11 questions for Josef Fares

Josef Fares: Hi Petter! Damn good to see you, it was only yesterday, remember, that I blogged on Gamereactor…. What, 12 years ago? Time flies, haha.

I come to the meeting with Hazelight founder Josef Fares with the intention of talking about the upcoming Split Fiction and I am greeted by the cheerful, unpredictable, super-enthusiastic and dedicated film and game maker we all love. I’ve interviewed Fares several times in the past and there really aren’t many people you can talk to more easily in the entire gaming world. The passion just flows out of him and it’s easy to see why his last three games combined have sold over 40 million copies.

Gamereactor: What do you think of the release?

Rates: It feels great. I’m so incredibly excited. Above all, I’m so convinced that we have a really good competition here. You know, a lot of people often question this with my tremendous confidence and then I usually draw the parallel with a working relationship. Of course there are ups and downs, of course you have challenges as well as obstacles to try to overcome, but the foundation is strong and that’s where the results come from. With Split Fiction, it has been completely like that for us. Challenges, yes! But the core idea and our vision has always been very strong.

GR: How did you come up with the idea?

Fares: I have to be careful here, I don’t want to say too much right now and reveal details since it hasn’t been released yet, but it all started when I came up with the idea for the end of the game. It came first. The idea was exciting for me to try to mix opposites, combine two extremes: fantasy and sci-fi. It seemed like a good idea beforehand, partly because the story itself is about friendship but also about contrasts. Two completely different people, one introverted and the other extroverted, and so this time we worked with contrasts. Here at Hazelight there is one thing we love more than anything else and that is variety and the concept was so well suited to what we think we are good at. Not only could we create maximum variety in every world in the game, but we could also create a new world per chapter. The concept felt fresh to us.

GR: Almost every other studio in the world would have developed a sequel to their game if they had sold more than 20 million copies, like you. Why no, It Takes Two 2?

Fares: I never say Hazelight won’t make a sequel, but again, for me and for us, it’s about variety. It has to feel fresh, exciting and interesting and we are driven by our desire to find new ways, new goals, new methods. This just felt so good and I have no doubt that the quality level of what we’ve made here has gone up a few notches since the last time, and I don’t mean just the graphics, but everything. We have now become a much braver team since It Takes Two and have been able to develop a lot in our writing, in design, in all areas in a short period of time. This game was developed by Hazelight 2.0 and I deliberately don’t follow the market, or look at current trends. If you look at the games we make and have made, we go our own way and it’s very much about my gut feeling. It has to feel good, then it will be good.

GR: Despite your huge successes, why do you think co-op is still uncommon today?

Fares: I don’t really have a good answer to that, but the point is that at the same time it’s not that it’s uncommon, but rather that it has evolved into something else today. There are some games with cooperative modes for up to four players, there are plenty of games that offer online cooperation, and so on…. However, what has disappeared, and where we are quite alone, is split-screen, and here I have a few theories. First, I think many developers feel that it is something old that has been done a long time ago. Then, of course, I know how technically challenging it really is. I think many players never consider the fact that a game like Split Fiction is two games run simultaneously. All the graphics are rendered twice at once. Making it still look graphically impressive is no easy task. At the same time, I want to emphasize that what we do at Hazelight is not ordinary co-op games with a simple collaborative mode. We write and direct our titles from the first frame to be played alone together. We don’t have single player, we never have an ulterior motive that the lone player should be able to enjoy the adventures on their own, we really make cooperative games. However, I hope there will be more games like ours, because we have now proven that this is something that players all over the world want. We have sold a lot of games.

GR: Variety is something you come back to often, is that the most important aspect?

Rates: Well, one of them. The hardest part of any game we develop at Hazelight is undoubtedly the amount of variety we build. So many different elements and different game mechanics are created that the challenge during the development itself is downright mind-boggling. Of course, we don’t want to release unfinished games without a polished experience, which means the prototyping process for all these different game elements is very demanding. It has to feel tight, well thought out, and there have to be game elements in our games that complement each other without ever feeling repetitive. In short, I love games, I’m passionate about games if nothing else, and my dream and my vision is to advance storytelling and that evolution in the gaming world. Hazelight is well on its way to being a part of that and pushing the evolution of the medium in general. If nothing else, you know how passionate I am, right? Before I founded Hazelight and before I began sketchingBrothers in earnest, I wrote at Gamereactor to share my love of games as a form of entertainment.

GR: That love, passion and enthusiasm is what drives you, but if we look at today’s big games with a kind of general perspective, maybe we’re in a place where this is missing more than ever. How do you see it?

Rates: Indeed. Much, unfortunately, is about money and risk. Sometimes budgets in the hundreds of millions are involved, which is why neither developers nor publishers dare to follow their gut feelings, or give their passion space. Instead, they get scared, frightened and withdraw. In my world, you have to find a way to combine what is commercially viable with pure creativity and passion. I think this is a responsibility that lies with both developers and publishers, that you make things that are not just cast in an already widely used template. You need developers with a clear vision and a publisher who doesn’t shy away and relies on endless market research. Because let me tell you, we’re never going to do that here at Hazelight. Never. We do what we want to do and what works for us as gamers.

GR: Which part of Split Fiction is the best, which part are you most proud of?

Fares: If I could only choose one part, it would undoubtedly be the last chapter. I don’t want to give anything away for anyone right now, but I can guarantee that in a game you’re going to experience something you’ve never experienced before when you get to the end. I can guarantee that. I know that sounds very opinionated, but it’s also true. There is both a design and technical genius in that chapter that I think many will remember for a long time.

GR: Is it also the part you’re most proud of?

Rates: One of the parts, absolutely. Overall, I’m probably most satisfied and proud that we were able to think about how many different aspects and different game mechanics we built for Split Fiction, make everything work well together, and make a game that feels really tight and comprehensive from first to last. If you work with games, you know how easy it is to test things in Unreal Engine these days, but making them work well in combination with a lot of other things is anything but easy, and it’s really impressive that we managed to finish on time.

GR: Unreal Engine yes, why not EA’s Frostbite?

Fares: Now we are not a studio owned by EA, we are an external developer and we choose which engine we want to work with and this game or our previous titles would never have worked in that engine. It would never have worked. Unreal Engine gives us the ability to make our dream games, on a split screen.

GR: How many of you are there today, at Hazelight?

Rates: We are exactly 80 people today, we have 60 when we did It Takes Two and 35 when we did A Way Out. The idea is to grow with up to 10 people, but then that’s enough. We’re certainly not going to go over 100 developers, we’re not going to become a huge team and all the hassle that comes with trying to get that many people in the same direction.

GR: Fuck the Oscars! Considering that the gala took place recently, the publicity you got from that comment still can’t be appreciated. Do you think a little like that when you say these things in front of an audience of millions?

Rates: No, no. Haha, no. I’m super spontaneous and only say what I feel like saying at the time, but that comment ended up benefiting us. The point was that everyone I talked to while preparing for The Game Awards that year went on and on about how similar it felt to the Oscars, as an event. Everyone was saying the same thing all the time. Eventually I think I just had enough and blurted something out, because even then The Game Awards and Geoff felt [Keighley] felt like an important, big thing for our industry.