SpyHunter®: Nowhere to Run™ takes the Spy Hunter franchise where it’s never gone before–on foot. Featuring action superstar Dwayne “THE ROCK” Johnson as government super-spy extraordinaire Alex Decker, players for the first time ever can step out of the Interceptor and straight into 3rd person action, utilizing THE ROCK'S physical prowess to take down enemies with intense melee combat moves. In Nowhere to Run, the evil NOSTRA organization returns, this time with a plan to steal the latest government technology including the world’s most sophisticated spy vehicle, the Interceptor, and it’s up to Alex to stop them.

Game Chronicles takes a look at this exciting new game in our exclusive GCM interview with Producer, Jeremy Airey.

GCM:	Thank you for your time! Please get us started by introducing yourself and telling us about the team behind this latest Spy Hunter game.
Jeremy Airey:	My name is Jeremy Airey, and I’m the Producer in charge of Spy Hunter at Midway. The developer for Spy Hunter is Terminal Reality based out of Lewisville, Texas.

GCM:

In previous Spy Hunter games the “story” has never really been a driving force behind the mission-based gameplay. Explain a little about the plot and the steps being taken to make it more integral to the overall experience in "Nowhere to Run".

Jeremy Airey:

Having a story is one of the big changes to this version of Spy Hunter. We wanted it to be a driving force behind everything you do - so you can experience the net effect it has on the game. We have over 50 cinematics that help drive the story and gameplay to make it a more movie like experience. This version of Spy Hunter is actually a prequel to the previous Spy Hunter games. The Interceptor was just completed and you meet those that built it. You get to learn a bit about Nostra and how they acquired their technology. And finally, you get to meet the man behind the wheel for the first time and find out what drives him.

GCM:

Spy Hunter has always been about the “car” and driving. Now it seems to be about The Rock and fighting. Atari tried this with “DRIV3R “ and failed. What steps are being taken to make sure the on-foot elements are just as engaging as the driving, and what is the expected mix of driving versus non-driving?

Jeremy Airey:

Since we’ve never had to focus on anything other than the car in Spy Hunter, this has been a bit of a challenge. The reason we went back to the very beginning from a time frame perspective is to give some backstory to familiar elements in the Spy Hunter world. Players want to know who drives it, who built it, how Nostra built cool vehicles, why they’re fighting, etc. So what we’ve built with Spy is that story experience into the game. Our on foot sections help link the story and levels together and bring a closer look to the Spy world. The game is really 50/50 in terms of being on foot and driving. However, it’s not that cut and dry because you’ll be driving and find a spot where you need to get out of the car to do a particular task before getting back in again. It’s really a nice mix and it does a pretty good job of blurring the line between ‘levels’ and trying to be a more immersive story driven game.

GCM:

What was the extent of Dwayne Johnson’s contribution to the creation of this game (voice, mo-cap, etc) and were there any particular memorable moments working with The Rock?

Jeremy Airey:

Dwayne contributed his likeness, voice work, and motion capture to the game as well as feedback on the basic melee system we developed. Working with Dwayne is always a memorable experience because he brings a lot of passion and energy with him. One of the most memorable things that happened was when we did the motion capture session and Dwayne was interacting with the dummy Fred. During the shoot, Dwayne was doing some pretty outrageous moves, on one particular move he split the dummy wide open and ‘fluff’ came out. We had to use duct tape to fix up Fred to finish off our moves.

GCM:

What new technology and morphs can we expect from the Interceptor this time around? Any chance of remote control driving since we can actually get out of the car this time?

Jeremy Airey:

In previous versions of Spy Hunter, great value was done by adding in more transformations to vary up gameplay. Since we essentially rewound the franchise to the start, we decided to stick with the basics and add a new twist to the bike form. We had 3 different areas to focus on for this version of Spy: Driving, 3rd person, and melee. We’ve really done a lot to add in this multi-genre experience and make it part of the Spy Hunter world. Sorry, no remote control this time around – but you can certainly see where the franchise is headed.

GCM:	Will "Nowhere to Run" have an actual score or just a selection of licensed music tracks? Can we expect a new remix or cover of the famous Peter Gunn theme?
Jeremy Airey:	We’re not doing any licensed music tracks for Spy, not even the traditional Peter Gunn Theme. We wanted something fresh that we could use in a variety of ways and move the franchise into the future. There’s a whole new theme song that really fits Spy Hunter well and we’ve scored the rest of the level music either here at Midway or at the Developer, Terminal Reality.

GCM:

Previous Spy Hunter games were mission based with defined objectives that offered good incentive for replay. How are you structuring the missions within the story of this new game, and will there be a similar reward system to encourage replayability?

Jeremy Airey:

The structure and flow of this version of Spy is drastically different than its predecessors. Because we focused more on the story / cinematic presentation and progression of the game – it wasn’t particle for us to have the player replaying levels to complete objectives. A majority of our objectives are bottlenecks or triggers to events/plot points. Think of this as one big mission, with lots of smaller objectives. These smaller objectives will lead to payoffs, the next ‘area’, or have some impact in events at a later point in the level.

GCM:

Explain a bit about the new combat system – just how sophisticated is it as far as the number of moves and combos you can perform?

Jeremy Airey:

One thing to be clear on is that Spy is not a wrestling game, nor is it a fighting game. It’s a 3rd person shooter with a melee system that helps us exploit the personality of Dwayne, and that aspect of the game. We wanted it to be fast, effective, fun. The goal was to encourage the player to switch back and froth between shooting and melee. You give a player a gun, it’s hard to get them to go melee. We understood this early on and recognized that freedom of choice is great, but you can’t make it too clunky. When we looked closer, we realized it had to be simple, fast, and exciting for the beginner and fast, effective, and exciting to the more advanced gamer. We find a lot of people like to switch to melee and to gunplay now – which is where we wanted to be.

GCM:	Any plans for multiplayer racing or any new mini-game challenges?
Jeremy Airey:	Not in this version of Spy. We already bit off a big piece of meat adding in the new gameplay mode to Spy. Moving forward though, we have a lot of great ideas on adding value to the franchise.

GCM:

Thank you again for your time. In closing, what would you say to reassure those hardcore Spy Hunter fans out there who might think you are tampering with classic gameplay and/or diluting the franchise with big-name stars?

Jeremy Airey:

In two words: Fear Not! We really went back to square one with this version of Spy Hunter. We’ve built a game foundation that can help take this franchise to a new level. I believe we’ve done a great job in preserving classic gameplay that everyone can enjoy across the different modes of play. Having Dwayne on board has been a plus for us. We knew we wanted to bring the action out of the car; we wanted to give him an identity and some familiarity. Dwayne’s an action star, his screen personae and personality fit lock step with the personae we’ve made for Alex Decker. It helped set the tone for the game and where the franchise will go. Dwayne’s involvement to me has been genuine value – not just a ‘big name star’ for ‘stars’ sake.

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