Metro 2033 van THQ is één van de games van 2010 waar we bij Eigenwereld.nl extra naar uitkijken. Dit komt omdat het zowel een goede shooter lijkt te gaan worden en omdat de setting in een metrotunnel perfect aansluit bij onze interesse voor urban exploration.

In een interview tussen Worthplaying en creative manager David Langeliers van THQ zijn een aantal leuke details naar buiten gekomen. Zo geeft het interview extra inzicht waarop het spel precies is gebaseerd en wat voor problemen er om de hoek komen kijken wanneer je een Russische titel maakt en daarbij de Russische auteur Dmitriy Glukhovskiy nauw betrekt terwijl je van oorsprong als ontwikkelaar Engelstalig bent.

WP: I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not fluent in reading and writing Russian. Working on the publisher side, what kind of challenge was it knowing that the book hadn't been translated yet? You've got a Ukrainian team developing it and working on their own script. What efforts have you made to ensure that when the game is finished and the English translation of the book is finished, that they're somewhat in sync and you haven't gone off in two different directions based on interpretation?

DL: There are a couple of things that wrap into that. For one, we had the author, Dmitriy Glukhovskiy, working very closely with the team to ensure that the narrative was very close to what his vision of it is. The team did face some problems with wanting to get all the fiction of the novel into the game, but at the same time, the game still has to be interesting and fun for audiences of all cultures. We went through a long process of bringing down the core of the narrative and having that be the critical path to the player. We also tried fitting in all the little elements that the author enjoyed and the developers enjoyed and having these still available to the player if they go interact with NPCs, if they go read the posters on the wall, if they dig a little deeper into the game, they're still going to get these extra pieces of fiction. If you play the game, we also went to great lengths to find some voice actors who are English speakers but still have authentic Russian accents for those of us who want to play through the game and hear English. At the same time, we're also including the actual Russian voice-over on the disc and allowing you to have English subtitles. If you want the fully authentic experience of what this would actually be like in the Metro tunnels, it's there for you.

Update 21:10