Josef Fares on how Ico inspired Brothers

For the second in our series of interviews originally conducted for Boss Fight Books’ 2015 Shadow of the Colossus book, author Nick Suttner is back talking with Hazelight CEO and director Josef Fares.

In the years since this interview was conducted, Hazelight has become one of the most successful independent developers around, releasing games like It Takes Two and Split Fiction — with It Takes Two being a breakout success, selling more than 20 million copies. But at the time of this interview, Fares had just formed Hazelight after releasing his first game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, with Starbreeze.

Click here to read the first interview in this series, where Suttner (who has himself gone on to work on a number of games, most recently Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure) talks with Thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen about his work on Journey, another breakout indie game success story.

And read on to learn more about Fares’ thought process when designing Brothers, and the inspiration he took from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus when working on it. (Spoiler warning for those who have not played Brothers.)

Nick Suttner: You’ve spoken in the press before about the influence of Ico on Brothers, amongst a lot of other RPGs and such that you played growing up. And Brothers leans very heavily on wordless storytelling and basically communicating everything through gameplay. What about that appealed to you, just right off the bat, when you started?

Josef Fares: Well, coming from a movie background, what I like about games is the interactivity of it, and that’s something I put a huge amount of effort on. I’m a huge gamer myself, so in cases where you’ve had filmmakers [making games], I think that the approach to it before from filmmakers has been like trying to make it into a movie. But for me, it’s so much about interactivity.

What I liked about Ico and what we tried to do in Brothers, is that I believe that if you have a language you don’t understand, and if it’s believable in that world that you don’t understand the language, then, in a sense, the player is a little bit more interactive. Because you have to focus and read their body language, trying to understand [what’s happening]. You’re not in a relaxed state. […] So that’s one of the reasons.

But also, the reason why Brothers was without language is because it’s a fantasy world, and it’s a fantasy world where I felt like English wouldn’t fit, and trying to find a totally different language, and create it, was very hard. That’s also one of the reasons why it’s heavily inspired from my own language, which is Arabic, because I’m from Lebanon.

But I would say the biggest thing is that I believe you have to be a little bit more focused [and read the character’s actions more closely], which makes it a little bit more interactive. So it’s actually everything about that. I mean, that’s what I love about games. That’s why I’m so proud of the ending of Brothers. It’s the interactivity that grows the character. It’s not a cutscene.

What sort of design work and key lessons are important to stick to, to be able to have that consistency and to be able to tell that story through the interactions?

Fares: It’s interesting with Brothers. I mean, many people have reacted to the story quite heavily and say it’s a great story and everything. And really, it’s an extremely simple story. It’s about these guys who [are] going to save their father. I mean, I have [added more depth] if you look closely. If you look at the director’s commentary, I talk a lot about that.

For me, the game is about the little brother — him growing up to be an adult, pretty much. And if you can see [that] through the stuff you interact with throughout the game, how he changes — that was the key thing for me. The story is pretty much about him. But it was about trying to find the simplest way [to] convey the story, because you can’t have regular dialogue where they talk about their emotions and feelings. Everything, you have to show in their body language.

I would say the challenge was trying to write the right kind of dialogue for people to understand in a short amount of time. But also, of course, getting to know your characters by interacting with stuff. That’s why you had a different interaction for every brother. So, like in the beginning, if you remember the game, the big brother is more responsible and the little brother is more mischievous. Like more of a child. So hopefully, when people interact with stuff, they will get to know their characters through interactivity. Interactivity is the key thing.

How much of that was written out beforehand? Obviously, in the overall story there’s not too much dialogue there. But how much of that was in the script versus something that came across while you were building the levels and everything?

Fares: You know what? The difference between making games and movies [is] with movies, you’re much more prepared. Like, in Brothers, the actual [concept] about them two together, one’s gonna die in the ending, the main story, that was there. But when you’re [making] the game, it’s kind of like a process, so you see what’s working, what’s not working, and you slowly change it. I remember in the beginning, we were talking, maybe, [about] having a language, but eventually it went more to this non-language, because we felt it was better. So not everything is planned. Some things are something you feel while you’re creating the game. But pretty much most of what Brothers [was] in the beginning is what it is now. But of course, you have a lot of changes.

I also wanted to ask about being able to trust your players and trust that they can experience a mature storyline and deal with it emotionally, and also trust their curiosity as they move around the space and explore it. I think that is something that a lot of modern games don’t do, really. If the player isn’t going in the right direction for a few seconds, they pop up a prompt and tell them so, and make sure that they’re constantly stimulated, whereas you’re putting a lot of emphasis on the player figuring things out themselves. How do you feel about that?

