King Kong's Immersive Style

Go ahead and take a look at the official screenshots of the Ubisoft-developed King Kong, an action-adventure based on the upcoming Peter Jackson-directed movie of the same name. Notice something funny about the images? It's almost difficult to place at first, but if you're like us, your eyes may tell you that the screens represent real-time scenes from the ambitious game, and yet your brain argues against the judgment. It's hard to look at the shots without labeling them -- even if only for a split second -- as concept art. And there's a legitimate reason for this unexpected conclusion: the game has an initially jarring look to it for the simple reason that it totally lacks a heads-up display, or HUD, as it's more popularly known. No health bar. No ammo meter. Not even a compass or map. Nothing but a good old-fashioned game world.

Ancel, who developed Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, worked closely with Peter Jackson in order to recreate for videogame players the fantastic world realized in the anticipated feature film. Ancel decided from the start that he wanted the game version of King Kong to closely capture the movie's "primal" feel, and that he wanted it to be just as immersive, successfully suspending disbelief for players like you. In order to do that, the team, using a modified version of BG&E's "Jade" engine, decided to emphasize artistry and presentation over raw polygon-pushing power. The results, as seen in screenshots, are the lush, stylized jungles and moody, light-filtered landscapes that you will make your way through in the game. And in an effort to make the world as real and visceral as possible, all remnants of a graphic HUD have been removed.

But has immersion come at the expense of intuitive gameplay? We may not always like our screens fluttered with meters and bars, but they do serve their purposes. Ancel and crew have devised a compromise that exudes simplicity and may spark a trend of HUD-less games to come. In King Kong, the HUD hasn't been sacrificed, but replaced by the game world and its bearing on the characters. The game features two gameplay types: A first-person mode that situates you as Jack Driscoll, the adventurer hero of the story. And a third-person mode where you play as the ferocious King Kong.

The game retains full immersion regardless of viewpoint by illustrating health and ammo levels in different manners. For instance, when playing as Driscoll, your level of health is actually reflected by the character's degree of eyesight. If his vision is great, in other words, he's doing just fine. Oppositely, if his sight goes bad, getting blurry or hazy, that means he is in danger of losing his life. Meanwhile, to view how much ammo the character has left, you simply hit a button and he'll check his gun, all in first-person view and without breaking from the game world by layering a HUD on-screen.

The Kong-based levels offer a different play style entirely. These areas emphasize the beast's power and challenge you to use sheer force and combos to obliterate anybody or anything in your path. In this mode, if Kong loses health, it will be visible on the character himself. His model will be updated to show scars and battle wounds.

"The visible wounds on Kong's body play a dual role," Ancel says on the subject. "They add visual realism and are a health meter in disguise."

King Kong is not the first game to forego a HUD and it will not be the last, but it may help popularize the simple, yet effective marriage of presentation and gameplay.

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