It’s no secret that in inFAMOUS 2 Cole has to flee Empire City and head to New Marais after his first encounter with the Beast. Well, Cole’s not the only one changing scenery. Although we didn’t have an ultimate showdown, we did move 24 floors down in the same building but tripled our square footage. Yes, we may have lost our great views, but to rid the sun glare we closed the blinds anyway. Besides, as you’ll see in this little photo tour… the new diggs are really cool.

We start off by coming out of the elevators to our welcoming lobby (see above). Julie, our office manager and Meagan, studio recruiter, will be the first to greet you. Our interview room for new recruits and main conference room featuring a 60″ 3D TV completes our lobby area. Moving in a circular rotation the next open space would be the environments team (environments team) who are all hard at work making New Marais look awesome. Next is our huge kitchen/dining area (see below). It easily handles all of us and Julie ensures that all the snacks and drinks are well stocked. There is even a huge balcony for use during those 30 days of Seattle sun :)

The kitchen flows into the game design, animation (see above), lighting and character areas. The character and animation teams are working hard on the game-opening sequence now. FX and lighting are vastly improving elements from last game. Design and gameplay teams are full tilt at this point — making and balancing missions, powers, and AI.

Upon leaving this area, you’ll walk down our long, long did I say long hallway. If you look closely you’ll see the Cole halo neon sign at the far end and all our Sly Cooper art (above). Looking towards the other end of the hallway shows off more inFAMOUS art from past events and a Sly Cooper Mask neon sign (above). After trekking parts of the hallway you’ll find yourself in the software engineer’s wing (above). Offices are decorated in a variety of ways (below) and we still have plenty of room to grow.

To finish off our tour, we take you to the QA area (above). We went from three QA staffers to over 25 in this group as we continue to ramp up production. Oh, and we also have many conference rooms that are actually named after our beloved characters including our chill conference room appropriately named “Zeke” (below).

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our new offices. We leave you with a little bit of our art that are splashed around the offices.

Enjoy!

The inFAMOUS storyline tells of a classic superhero origin: Boy meets explosion, boy gains superhuman powers, boy must choose between hero or villain. As we’re readying Cole MacGrath for his big encore this year, a collection of us here at Sucker Punch wanted to share with you who our favorite superhero is and why. Feel free to share your favorite superhero below in the comments. Enjoy!

Chris Zimmerman – Director of Development, Co-Founder
When I was growing up, my favorite superhero was the Flash. I was a DC kid, and all the other DC superheroes were pretty boring as far as my ten-year-old self was concerned. Superman? Boring. Batman? This was the 70s, which was about ten years before Frank Miller made Batman cool. For me, Batman was Adam West, and even at ten, I didn’t think Adam West was cool. And don’t even get me started on Aquaman.

The Flash, on the other hand, I loved. I think I loved him because he had to be clever to win. It wasn’t just a matter of using his super breath, or firing up a magic ring that could do just about anything. He actually needed to think his way through things, to figure out ways to use his super-speed to get things done. I liked being surprised by what he came up with.

Bob Mowery – QA Lead
Magneto. I realize that choosing a villainous character may somewhat violate the spirit of the question, but let me explain. As a child, my favorite superheroes were solely based on a suite of powers. Green Lantern would probably top my childhood list as he could do just about anything with that ring. The older I get, the more interested I become in the fallibility of heroes and their more “human” characteristics. Magneto’s history is quite profound, being a holocaust survivor. This tortured past guides his character to great lengths. Magneto constantly wrestles with the question “what does it mean to be a member of a hated minority?” His past informs him that this means captivity, torture, and death. As a powerful member of the mutant minority, Magneto takes it upon himself to use his powers to fight for that minority. Magneto is a heroic character, but not to the greater power-lacking populace. Magneto fights for mutant-kind much like the United States fights for democracy around the world. His assistance and methods are often not welcome, but he fights passionately for his mutant brethren in the way he sees fit. I must also shamefully admit that the influence of my childhood is not completely absent from this equation. I still think it would be awesome to rip a building from its foundations, use its girders to tie up someone, and send bullets back to their source with an unnecessary wave of my hand. Parting the Red Sea that is Seattle gridlock would just be an added bonus.

Billy Harper – Animation Director
Any one that knows me, and probably those who’ve seen me talk about inFAMOUS 2 on the internet, know that I think Spider-Man is the best superhero ever. I’ve felt that way since I was a little kid and would try to get spiders to bite me so I could climb walls. However, it didn’t stop there. As I grew up, I continued to find reasons that I liked him that fit with my age and life.

Originally, I liked him because he had the coolest toys and was on one of my favorite shows, The Electric Company. As I got older, I liked him because his powers somehow seemed “accessible” and had inherit weaknesses that sometimes tested his REAL courage because he had to deal with things that his powers couldn’t really help with. I also liked the fact that he still remained true to himself after becoming a hero. He was still a geek. He still used his brain to solve problems. Plus, at the end of the day, he had to figure out how to live a real life. He had to make rent. He had to go to class. Now, as an animator he’s great because his motions are so interesting and difficult to flesh out in my head. It really challenges me to think about how he moves through the world and what exactly he would do and how he’d do it.

Plus, he always has the coolest theme songs!

Darren Bridges – Game Designer
Daredevil. If you asked me five years ago, it probably would have been Spider-Man or Batman or Green Lantern or someone cool. Acrobatics, radar-vision, and “willingness to deal with lots of pain” are definitely not the coolest super-powers in the world. So why the ‘Devil? I read a lot of graphic novels, and a few years ago I got hooked on a Daredevil storyline by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. Like lots of Marvel heroes, Daredevil gets dragged through a horrible mess… his identity is exposed, his life starts to crumble, and he and his friends all suffer. He’s pushed so far that he starts to skim the edge of what is acceptable for a hero, defeating the crime lord of his district and declaring himself the “New Kingpin.” Daredevil encompasses my favorite aspect of superheroes – that they are human people with super powers. They are powerful but still vulnerable; they are aspirational but still relatable.

Rebecca Mayfield – QA Lead
Batman will always be my favorite. He is a complex character that I can identify with in some way or another… minus the super-awesome gadgets, of course. The closest I can get to a utility belt packed with Batarangs and Thermite Grenades is my cell phone. But that’s beside the point. Batman is the whole superhero package.

He is human through and through. He bleeds and feels pain. He can experience great happiness one day, and feel the sink hole of loss the next. Yet he is super human, possessing things that allow him to surpass the restraints that we are bound to. This was something I always admired as a kid. Batman is such a powerful figure because of what he has enabled himself to do, but he is also like me in the sense that he can be hurt by a car accident, or a scraped knee. He gave me hope that I could achieve more than I thought was possible by just trying my best. He shows us that even someone who is ordinary can be extraordinary.