Fares: I have, actually, kind of strong opinions about this in many ways. First of all, I would like to say that I’m more than 100 percent sure that interactivity — I don’t even want to call it gaming — the interactive experience is going to be bigger than movies, than theater, than whatever you want. That’s for sure in the future. I don’t know when — maybe in 20 years, 30 years; I don’t know. Because [at] the end of the day, people want to get emotionally touched. And I believe that interacting in a world and being passive — I think that interactivity is a stronger thing for the human being.

And I talk about games today. I mean, you can see — you have the typical blockbuster games, which, most of them I really love. Uncharted, I like a lot. GTA5, I like a lot. But the problem with these games is — I mean, these are great, but there’s so much money involved that so many people are getting afraid of taking risks, you know? And I can understand that some games tend to be quite boring and don’t take any risks. I don’t think there’s a lack of creativity out there. I just think that there’s a lack of risk taking. But what makes me sad, though — I mean, I hope, of course, that we will see more different games and more also different approaches to design. The thing is, I think that we have to change the way we look at games. We are so early in game development, so when I hear a game designer tell me “This is how it’s done,” I rarely take that seriously, because you don’t know why it’s done. It is so unknown how a great game could be. We just have an idea. I mean we still talk about “first-person,” “third-person,” “RPG,” “RTS,” and so on. […] Some people are, I think, too fixed on what they think a game is. And that’s why I think we see a lot of similar games.

Another thing is that there’s a huge amount of focus on the gamers. I mean, every press conference you see, it’s like, “Oh, we listen to you gamers. Oh, we do this for you.” It’s like, Come on, trust in your own visions. And sometimes the gamers don’t know what they want. You know what I mean? It’s like, Focus on yourself. What do you want? […] Have the knowledge that you’re making the game for a gamer, but don’t be dependent on it. I mean, I respect and I have acknowledged that someone would play the game, but I’m not dependent on it. I’m not like, OK, well, how will I make this player like my game? I have to trust my game, and he’s going to be surprised that, Oh, my god, I really like this game. You know what I mean?

And what I’m saying is that during Brothers, many people came to me and said Brothers was not a fun experience, because they told me that, “This is not gonna work. This is not the way it works.” Blah, blah, blah, and so on and so on. And I’m like, “How do you know?” When I asked them, “Do you have a good reason for that?,” they couldn’t give me a good answer. So, I think that there must be more risk takings from a perspective of the financial side and the creative side. I’m giving you too long an answer, but you know what I mean.

But, sadly enough, to elaborate a little bit more about this, is that what I feel is sad — because two, three years ago when I was doing Brothers, I felt that the indie movement was doing great stuff and trying different stuff and trying different things. But — of course, we see some great games coming out — but sadly enough, you see these games trying to copy each other because of their success. Minecraft, for instance, or these survival games. Everybody’s trying to do the same thing. And I think, as an indie developer, now you have the chance to go crazy. You know what I mean? Do all different stuff. Not trying to do another survival game, which will be a successful game. You know what I mean?

So that’s our approach at Hazelight. We have total creative control. EA’s super cool to us. They can never interfere with anything. Anything. They cannot even change a color of a jacket for a character in this game. So they’re on the side. That’s also my thing that I said to them. Like, “If you want to do this, it’s going to be my way. It’s going to be like this.” But of course, we’re not making a super high-budget game. You have to understand the financial side of it. I can’t tell them, “Give me $100 million; I will do whatever I want to.” You know what I mean? But that’s why I believe that I understand those AAA titles, because they’re kind of cornered somehow and they can’t do it. But those indie developers, I think that they could flip out a little bit more. Maybe we’re seeing five great games every year. I believe we could easily see 10 or 15 great games every year.

I think ultimately, by making something different, that’s how you expand the audience. It’s not just about speaking to the current gamer user base; it’s about trying to find new people. And I think it’s interesting in your case, because — by making something very different that was successful, you managed to earn the trust from a publisher to be able to have that freedom, which is great. 

Fares: Yeah, the players are important, but people are too dependent on them, even doing the calculation. I mean, that’s mostly the free-to-play business, but even the AAA titles, they change stuff, the science stuff of what people like and don’t like. [How do] people know what they like if they haven’t played it? Maybe you have to present it for them. But at the same time, of course during all this, let’s say, 30, 40 years of games, of course we have learned some stuff, and you don’t have to throw everything away. I’m not saying that, but take some stuff, but think new. That’s what I’m saying.

