The oft-touted trust system in the upcoming Binary Domain has been a source of hesitant excitement and even fascinated curiosity for a lot of gamers lately, myself included. We’ve been hearing about it for months now, but actual prose on the subject has done little to clear the fog and specify just how intricately it affects the way a game is played.
In a recent interview with VG247, Sega veteran and Binary Domain producer Toshihiro Nagoshi has helped to clear things up quite a bit. If there’s anything to really glean from the conversation, it’s that this is far from your average predictable Mass Effect loyalty mission checklist.
Instead of leading players along down predictable paths of morality or vigilantism, Binary Domain’s trust system seems to fluctuate with a lot more nuance. Nagoshi put a lot of stress on the fact that simply being nice to your teammates won’t necessarily guarantee you the gold star you so desire.
The best strategy really is to play yourself – be yourself – and just say what you want to say.
We were careful not to make an easy way out, so you could do minimum effort to make [all the party members] happy, because it’s almost impossible to keep everyone happy.
Everyone has a different personality. If you always say nice things, it might work for some people – but some of the members might get suspicious, and think you’re up to something.
This system is apparently so subtle that players won’t be able to go through the campaign the same way twice, and since dialogue options and battlefield interactions are so open and diverse, these playthroughs could last between 5 and 50 hours. I’ll say that again: Between 5 and 50.
Nagoshi went on to stress that beyond the standard battle prompts, no easy command list exists. The AI simply picks up on how you play and some of the gameplay decisions you make as the game wears on.
The more I hear about this Trust System, the more fascinated/intimidated I become. While I love the idea of a game that doesn’t just hold your hand and lead you through the battlefield, the prospect of a methodical shooter that successfully tracks and reacts to the subtle nuances of your play style is so rare it’s almost…Frightening. I can’t wait to see just how Yakuza Studio delivers on these lofty promises come next February.
What about you guys? Anyone eager to watch Gears fanboys get angry at subtlety?
[Source: VG247]
i think sakura wars has a similar system and it works… IT WORKS… tihs system seems to be the next iteration of the MIA sakura wars series. I can’t wait!