takes place in. Blackwatch is credited as occupying and controlling NYZ, but they are said to know that New York actually belongs to Alex Mercer even though the latter has become a ghost and is only seen rarely and even then only a glimpse of him for a split second can be caught.
Due to the mutation of the virus, Heller is not completely like Mercer in terms with the virus. The virus' mutation has granted it tendrils, which make's Heller's appearance more fluid and organic than Mercer's black and red, metallic coloration.
and Iraq
.
Heller returns to New York Zero to find Blackwatch burning the bodies of his family amongst others. He blames Alex Mercer for their deaths as he released the virus while fleeing from Blackwatch as they attempted to apprehend him in an act of defiance. Wanting to be with his family, Heller joins the military again to fight the virus, hoping to eventually be killed in battle.
Helller participates in the most dangerous missions and out of his rage, he always comes out alive. Due to his frequent success in battle, he learns classified information of Blackwatch. He learns that Blackwatch was created to protect the United States during the Cold War
from nuclear and biological warfare. In 1963, their scientists created the Blacklight Virus which infected and destroyed the town of Hope, Idaho. Elite soldiers were then sent to Hope, Idaho to destroy the virus, a nearly impossible task. They found one survivor, Elizabeth Greene, an incubator of the virus, who was then codenamed Mother. Blackwatch, along with Gentek, the creators of the virus, decided to contain the virus and went to war in Hope, Idaho against the mutants which ended in 2008, when the last of the mutants were eradicated. In 2008, however, Alex Mercer, a Gentek scientist, stole a vial of the Blacklight Virus, became infected and became a monster. He then accidentally freed Elizabeth Greene, killed her and destroyed a nuclear missile designed to destroy Manhattan. Mercer was believed dead.
On one mission, Heller is mortally wounded and appears to finally be getting what he desired, death. He is then saved by Alex Mercer who injects him with his mutated version of the Blacklight virus as Mercer has developed an interest in Heller. This enrages Heller even more, as it was because of Alex Mercer he wanted to die. Taking full advantage of his new powers, Heller decides to destroy the Blacklight virus, as he believes it killed his family. To do this, Heller taps on to the Blacknet System to decide where and how to strike the virus. As stated by Radical, the Heller vs. Mercer revenge story is the game's A-Plot and there is to be a more complex and multithreaded B-Plot.
New elite soldiers are then given the same briefing Heller was given, with an additional target, Heller himself. Blackwatch declares Heller their new main priority and do not care if he is allied with Blackwatch or Mercer, but they want him contained.
Alex then begins to spread the virus throughout NYZ and Heller struggles to contain and neutralize it. Heller then apprehends Alex standing above a pedestal. Heller claims that Mercer's death would have been quick, but now, he will make him suffer.
In June 2011, it was confirmed that Prototype 2 would not have online multiplayer. They had stated that while it was a fun concept in third-person action games, in the end it was just not a necessary concept to make it a better game. Ken Rossman, however, stated that Prototype 2 would have downloadable content
app for the game. The app is called Blacknet, named after the game's mission system, and it allows fans to work together to "hack" the interface. Hacking it will allow the fans to uncover a series of videos, interviews and other behind the scenes content, all in the run up to the game’s launch. Also via Facebook, Radical unveiled that they would announce something huge for Prototype 2 at ComicCon. This was the ability to let people play the game, they also released the first of three trailers detailing the story of Prototype 2. At ComicCon, Activision held a raffle in which the winner won either the jacket worn by James Heller, or Alex Mercer's jacket; and a custom skinned Xbox 360
. At ComicCon, Activision employees were handing out PROTOTYPE 2 themed goodies, including t-shirts, posters, giant foam Nigiller Blade Arms and more materials based on the game. Activision released for iOS
an official game titled ProtoSlice, available free to download.
awarded Prototype 2 as Activision's best game at Comic Con and did not pull out a con in his review of the game, but a wish as to what he didn't want to see.
Radical Entertainment
Radical Entertainment is a video game developer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1991 and previously developed games for game publishers such as THQ, Microsoft and Fox Interactive. It is now an entirely owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard after being acquired by...
and is the sequel to 2009's Prototype
Prototype (video game)
Prototype is an open world action video game developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision. The game was released in North America on June 9, 2009, and in southwestern parts of North America as well as Oceania on June 10, and was released in Europe on June 12.The game is set in New...