Like Fumito Ueda, you came into the gaming industry as an outsider. I read a bit about how you got in. I know it wasn’t quite from film to games completely and there was some time in-between. But I’m curious what you brought to the table with that, and how that helped you versus hurt you early on, and were you really the only one on the team in that boat?

Fares: Well, I mean, it was very hard at the beginning. I think most people were kind of judgmental about me, because, yeah, I’m a filmmaker. There had been [other examples that didn’t go well]. I know John Woo was — I think only his name was involved in Stranglehold, and the [Wachowskis were involved in games], and Spielberg was involved in Bloom Blox. You know, those kinds of things. And you hear some directors like Guillermo del Toro now being involved in a game. And I think the problem is many of those filmmakers aren’t gamers. They don’t like games — I mean, maybe they like games, but they don’t understand games. I’ve been a gamer since I was 10. I mean, even earlier. Not even 10. Maybe six or five.

So for me, again, I tried — first of all, the idea was very strong. So when people heard it, they were like, “Wow, it’s a different mechanic, different ending,” how it looked and everything. And then eventually, I had to work my way in and convince people. First of all, like the variation of Brothers was nothing quite common in games, because we don’t reuse so much. There’s new stuff all the time. That’s something that my team felt, Oh my God, this is going to be so time consuming and so on and so on. But I managed to talk to them every time and everything, and they realized, OK, maybe it’s not [as] bad as we thought. And you feel that many appreciate this, that the experience changes all the time and it’s diverse. I was thinking, I want to do a game I really, really would love to play. That was my approach to it. But it was hard.

But I would say, normally, making a movie is such a huge difference from making a game. Again, the interactivity and the passiveness of movie making is so different. Once you’re interactive, it’s a whole different ball game. I mean, an example I say sometimes, which is quite funny, is that [on a movie] it’s almost like I have my audience on the set, playing around with my actors and camera and everything and just fucking around everywhere. But in games, they’re so much harder to design because you have to pace the story as good as you can, you have to tell the player where to go in a good way — even if it’s not linear — you have to make sure the player doesn’t fuck up somehow. There are so many challenges, so many new challenges with the interactivity of it. So I would say that was a bad thing in a way. But I was such a big gamer so I pretty much went from what I like and don’t like. But the good thing was, from a storytelling perspective, that could be a good thing when you work with the cutscenes or really work with the emotional tone of the game and stuff like that. So you could say they were good and bad things, but no, I didn’t have anyone on my team who had that background.

But now it’s different. After Brothers, it’s a total different ballgame. Now people listen to me. And again, this is the vision of the next game. I can tell it in a sentence [and] people will go like, “Wow, that’s really cool,” because they haven’t heard it before. I have a different approach to it. I’m not interested in making games I’ve seen before. I’m not saying we’re reinventing the wheel. I’m saying, if I showed you a minute or two from the new game, you [would] go, “Oh, cool,” but when you play the whole game, you will understand why it’s so different. So it’s a lot of inspiration from many other games I like, but it’s still something new to the whole package.

When you were shopping around Brothers and trying to get that made, did you have that sort of elevator pitch? What was the seed of the idea? Because, for instance, for Ico early on for Ueda, it was about, visually he wanted to make a game about a shorter boy and a taller girl, and a game about interacting with AI and actually physically interacting. So I’m curious what the key couple things were when you expressed the idea for Brothers early on.

Fares: Well, it was very easy to explain Brothers. I just told them it’s a game about two brothers you’re controlling with one controller, each brother with each stick. I mean, that thing was already there. That thing that people were like, “Oh, interesting.” Then I said, it’s an adventure to find the medicine and save your father, and in the end, one brother will die and you will lose one hand physically, and you will only control [the other brother and] feel the loss of your brother physically in an interactive way in the game. It was easy to explain it. So people got hooked there already. But still, it was so hard because people were like, “Will this work and what’s your experience?” And blah, blah, blah. Most of them really loved the idea, but they didn’t trust me. 

But I understand it in a way, because I hadn’t had any experience in games and I hadn’t done anything, and even the Brothers team was quite a fresh team. It wasn’t a super experienced team. I mean, it said it was Starbreeze, but I think we had one or two Starbreeze veterans. Most of the Starbreeze guys went to make Wolfenstein, which is a good FPS actually. But you know, the core team went to start MachineGames. […] So if you like Starbreeze games, you should look at MachineGames. They are the Starbreeze guys. And if you like Brothers, then you should look at Hazelight.

