Nick Horth chats to Phillip Ring and Matt Ellison from Traveller's Tales about sending Bats into space in LEGO Batman 3
14 October 2014 | By Import
Traveller's Tales basically have every kid's dream job; they get to play around with LEGO for a living. Virtual LEGO, but still. I'm very jealous. For their latest brick-smashing extravaganza, LEGO Batman 3, they're heading into another area that twelve-year-old me was obsessed with – the farthest reaches of the colourful and often ridiculous DC universe. I chatted with exec producer Phillip Ring and producer Matt Ellison to see what they've got in store for us.
Strategy Informer: So we're heading into space this time around, did you know from the start that you wanted to explore the DC cosmos in LEGO Batman 3?
Matt Ellison: Well we actually knew roughly what we wanted to do with this game while we were doing LEGO Batman 2. At the end of that game there's a teaser that leads into this one, when Braniac turns up and says he's located Green Lantern's power ring. So we had a good idea that this was the direction we wanted to go in, to explore the wider DC universe and go to these different Lantern planets and have all the fun that we could with these unique locations that have a different feeling from Gotham. We knew we wanted to do that and we also wanted to add to the character roster, it's about three times bigger in this game than LEGO Batman 2.
Strategy Informer: Presumably you guys are big fans of the DC comics universe, because there's a tonne of references and obscure characters that pop up.
Phillip Ring: Yeah, very much so. We're so privileged to get to play around in the DC universe, especially because we're going beyond Gotham this time and into the larger universe. It's brilliant because there's constantly fans in the office coming out of the woodwork saying “we need this character in the game” - in all honesty there's times where we just sit there with no idea about who they're talking about, but then you read the comics and it's hilarious. Bat-Cow, for example, one of the designers tells us we have to include Bat-Cow, and we're sitting there with blank faces in the office.
“Yeah, yeah, he got saved from a slaughterhouse and then he got a cape,” okay, brilliant. It's that kind of creativity and love for the fiction that drives the team. We take suggestions from the entire team, so you'll see programmers and designers arguing about who should be in the game. With the DC universe being so vast, it's a great chance to treat all those characters, like the Lantern Corps for instance, to do those justice.
Strategy Informer: Any personal favourite characters out of the new guys?
Phillip Ring: Yeah, some of the crazy ones... Condiment King I think is hilarious. The audio team went back and forth getting the audio just right for him, tweaking it to make sure the 'squelch' of his mustard gun sounds just right. My favourite to play is still The Flash though, I keep going back to him. Especially when you get the chance to explore the different hub worlds we have, Odym is one example of a planet where you do a mission, but then it turns into a hub world later on, exploring that planet as The Flash is so much fun.
Matt Ellison: I like Solomon Grundy, this is the first time we've had him in the game, actually. He's been close a couple of times, but now he's in there. I think the animations are key to it, the team have done a great job with that side of things. He's got a great waling animation. Actually he's quite heavily involved with the storyline too, get some very funny lines of dialogue.
Strategy Informer: You mentioned it just then, I noticed all those bonus characters each have very distinct animations and powers this time around. Is that something you've been spending a lot of time on?
Matt Ellison: Absolutely, that's a massive part of what we've been trying to achieve with this game. A lot of that involves working closely with DC, speaking to them about what characters we're adding so they know what's coming up, and then they send us some excellent reference material so we can get them looking just right. And then the abilities, learning about those characters; what they should have, what they shouldn't have. And then we fit all that into the LEGO world so they each feel exactly like they should.
Strategy Informer: Another thing you seem to have pushed is the voice-acting and the use of licensed music – there's a tonne of different incarnations of Batman, for instance, and then you get the 1974 Superman theme when Supes starts flying.
Phillip Ring: Yeah, that's something that when we went back into this world we wanted to add to do all these characters justice. DC have been fantastic, they've pretty much given us free reign to do what we like. It's how we get to include 1960s Batman with Adam West alongside our Batman, who's more like the modern day version but with a LEGO twist. With the sound effects it's that level of authenticity, when you're flying as Wonder Woman you're hearing the Wonder Woman theme. It's something we talked about in the past, we saw that there was a real love for the characters, and we wanted to do justice for the characters and for the people who play our games. And also for the fans in the office – we make games that we can play and be proud of ourselves. The amount of reference and access we've had from DC has been brilliant.
Strategy Informer: The 1960s Adam West Batman level we played was great fun, that's a bonus mission right?
Matt Ellison: Yeah, once you complete the fifteen story levels in the game you get access to this bonus level, that's your reward for completing the story. It's by far the most fun bonus level we've ever done. We've never tried to do something on that level before, and it was such great fun to do. Especially because it's the 75th anniversary of Batman this year, it's a bit of a nod to some of the history of the franchise. Working with Adam West was phenomenal.
Strategy Informer: I have to say, he really knocks the narration voice-over out of the park.
Matt Ellison: That's it, yeah, it's an amazing opportunity to do stuff like than, and I hope the fans really like it.
Strategy Informer: So how does the intergalactic scale of the game affect the story – does it change the way you progress at all?
