Massive: Too many tech demos at E3

Massive Entertainment's managing director, David Polfeldt, talked with us at E3 about his studio's newly announced game, The Division, removing the 2D space, and his disappointment regarding this year's show.

"[During E3] I was hoping to see much more development on the narrative side," he told us during the interview. "And it's not the first thing that people think about when they say next-gen, because normally you think "better tech," because that's what it is, it's new hardware, so by implication it's better tech."

"I thought that we were ready as a medium, as an art form, to also grow a little bit in our way to tell stories. Because to me this generation of consoles is like a great canvas, but it's more direct between what you think and what you can do. With current-gen it's a bit like "I want to do this, but then I first have to build a brush before I can do that," but with this generation it's much shorter."

"So in theory, you're closer to your idea and what's happening on the machine, and I thought that was going to be a leap in storytelling, and a leap in narrative layers. And I don't mean I want to go all intellectual, because we all like action, but I was expecting to be more surprised on that side."

Polfeldt then cited some examples of what he feels developers were too keen to highlight, at the expense of narrative and story: "My disappointment this year with E3 is that there's too much tech demos, too much water, fire, smoke, particles, explosions. That's cool because we can do them, and we can make them look better, but that's not where I want to see, that's not what I think is next-gen enough. That is next-gen, but that's like the bread and butter of next-gen."

With The Division, which was one of the most warmly received titles at this year's show (it was announced during Ubisoft's conference, much like Watch Dogs was the year before), Massive were aiming to present something a little different.

Polfeldt explained the decision to establish the setting and story before showing the more action-orientated side of the game: "And that's what I think we managed to bring to this E3, is an interesting narrative layer, it's not just... You know I think it takes a minute and a half in our demo before any bullet is fired, which now in hindsight looks like a crazy risk to take. But we wanted to set it up, we wanted to create the location, create the background, create the setting, create the tension. Make people think about: "why am I here, what am I doing, what is it all about," and then we get into the action, but the action is then put in context that is a bit more meaningful. I think we've been getting a lot of attention because of that."

The Division is heading to next-gen consoles next year, and possibly to PC as well, if recent reports are anything to go by.