One question about the story too — I think the death of the older brother was so beautifully executed. And this may sound a little silly, but I’m curious if there was a time in the story when things were going to be OK, or you felt a need to have it positively resolve. Or was the death there from the beginning?

Fares: From the very beginning, yes. The big brother was [going to die]. That was the whole idea — the physical loss of one hand. The feeling. But what was not in the beginning — that was during, I think, in the middle of production — [was the part] in the ending when you grow throughout the interactivity and you push that button of the big brother. [...] That’s something — I remember that night, I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited. Because I was like, “Wow, this is the perfect way to make a character grow and interactive.” I remember, I didn’t sleep that night. I went to the team the day after and I’m like, “You’re gonna get so fucked up. This is so cool.” And it’s funny, because that moment is actually the moment that I think made Brothers into what it is today. It’s such a different thing that really hadn’t been done in games, I would say.

Jumping over to questions more directly related to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, I read about the influence of Ico, but I’m curious what your experience with Shadow of the Colossus is.

Fares: I love those games. I think they’re so much ahead of their time, you know? They’re like cocky. They’re doing something — I mean, Shadow of the Colossus, what is it? Like nine bosses or 12?

16.

Fares: Ah, 16, yeah. But that’s the only thing there is. I mean, I love it. It’s a big, beautiful world, and it’s only 16 bosses. I just love how cocky the idea is, and how Fumito Ueda feels like, OK, this is what we’re going to do. That’s what the point of it is. And I love when creatives trust their vision and just do it, and that’s eventually why it turns out great. I mean, if you look at today, they would probably have filled a typical open world with stuff you do. And [Shadow had] nothing. It was so simplistic. It was so clean. It was so ahead of its time. It was so adventurous, and it was so different, and it was so beautiful, and it was majestic.

And Ico was also that. At the time it came, it was a huge experience for me, because I hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was actually, I would say, the first time I felt something for a character [in a game], and I really felt at that time, Wow, you really could do cool stuff in games, you know? That was actually the first experience I had with that. So I understand all the people hailing Ico and Shadow of the Colossus for being this piece of art, which it is. It definitely is. And I’m really looking forward to the new game, The Last Guardian, if it eventually comes out, but I think it will. But I understand, at the same time, it’s taken [such a] long time. Maybe he’s feeling a lot of pressure because everybody’s hailing him so much. I can relate to that feeling in a way. I’m not saying I’m feeling it, but I can relate to it.

[Ico and Shadow were] definitely a big inspiration for Brothers. The benches, of course. That’s an homage to Ico. […] And because we had benches, we could control what areas we could visually [showcase] a little bit. If the player was [playing it as a] the third-person game, you would see areas that were not that beautiful, because they were only made specially for these benches. So it was a good way of just giving some love to Ico there. […]

But I would say the biggest inspiration from Ico is also the best thing in the whole game, and that is the ending when he runs on the beach. I love this. You know in Ico, when he runs on the beach? That is my absolutely favorite scene. I love it. I remember when I played it, I was like, Wow this is so cool. […] I thought it was lovely, you know? I had that in my mind when I made Brothers, too.

Obviously, you talked about the homages from the bench and everything from Ico, but I’m curious if there were any specific design decisions in Ico or Shadow that stand out to you that you remember.

Fares: Yes, yes. Definitely. The simplicity, of course. The simplicity and the heartlessness. The heart is not so — in Ico, you have a little bit, but it’s almost nonexistent. That’s also a big inspiration.

On that front, I’m curious for you — a lot of these games have been talked about being approached with subtractive design in mind, or sort of an aesthetic minimalism. Is that something you’re specifically passionate about, or was it really just a fit for that project?

Fares: It was a fit for that project, but minimalism, it’s like when they say less is more. As long as you don’t have stuff helping the player, and you’re letting the player figure out stuff himself and experience stuff himself, then it’s a lot better. So I would say that it’s definitely something we try to [use in how we] approach every game we’re doing here at Hazelight. But at the same time, it’s hard — you have to understand, also, that if you compare games 15 years ago and today, you’re much more, I wouldn’t say lazy, [but] comfortable today. So you’re much more used to having tutorials and showing what to push and not to push. It’s kind of like the curiosity of approaching gaming is a little bit gone, because they tell you everything. So I’m kind of [in the middle of those two extremes]. I don’t want, when people play the game, [for them to not] understand anything. But at the same time, you don't want to tell everything. So, minimalism is something I really, really like, and I would really like to have everywhere. And that’s not only in the game design itself, but in the story, in the graphics, in how the whole game is, pretty much.