Phillip Ring: From a story perspective we start in classic Batman territory – it's Batman and Robin, and you're chasing Killer Croc through the Gotham sewers. We wanted to make sure we started like that to emphasise that this is LEGO Batman 3, Batman is key to this story, but we're also going to dig into the wider DC universe. We've then got a few classic encounters against the Legion of Doom, so you fight Joker, Lex, Solomon Grundy and so on. When we branch into the wider universe, that's when we start to open up those hub planets, the Lantern worlds. The way that works is that at the point we head off to the Lantern worlds, the teams are actually broken up, and for story reasons we've got heroes and villains fighting together.
The Lantern Rings are actually affecting them emotionally, so we can have levels where Robin is working side by side with Wonder Woman, who's in disguise as someone else, with Lex and Joker also there. You can also play those hub worlds in any order you want to. If you're a particular fan of Nok you can head there first, then hop over to Odym, and once you've done all the story missions you can go back to do quest, side-missions and free play. There are characters there to interact with that send you on missions, they have their own dialogue – Superboy and Supergirl, for example, you meet them in the Hall of Justice and they have their own missions for you to complete. There's a much bigger amount of content outside the story, we wanted to keep it deep so that there's lots of things for players to keep coming back to.
Strategy Informer: Each LEGO game typically adds a few new in-game systems, or progresses and refines those you've used in the past. What new mechanics does LEGO Batman 3 add?
Matt Ellison: We've added these spaceship sections that are entirely new. We've had vehicle missions before, like driving around in Gotham, but obviously we're in space now, so we've got these space shooter sections where you're flying around taking out enemy starships and so on. We've got one set around the Watchtower and a couple of other ones. It's great fun zooming around taking out enemy ships, while still collecting studs – there's still no death in our games, so if you get shot down you lose a few studs but nothing too bad. Kids and younger audiences will still be able to have a lot of fun with it.
Strategy Informer: You've just announced an Arrow Pack DLC. There's a tonne of DC shows and tie-ins around at the moment, will we see more licensed TV and movie crossovers like that?
Phillip Ring: Yeah, we're doing DLC this time around, so we announced the Arrow Pack and we've announced a Man of Steel pack and a Dark Knight pack. It allows us to touch upon worlds that we weren't necessarily thinking of building a whole game around. We weren't thinking of making an Arrow TV series game because we've got our own universe and our own world that we've built, but we know there's lots of fans of the show out there, so they can dip into that pack and get a level of their favourite show. It adds something a bit different, something you haven't seen before. We're really going to town with it too, we're recording dialogue with Steven Amell who plays Green Arrow in the TV series, there's a real flow to the story and the level that you're playing through. It really allows us to expand on what the fans want, what they've been looking for.
Big thanks to Matt and Phillip for speaking to us. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is coming to PC and consoles this November 11 in North America, and November 14 in Europe.
Strategy Informer: So we're heading into space this time around, did you know from the start that you wanted to explore the DC cosmos in LEGO Batman 3?
Matt Ellison: Well we actually knew roughly what we wanted to do with this game while we were doing LEGO Batman 2. At the end of that game there's a teaser that leads into this one, when Braniac turns up and says he's located Green Lantern's power ring. So we had a good idea that this was the direction we wanted to go in, to explore the wider DC universe and go to these different Lantern planets and have all the fun that we could with these unique locations that have a different feeling from Gotham. We knew we wanted to do that and we also wanted to add to the character roster, it's about three times bigger in this game than LEGO Batman 2.
 |
Strategy Informer: Presumably you guys are big fans of the DC comics universe, because there's a tonne of references and obscure characters that pop up.
Phillip Ring: Yeah, very much so. We're so privileged to get to play around in the DC universe, especially because we're going beyond Gotham this time and into the larger universe. It's brilliant because there's constantly fans in the office coming out of the woodwork saying “we need this character in the game” - in all honesty there's times where we just sit there with no idea about who they're talking about, but then you read the comics and it's hilarious. Bat-Cow, for example, one of the designers tells us we have to include Bat-Cow, and we're sitting there with blank faces in the office.
“Yeah, yeah, he got saved from a slaughterhouse and then he got a cape,” okay, brilliant. It's that kind of creativity and love for the fiction that drives the team. We take suggestions from the entire team, so you'll see programmers and designers arguing about who should be in the game. With the DC universe being so vast, it's a great chance to treat all those characters, like the Lantern Corps for instance, to do those justice.
Strategy Informer: Any personal favourite characters out of the new guys?
Phillip Ring: Yeah, some of the crazy ones... Condiment King I think is hilarious. The audio team went back and forth getting the audio just right for him, tweaking it to make sure the 'squelch' of his mustard gun sounds just right. My favourite to play is still The Flash though, I keep going back to him. Especially when you get the chance to explore the different hub worlds we have, Odym is one example of a planet where you do a mission, but then it turns into a hub world later on, exploring that planet as The Flash is so much fun.
Matt Ellison: I like Solomon Grundy, this is the first time we've had him in the game, actually. He's been close a couple of times, but now he's in there. I think the animations are key to it, the team have done a great job with that side of things. He's got a great waling animation. Actually he's quite heavily involved with the storyline too, get some very funny lines of dialogue.