. Like its original, the game is set to be published by Radical Entertainment's owner, Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
. The game is set to feature a new protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Sergeant James Heller, as he goes on his quest to destroy the Blacklight Virus once and for all. The story is also one of revenge, as Heller wants to kill Mercer after his family was killed in the outbreak of the Blacklight Virus. Set in an open world
Open world
An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives...
shown in a third-person view perspective. The game was announced at the 2010 Spike VGA Awards with the tagline "Murder your Maker".
Gameplay
Like Alex Mercer, James Heller can shapeshift and assume other people’s identities and memories by consuming them. Taking peoples identities and shape-shifting into them has become more tactical. Due to Blackwatch's actions in the Yellow Zone, if the player assumes the role of a soldier, people will react back to him in a way that they show they want nothing to do with him. To make sure that enemies do not overwhelm the player, Radical has created a dodging system and new, more realistic AI. Heller will be able to use weapons in the game, such as ripping the cannon off of a tank and using it against enemies. Heller can also sneak up on unsuspecting human enemies, inject the Blacklight virus in them and create a "BioBomb" out of them to blow up objects, enemies and such. James Heller also has improved strength, movement, invulnerability (self-healing and endurance), and has a sonar sense. The sonar includes a new pulse ability that highlights the key features of an environment to make it easier for the player to find something or someone, instead of looking in a large crowd for a person with an icon above their head. Radical has stated that the powers will be more meaningful, they will come in mutations and upgrades that let players decide how they want to play as Heller.To give gamers more power in the game, the developers have added tendrils. Tendrils sprout from Heller's arm and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as reaching out into the game environment. Players can use tendrils to smash objects into other objects, such as a car into a tank or vice-versa. Also, players can string up enemies into "webs", much like the abilities of Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
, to make them vulnerable for further attacks. Players are able to rip enemies in half. Players will be able to dismember all enemies, a force that will become more useful as the game progresses. There are many more ways to kill enemies, ranging from throwing a tank at group of Blackwatch soldiers, hacking off a mutants head or using the tendrils. In the original game, there were limited options that allowed you to destroy airborne enemies. in Prototype 2 ,however, they have many more options available such as an uppercut, or the use of tendrils. When the player picks up a person, the game will no longer automatically kill them starting a combat sequence, Radical has tweaked this to become a useful tool, an intimidation factor.
Unlike the original, Heller will not be given his missions by a person, but rather choose them himself. Hacking onto Blacknet, a system of Blackwatch that details military operations and the three areas of NYZ, Heller chooses his own missions. Blacknet will allow Heller to find operations that he can disrupt or take control of for his own purposes, or find important people that will allow him to learn more about what he has become because of the Blacklight virus. It will also help him find out more about Alex Mercer and what his connections are to his family's deaths. The missions that are selectable can be sidequests (sub-missions) or extensions to the main quest that tell Heller more about the Blacklight Virus.
Setting & Characters
Taking place 14 months after Prototype, ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
has been quarantined and blocked from the other boroughs of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, which has been renamed New York Zero (NYZ). The boroughs of New York have been divided into three zones, the Red Zone, Yellow Zone and the Green Zone. Each region stands for how affected New York City is by the Blacklight Virus. The Red Zone is the home of Alex Mercer, in it the Blacklight Virus grows unhindered, thrives and mutates, the Red Zone is the destroyed Manhattan. The Yellow Zone is a triage area full of shanty towns and the poor, it is very crowded and while the virus grows there, it is at a minimum and Blackwatch is also using the Yellow Zone as a petri dish. The Green Zone is non-infected New York City, except there is a heavy Blackwatch presence. James Heller will have missions in each zone and each mission's difficulty will depend on which zone it takes place in. Blackwatch is credited as occupying and controlling NYZ, but they are said to know that New York actually belongs to Alex Mercer even though the latter has become a ghost and is only seen rarely and even then only a glimpse of him for a split second can be caught.
Due to the mutation of the virus, Heller is not completely like Mercer in terms with the virus. The virus' mutation has granted it tendrils, which make's Heller's appearance more fluid and organic than Mercer's black and red, metallic coloration.
