Velvet Assassin Interview: Inga Mittendorf

PS3, Xbox 360 feature by Bart Robson, published on Sunday 5th October 2008

Bart Robson: Stealth games and World War 2 games are a dime a dozen, but Velvet Assassin is unique. Where did the idea come from?

Inga Mittendorf: There are a lot of different aspects why we came up with developing a game like Velvet Assassin. On the one hand we as gamers ourselves wanted to create something unique as we were sick of all these mainstream war games: we wanted to invent a war game that makes the player think about the topic and evoke emotion and moods instead of mindless killing.

We are a German developer and World War II seemed to be promising topic as it belongs to a dark part of our history and we set high standards to ourselves to deal with the topic in a rather artistic or sophisticated manner, in a healthy way like a film like Schindler’s List did.

So, we needed to do a lot of research on the game as we wanted to stick to realism in regard to locations, people and motivations and while we did this ‘travel through our own history’ we got more and more ideas and we implemented them into the game.

By the way, this is also how we discovered our protagonist, Violette Summer, as she is was inspired by historical heroine of World War II…

B.R.: Violette’s story is similar to Violette Szabo’s. How faithful is the game to her story? What creative changes were made?

I.M.: Our character Violette Summer has indeed some interesting things in common with a real agent from World War II named Violette Szabo. For example, we took her first name to let the gamer know that this character had really existed. Remember, we want the player to feel and understand the game, so the choice for the character of Violette Summer was not a difficult one. Her story was so dramatic and inspiring for us, that we used Szabo’s destiny as an outline for our Violette. So the two Violettes share the same destiny: their husband dies early in war just before their daughter is born and that is why, driven by rage, they decide to go behind enemy lines and fight the Germans as MI6 agents.

Of course, this does not mean that you are replaying the whole life of Violette Szabo. Our campaigns are unique and original and only related to Szabo’s assassination and sabotaging missions.

B.R.: What’s been the hardest aspect of Velvet Assassin’s design?

I.M.: Well- the hardest aspect-… I think the hardest aspects have not been in the design. At least, I could not name something extremely hard. Moreover, the hardest aspect for our team was the amount of people working [on] the game: our team is about 35 people and that is small in comparison to other developers. So this was our challenge: to be as polished and high in quality with our work as a huge developer is. You can see by the result now, how perfect our teamwork was.

B.R.: At the demo I saw at PAX, I was really impressed with the whole level-becoming-fever-dream sequence at the end. Are thoughtful scenes like this frequent?

I.M.: Yes, they are. The feature of using morphine in difficult situations and unexpected danger is an important part of the game. You are replaying her missions while Violette is already lying in a hospital. So, whenever Violette is in a panic during her recall of the missions she has experienced, she starts shaking from those fever dreams. At that point a nurse is giving her an injection of morphine and that makes Violette mix up with her past reality, her fears and her dreams. She cannot relate to the fact that she’s physically getting the morphine in hospital but connects it to her missions mentally. So, you see that she is not using morphine as a drug and we as developers can use it as a creative, stylistic device…

B.R.: If Velvet Assassin was being turned into a film, who’d make a perfect Violette?

I.M.: Good idea! Let’s make it a film! Well, why not our Violette model, Melinda Cohen, who also did the voiceover for the game?!

B.R.: Are comparisons to Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell fair to Velvet Assassin? Or do you feel it needs to be viewed differently?

I.M.: See, we have no problems with being compared with games like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell as we do not see them as that similar to what we are trying to design. Of course, there are aspects we have in common as they are all stealth games. In fact, there are more things separating us from the rest of those games, for example the composition of our gameplay, the design and also the purpose of Velvet Assassin. No, we don’t have a million different weapons with another million functions – because that is not what you need in a World War II scenario. We want to be close to reality, show people how cruel war can be, give insight into all kind of soldiers’ souls and provide them with empathy. So you can only get the weapons that really existed at that time – and by the way you can only carry two at a time, because you are playing a female character that would not be able to sneak across five miles with five different rifles on her back. Velvet Assassin is meant to be authentic!

B.R.: Do you feel that more WWII games should diverge from the shooter formula? What style of game would you like to see set in that conflict?

I.M.: Every game has its own eligibility. But sure, we would like more developers to diverge from the shooter formula in general, not only in terms of World War II games. But due to the fact that many developers tend to go for mainstream and do something within a proven genre many games ended up following and established formula. With Velvet Assassin we are in the nice position of having created something very special and unique… and this is where we need to thank to our publisher Gamecock who offers developers the opportunity of producing fascinating creative games set apart from the mainstream.

B.R.: Velvet Assassin seems to be a singular story. Once the game is out, what’s in store for us next?

I.M.: Well, are you sure that Velvet Assassin is really a singular story…?

Velvet Assassin will sneak onto Xbox 360 and PS3 early next year and is published by GameCock Media Group.