Red Steel 2 will use the new Wii MotionPlus peripheral for true 1:1 sword-fighting action. That’s according to a new interview with Slain Corre, Ubisoft’s executive director for the sequel to Red Steel.
Red Steel was a launch game for the Nintendo Wii and was an extremely ambitious project that set out to show off the power of the Wii with exciting sword-fighting sequences in addition to top-notch first-person shooting . . . . sadly, it didn’t exactly pan out as planned. The game was hit hard by critics due to a number of factors, one of which was a lack of sensitivity and realism when using the sword, as the sword didn’t move along with you.
Well with Red Steel 2, and Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus accessory announced at E3 2008, Ubisoft is finally able to make Red Steel 2 live up to the expectations players originally had for the first product, which Slain says was rushed to make it to launch and had to deal with technology that wasn’t quite finished.
He claims that the sequel will remedy all this. Due in part to the fact that Ubisoft has seen much success with it’s Wii games, unlike a lot of other third-party developers, and thus they consider Red Steel to be one of their most important Wii brands. As such, they are determined to make it into a top quality brand that can sit nicely along with all of Ubisoft’s other top brands (Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Prince of Persia, etc.).
Using the Wii MotionPlus accessory, Red Steel 2 will contain extremely realistic sword movements that exactly match your hand motions, just as they had originally planned. “Red Steel 2 has been in development for many months now, and this new device will help us be even more precise in what we do with the product,” said Corre, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz.
I’m actually excited to see what Red Steel 2 will look like. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long in order to see it in action.