I mean, I like open worlds like GTA 5 and stuff like that, but I feel like today, if you look at a game like Witcher 3, for instance, which is the latest RPG, which I’m sure people [are] super excited about and it’s a very good game. But there’s so much stuff in that. It’s crazy. Like why do I have a hundred different routes? I don’t know. […] I like the simplicity of stuff.

It’s funny that you mention Witcher 3, because about a month ago, after I played some of it, I wrote in a chapter specifically comparing it to Shadow as an example of — while at face value, these games are similar; they’re third-person, riding a horse, fighting monsters, adventure games, if you don’t think too deeply. But in reality, their execution is so very different on either end of the spectrum, which really represents where that genre has gone — these open-world fantasy games. They sort of took this one path, whereas Shadow took this other path. And that was actually going to be my next question. Shadow seemed to take this other path that no one really took again. Shadow’s still pretty much completely unique, and I’m curious if you have thoughts on both why is it still unique in an industry that does tend to borrow from other sources so often.

Fares: Well, I kind of was talking about that a little bit before about the business and the risky stuff, and what is expected from a game like that. Of course, you have to have an open world, you have to have a lot of items, a lot of different weapons, and so on and so on. Because that’s what — I mean, creators want to get good reviews, and the reviewers are used to different ideas of how games should be. [...] People want new stuff but nobody dares to [make it]. Can we make a big open-world game with really nothing to do in it, except fighting bosses? I think nobody dares to do it today, because it’s too much of a risk, you know?

Releasing a game like Shadow of the Colossus — it’s such a unique thing. Like, what publisher would say yes to that? It’s kind of crazy. Like, “I want to make a game. You have a horse and you have one sword, and you’re going to fight 16 bosses and that’s it.” That pitch would be like, “OK, so what do you do? What’s the story?” “There is no story.” I mean, OK, there is a story, but you know what I mean. There’s no people you can talk to, nothing. That’s kind of crazy.

To me, it’s interesting that even once it came out and was very well received critically — and over time, it sold over a million copies — I’m sort of surprised that in maybe the five years after its release or something — which, we’re now 10 years out — there weren’t copycats or anything. To me, it’s still a very unique thing. Though, obviously, it’s a difficult game to make too.

Fares: Oh, yeah. From a game development perspective, making these designs about how to climb the bosses and how to control them, that’s like, man. If you look at a game like God of War 3, the beginning. Like how Kratos, when he jumps around and runs over all these creatures and stuff. That is nothing compared to Shadow of the Colossus, because Shadow of the Colossus is actually — you’re interactive all the time. What they do in God of War 3 is that they do this super cool animation, super cool stuff, but then once they — they take away your control — but once they’ve taken the camera, it’s pretty much [zoomed-in] on the controlled area where you fight, and then they go out with the camera again. It’s a very controlled experience with different triggers and stuff.

Compare that to Shadow of the Colossus, where you actually are climbing on the colossus all the time. They don’t take the control from you at a single point. Now that is too hard game design and too hard programming and level design or whatever you call it. I would say it’s one of the toughest games to make, [even] today. And with that technology at that time, I mean, it’s crazy. It’s still one of the craziest, most impressive games made until today. I would even dare to say that a game like that is harder to do than a big, open-world game. You know what I mean? It’s so hard. Like, how do you animate the big creature? Where will you move? How will you… Oh, my God, yeah. I can imagine their development and how it was and all the bugs and everything. I mean, they pulled it off. I’m sure there’s a lot of bugs in the game, but it was quite a polished game.

To your point, in a game like Witcher 3, it’s just sort of about generating content at some point, but like you’re saying, there’s so much to the specific dynamics of Wander being on a colossus and the whole thing moving at once together.

Fares: Yeah, and with total control the whole time. I mean, look at the God of War 3 intro and look at Shadow of the Colossus. I would say Shadow of the Colossus is way harder to execute.

It may have been awhile since you played it, but do you have a favorite colossus or any memories that stand out for you?

Fares: Yeah, I remember the bird flying, or was it in the water? I mean, oh my god, yeah. I have to replay that game. It was so cool.

That’s most of my questions. I’m curious if there’s anything else you think I should be asking you, or anything that you’d like to see me explore in the book, if you were reading about Shadow?

Fares: I would love to know how they dared, at that time, to take on such a challenge as Shadow of the Colossus. How much work did it take? How much did they try? Did they have any ideas that they couldn’t execute? Of course they had [some, but what were] the biggest challenges? I mean, from a technical perspective, how did they combine all these animations and interactivity and stuff and the climbing? How did they do that? That would be interesting from the perspective of a developer.