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Where is Shinji Mikami's ZWEI ? (Survival-horror)

Neiteio

Member
When they announced the project, they made it pretty clear this was being developed for next-generations consoles (keep in mind it was announced before the Wii U came out).
Oh wow, really? So if Zwei is a next-gen game, maybe we'll see it this month at the Sony event. :O

Man, a J-horror game that leverages all that horsepower... Now THAT gets me excited about next-gen gaming!
 

Nemesis_

Member
When they announced the project, they made it pretty clear this was being developed for next-generations consoles (keep in mind it was announced before the Wii U came out).

Oh, really. I wasn't aware of that. Well the last "official" thing that I saw to come out was that they got the Rebirth/REmake environmental artist on board (and some beautiful renders).

So I guess I am hyped. Would still love to see some proper media though, if it has made progress.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
I also am kind of confused why people in this topic were confused who the main character is, at least unless this concept art is new. There's art of who I believe the main character is in the concept art.

sketch_7.jpg


sketch_6.jpg


Before people get too upity about him looking like an action star, keep in mind this has always been a theme of Mikami's horror games. Trained professionals caught into horrific situations beyond their imagination. Gunplay has also been a staple of Mikami's games, but that doesn't mean that it has to be action-loaded everywhere.

Though mentioned some on the last page, the monster concept art I do find interesting.

sketch_3.jpg


sketch_5.jpg


sketch_4.jpg


sketch_1.jpg


sketch_2.jpg
 

wrowa

Member
When they announced the project, they made it pretty clear this was being developed for next-generations consoles (keep in mind it was announced before the Wii U came out).

Did they? Everything I've seen so far seems to point towards PS360 ... except the late release window.
 

Glass Rebel

Member
When they announced the project, they made it pretty clear this was being developed for next-generations consoles (keep in mind it was announced before the Wii U came out).

From Andriasang:
Although initial planning started at the end of 2010, development appears to be quite early. The game's basic settings are about half way complete. It also appears that the game's platform isn't final, although Mikami said that it would probably be HD consoles.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller

Thanks for linking that, for some reason I have a memory back when this game was announced mentioning next-gen consoles, but it seems I may have remembered incorrectly. Especially since there is evidence it is being made with 360/PS3 hardware.

That said, its late release could be a bit worrying, and it isn't unheard of for a Mikami game to switch consoles in development.
 

Neiteio

Member
Those monster designs look incredible. Reminds me of the "Scary Tales" series of children's books (yes, they are children's books):

Stephen_Gammell_by_tomwatkins.jpg


I wonder if the plot will revolve around horrific experiments that fused men with insects, etc, to create monsters.
 

Glass Rebel

Member
Thanks for linking that, for some reason I have a memory back when this game was announced mentioning next-gen consoles, but it seems I may have remembered incorrectly. Especially since there is evidence it is being made with 360/PS3 hardware.

That said, its late release could be a bit worrying, and it isn't unheard of for a Mikami game to switch consoles in development.

It could go either way. I remember ZeniMax not being too enthusiastic about next-gen development either but they might hve changed their stance on that. Would make one hell of a launch (window) title though.
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
So doing some research on everything (who's behind it, what is known, what has gone under the radar, what was posted here, etc.), this is just my theory on some of what Zwei may be about. Chalk it up to putting current pieces of a puzzle together.

A great help for this was an old "Staff" list on the Tango website. It was taken down before Project Zwei was announced, but you can use the Wayback machine to view it. It also has given me more confidence this game may turn out to be amazing, as almost literally everyone involved are talented individuals (some forming an all-star casts) that looking more into things like their portfolios, twitter, etc., are very evidently passionate about horror and the disturbed. Helping is director Ikumi Nakamura, who helped work on Bayonetta and some other titles and seems to have a passion for odd and disturbing imagery and horror games, based on things like her Twitter feed, and apparently for some some 'reason' went on a trip with other Tango members a month ago to areas in Japan known to be cursed/in ruin, and seemed to be especially excited to be visiting a place that is associated with Silent Hill.

I think it may be best to tackle this one category at a time.

-Project Zwei is almost certainly going to feature gunplay. There are some big gun ethusiasts on-board, recent images of them practicing gun animations, they seem to have a lot of models of weapons in their office, interested in hiring people trained in FPS/TPS gameplay, and to top this off, Mikami has a thing for trained professionals with firearms being the leads of his horror stories, so it would logically make sense.