Story
Despite only being spotted for split-seconds, reports in the NYZ have stated that Alex Mercer (voiced by Shaun Paul Piccinino) has been coming out more frequently and that he is largely suspected to be the main cause of all the death. Getting a phone call from his family, Sergeant James Heller (voiced by Cornell Womack) learns of his wife's fear of Blackwatch and reassures her that they are experts and for them to not fret as he will be home the next day from his tour in AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Heller returns to New York Zero to find Blackwatch burning the bodies of his family amongst others. He blames Alex Mercer for their deaths as he released the virus while fleeing from Blackwatch as they attempted to apprehend him in an act of defiance. Wanting to be with his family, Heller joins the military again to fight the virus, hoping to eventually be killed in battle.
Helller participates in the most dangerous missions and out of his rage, he always comes out alive. Due to his frequent success in battle, he learns classified information of Blackwatch. He learns that Blackwatch was created to protect the United States during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
from nuclear and biological warfare. In 1963, their scientists created the Blacklight Virus which infected and destroyed the town of Hope, Idaho. Elite soldiers were then sent to Hope, Idaho to destroy the virus, a nearly impossible task. They found one survivor, Elizabeth Greene, an incubator of the virus, who was then codenamed Mother. Blackwatch, along with Gentek, the creators of the virus, decided to contain the virus and went to war in Hope, Idaho against the mutants which ended in 2008, when the last of the mutants were eradicated. In 2008, however, Alex Mercer, a Gentek scientist, stole a vial of the Blacklight Virus, became infected and became a monster. He then accidentally freed Elizabeth Greene, killed her and destroyed a nuclear missile designed to destroy Manhattan. Mercer was believed dead.
On one mission, Heller is mortally wounded and appears to finally be getting what he desired, death. He is then saved by Alex Mercer who injects him with his mutated version of the Blacklight virus as Mercer has developed an interest in Heller. This enrages Heller even more, as it was because of Alex Mercer he wanted to die. Taking full advantage of his new powers, Heller decides to destroy the Blacklight virus, as he believes it killed his family. To do this, Heller taps on to the Blacknet System to decide where and how to strike the virus. As stated by Radical, the Heller vs. Mercer revenge story is the game's A-Plot and there is to be a more complex and multithreaded B-Plot.
New elite soldiers are then given the same briefing Heller was given, with an additional target, Heller himself. Blackwatch declares Heller their new main priority and do not care if he is allied with Blackwatch or Mercer, but they want him contained.
Alex then begins to spread the virus throughout NYZ and Heller struggles to contain and neutralize it. Heller then apprehends Alex standing above a pedestal. Heller claims that Mercer's death would have been quick, but now, he will make him suffer.
Development
Development of the game started soon after the popular success of the first game and has been in development for three years. The game was first shown at the Spike 2010 VGA Awards in December. The game was then revealed to be the main focus of the April, 2011 EGM Issue. It was displayed in EGM and EGMI in 2011 revealing many new details about the game's plot, characters and gameplay. The game's graphics have been completely updated with buildings being much more detailed and deformation of vehicles, mutants and humans being much more visual. It was also revealed that players would be able to use humans as bombs to destroy other enemies with so that destruction in the game would be much more "fun".In June 2011, it was confirmed that Prototype 2 would not have online multiplayer. They had stated that while it was a fun concept in third-person action games, in the end it was just not a necessary concept to make it a better game. Ken Rossman, however, stated that Prototype 2 would have downloadable content
Promotion
To promote the game, Radical Entertainment has launched a FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
app for the game. The app is called Blacknet, named after the game's mission system, and it allows fans to work together to "hack" the interface. Hacking it will allow the fans to uncover a series of videos, interviews and other behind the scenes content, all in the run up to the game’s launch. Also via Facebook, Radical unveiled that they would announce something huge for Prototype 2 at ComicCon. This was the ability to let people play the game, they also released the first of three trailers detailing the story of Prototype 2. At ComicCon, Activision held a raffle in which the winner won either the jacket worn by James Heller, or Alex Mercer's jacket; and a custom skinned Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
. At ComicCon, Activision employees were handing out PROTOTYPE 2 themed goodies, including t-shirts, posters, giant foam Nigiller Blade Arms and more materials based on the game. Activision released for iOS
IOS
iOS is an operating system for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Apple TV.IOS may also refer to:-Companies and organisations:* Illinois Ornithological Society, American state-based bird club...
an official game titled ProtoSlice, available free to download.
Comic Con
Out of all Activision's titles displayed at Comic Con, Prototype 2 was the most well received. Greg Miller of IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
awarded Prototype 2 as Activision's best game at Comic Con and did not pull out a con in his review of the game, but a wish as to what he didn't want to see.