Strategy Informer: You mentioned it just then, I noticed all those bonus characters each have very distinct animations and powers this time around. Is that something you've been spending a lot of time on?
Matt Ellison: Absolutely, that's a massive part of what we've been trying to achieve with this game. A lot of that involves working closely with DC, speaking to them about what characters we're adding so they know what's coming up, and then they send us some excellent reference material so we can get them looking just right. And then the abilities, learning about those characters; what they should have, what they shouldn't have. And then we fit all that into the LEGO world so they each feel exactly like they should.
 |
Strategy Informer: Another thing you seem to have pushed is the voice-acting and the use of licensed music – there's a tonne of different incarnations of Batman, for instance, and then you get the 1974 Superman theme when Supes starts flying.
Phillip Ring: Yeah, that's something that when we went back into this world we wanted to add to do all these characters justice. DC have been fantastic, they've pretty much given us free reign to do what we like. It's how we get to include 1960s Batman with Adam West alongside our Batman, who's more like the modern day version but with a LEGO twist. With the sound effects it's that level of authenticity, when you're flying as Wonder Woman you're hearing the Wonder Woman theme. It's something we talked about in the past, we saw that there was a real love for the characters, and we wanted to do justice for the characters and for the people who play our games. And also for the fans in the office – we make games that we can play and be proud of ourselves. The amount of reference and access we've had from DC has been brilliant.
Strategy Informer: The 1960s Adam West Batman level we played was great fun, that's a bonus mission right?
Matt Ellison: Yeah, once you complete the fifteen story levels in the game you get access to this bonus level, that's your reward for completing the story. It's by far the most fun bonus level we've ever done. We've never tried to do something on that level before, and it was such great fun to do. Especially because it's the 75th anniversary of Batman this year, it's a bit of a nod to some of the history of the franchise. Working with Adam West was phenomenal.
Strategy Informer: I have to say, he really knocks the narration voice-over out of the park.
Matt Ellison: That's it, yeah, it's an amazing opportunity to do stuff like than, and I hope the fans really like it.
Strategy Informer: So how does the intergalactic scale of the game affect the story – does it change the way you progress at all?
Phillip Ring: From a story perspective we start in classic Batman territory – it's Batman and Robin, and you're chasing Killer Croc through the Gotham sewers. We wanted to make sure we started like that to emphasise that this is LEGO Batman 3, Batman is key to this story, but we're also going to dig into the wider DC universe. We've then got a few classic encounters against the Legion of Doom, so you fight Joker, Lex, Solomon Grundy and so on. When we branch into the wider universe, that's when we start to open up those hub planets, the Lantern worlds. The way that works is that at the point we head off to the Lantern worlds, the teams are actually broken up, and for story reasons we've got heroes and villains fighting together.
The Lantern Rings are actually affecting them emotionally, so we can have levels where Robin is working side by side with Wonder Woman, who's in disguise as someone else, with Lex and Joker also there. You can also play those hub worlds in any order you want to. If you're a particular fan of Nok you can head there first, then hop over to Odym, and once you've done all the story missions you can go back to do quest, side-missions and free play. There are characters there to interact with that send you on missions, they have their own dialogue – Superboy and Supergirl, for example, you meet them in the Hall of Justice and they have their own missions for you to complete. There's a much bigger amount of content outside the story, we wanted to keep it deep so that there's lots of things for players to keep coming back to.
Strategy Informer: Each LEGO game typically adds a few new in-game systems, or progresses and refines those you've used in the past. What new mechanics does LEGO Batman 3 add?
Matt Ellison: We've added these spaceship sections that are entirely new. We've had vehicle missions before, like driving around in Gotham, but obviously we're in space now, so we've got these space shooter sections where you're flying around taking out enemy starships and so on. We've got one set around the Watchtower and a couple of other ones. It's great fun zooming around taking out enemy ships, while still collecting studs – there's still no death in our games, so if you get shot down you lose a few studs but nothing too bad. Kids and younger audiences will still be able to have a lot of fun with it.
 |
Strategy Informer: You've just announced an Arrow Pack DLC. There's a tonne of DC shows and tie-ins around at the moment, will we see more licensed TV and movie crossovers like that?
Phillip Ring: Yeah, we're doing DLC this time around, so we announced the Arrow Pack and we've announced a Man of Steel pack and a Dark Knight pack. It allows us to touch upon worlds that we weren't necessarily thinking of building a whole game around. We weren't thinking of making an Arrow TV series game because we've got our own universe and our own world that we've built, but we know there's lots of fans of the show out there, so they can dip into that pack and get a level of their favourite show. It adds something a bit different, something you haven't seen before. We're really going to town with it too, we're recording dialogue with Steven Amell who plays Green Arrow in the TV series, there's a real flow to the story and the level that you're playing through. It really allows us to expand on what the fans want, what they've been looking for.
Big thanks to Matt and Phillip for speaking to us. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is coming to PC and consoles this November 11 in North America, and November 14 in Europe.