-The game is set in an ocean-side town or island that seems to experience frequent flooding and has been overgrown. This one seems obvious in retrospective, but an on-going theme noticed in the concept art and the one in-game screen you can partially see is overgrowth and water. In a piece of concept art, you can see a decaying ship at bay, a lighthouse, and the ocean, but in a lot of concept art you can see water on the floor, or water damage. There also seems to have bee no-care left for any of the structures, and plants have ravaged and taken over buildings.

-The monsters seem to have human qualities, but are decidedly not human (or at least, no longer). Pay attention to the following images:

tumblr_lb71bh8gae1qex4ddo1_500.jpg

tumblr_lazrzqJYQP1qdk4zg.jpg

news_photo_19134_1335333101.jpg

tumblr_lbnmo4d9lN1qex4ddo1_250.jpg

Zwei.jpg


The monsters, at least these, seem to have human qualities about them. They seem to be doing human-like tasks; Using tools, collecting water, some even seem to adorn some clothing. These may have been human once, and it is true that the structures around the environment are man-made. There's even concept art of a human.

sketch_8.jpg


-The game's story involves slavery and an old slave-driven society. My theory is that this area is an isolated island, and was once an island of slavery plantations, and the like. The one character we have concept art for is black, the ship we see in concept art is a slavery ship, and there is some concept art of what looks to be an abandoned plantation (not to mention it fits the theme of plants overgrowing the land). I am guessing these monsters were once human, but something happened.

This also would explain the bug-theme if this was an island for plantation, as any farmer can tell you, one of the biggest threats to plantations or any sort of farmland is insects. This would also imply that there is mutation going on, supported by the beast at play here. Cause an exact effects unknown. Was it natural causes, a curse, experimenting, something else? No clue, that's up to theorizing.

-Our characters sanity may be in question. There was an old build of Resident Evil 4 that involved the question if Leon was sane or not. Some of the art, both prior to and before the announcement of Zwei, looks a bit surreal, even considering if mutation is gong on here. However, there seems to be people on-board in the project which have a deep interest in human psychology and disturbing imagery/abstract art. Some choice messages made from staff (mainly on Twitter) since Project Zwei was revealed had one thing in common in passing, there almost seemed to be an in-joke about going insane on the project. Back this up with the psychology stuff, the love with people in the team for the disturbed and the abstract, and the fact the last horror game Mikami almost made was supposed to have a theme of insanity, backed with some of the stranger concept art, and I believe our main hero may be having delusions and cases of insanity himself.

What I can piece together for now.
 

Neiteio

Member
Dusk, you should really make your findings into its own thread, I.E. "What I've pieced together about Zwei so far (and some speculation)."
 

Neiteio

Member
Found a high-res version of the environmental concept art (drag and drop to your URL bar):


Quite the vision they have here if the concept art alone can make me feel cold and shivery. :O

I want to see gameplay. MIKAMI PLS
 
Great work Dusk Golem, you found the profile pages I was talking about a while back as well.

It goes without saying that the concept art is incredible, the more surreal body horror designs and your thoughts about human experiments and the shipwrecks bring to mind H.G Wells The Island of Dr Moreau and the classic film adaptation Island of Lost Souls as possible influences.

Quite the vision they have here if the concept art alone can make me feel cold and shivery. :O

I want to see gameplay. MIKAMI PLS

Same here. As I mentioned in the Prey 2 thread but I'm surprised Bethesda doesn't have a press event to show all of its forthcoming line up at the same time.
 

Hindle

Banned
This may end up being a Wii U exclusive. If it is a current gen game then I'm surprised we've not heard about it yet.
 

Hindle

Banned
I doubt Bethesda acquired Tango to finance a Wii U exclusive game.

The platforms are up in the air lol based on this thread. Pliskin deduced it could be a current gen game which if so I'm really surprised we've not heard about it.

Dusk Golem however said its likely next gen.

Mkami has history with Nintendo, and this would be a bombshell, but yea most likely it's next gen by now.
 

Neiteio

Member
In Mikami we trust. Zwei could indeed still be a radical departure from the TPS genre, but with what appears to be a military professional for the main character, and what appears to be a number of gunplay enthusiasts on staff, I'm really hopeful Zwei will see Mikami raising the TPS bar yet again after Vanquish, and marrying that to a campaign with the scale and pacing of RE4, and drenching it in the dense fog-like atmosphere of Shadows of the Damned. In other words, the ultimate culmination of everything he's done in the genre.
 
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