Like any superhero worth his salt, Expedition has an interesting origin story.
Adhoc Studio was founded in 2018 by Telltale vets Michael Choung, Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart, and Pierre Shorette. Originally, ADHOC was going to work in multimedia spaces rather than strictly games, with creative director Shorette telling Variety in 2019, “As a group of people whose experience and expertise came from making interactive storytelling that sits in that in-between space, we feel now is the perfect time to form a studio that focuses on creating content for a new space.”
“The first thing we started our studio on, we were hired to write something that really had to be live-action,” director Herman told Polygon during a recent video. The studio was working on a “live-action superhero comedy about a superhero” at the time. For inspiration, the team pulled from an unlikely place: ESPN’s “This Is SportsCenter ” commercials. Athletes, coaches, and team mascots would join SportsCenter anchors in the ESPN offices for legitimately comedic commercials relying on the awkwardness of athletes kitting out in an office, like the Las Vegas Golden Knights players running the Stanley Cup through the office dishwasher .
“We were watching these YouTube compilations of it from the beginning,” Herman said. He called the impulsive, office-related humor “a cool vibe. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, at least visually, and it’s a great setup for jokes and stuff like that, so we got into it early on, and that became kind of a touchstone as we were developing the projects.”
Work was progressing on the project when the team hit a major roadblock. “We were just going into production,” Herman said, “when Covid hit.”
Image: Adhoc Studio
That project was essentially shut down, and Adhoc turned its attention elsewhere. “Some of these things have already been announced,” Herman said, like The Wolf Among Us 2, which Adhoc is developing alongside Telltale’s revamped games.
ADHOC wasn’t going to let their work on this superhero workplace comedy go to waste, and instead repurposed it into today’s Expedition We Know—a choice-based, dialogue-driven game. “Eventually, we just said, ‘Hey, let’s take this and […] bring it back to the world we were more familiar with,'” Herman said.
Expedição Coloca os jogadores na mesa de Robert Robertson, interpretado por Aaron Paul. Robertson é o ex -homem de super -herói mecha e agora precisa assumir um emprego na rede de despacho de super -heróis (SDN), trabalhando ao lado de outros ex -super -heróis, como o Chase de Jeffrey Wright. O encarregado de Robertson de uma equipe de desajuste “ex-vilões”, como Herman os descreveu, que pode ser mais problemático do que vale a pena. ““[Robert] Não tem superpotências. Ele é o cara que deveria estar desistindo a qualquer momento, mas esse coração e essa coragem é o que realmente faz dele um herói, certo? ” Herman disse.
Ele descreveu a mentalidade de Robertson como: “’Acho que esta é a minha vida agora. Como encontro alegria nisso?’ E estar cercado por essas pessoas bastante miseráveis não está facilitando. ”
Imagem: Adhoc Studio
O trabalho de Robertson não é o mais fascinante, e o escritório também pode usar algumas atualizações. Originalmente, para a versão de ação ao vivo do projeto, “intencionalmente estávamos fazendo tudo muito merda – posso dizer merda?” Herman disse. “Realmente dumpy, digamos, e era como se o SDN estivesse em uma espécie de shopping. […] É uma comédia, então estávamos inclinados para ela. ”
Uma vez que o projeto passou para ser um jogo – onde os orçamentos definidos não seriam uma preocupação, e o Adhoc estava livre para projetar o mundo como ele se encaixava – o desenvolvedor chamado de audível, como Herman o descreveu. “Por que não queremos fazer um lugar em um mundo onde as pessoas gostem de ser?” O ADHOC apoiou -se no talento de seus artistas e diretor de arte, e o escritório da SDN foi feito “menos dumpy” com a arquitetura mais moderna. Ainda assim, é uma relíquia de um momento diferente; Robertson está trabalhando em uma camisa em um cubículo, não em suas roupas de treino em seu escritório em casa.
Naqueles “isso é SportsCenter“Comerciais e como a vibração de ExpediçãoO escritório de um Expediçãoé como se eles estivessem em cubículos e ninguém trabalha em casa e está meio que datada, mas também tentamos nos inclinar um pouco. ” Enquanto o jogo está definido na década de 2020, a tecnologia tem uma sensação de velha escola;
O trabalho de Robertson definitivamente sentirá o governo adjacente. Os leitores de quadrinhos podem ter a sensação de que ele está trabalhando para uma organização semelhante a um escudo ou Argus de baixo orçamento. Seus dias serão gastos enviando esses ex-vilões em tarefas, como assaltos a espaços ou resgatação de gatos. O ADHOC queria que Robertson lidere uma equipe de desajustados, em oposição a uma equipe do tipo Vingadores, “só porque é mais engraçado”. Originalmente, Robertson monitoraria uma equipe muito menor de apenas três supes, mas o Adhoc mudou para uma equipe maior para tornar a jogabilidade mais envolvente.
Imagem: Adhoc Studio
“Once we got into the dispatch mechanic [for the core gameplay loop] we realized more bodies are better,” Herman said. Expanding the team brought about its own challenges, of course. “It was pretty daunting initially, but the gameplay that we were coming up with was sticky, so we kind of stuck to it and then worked [the additional characters] into the story and figured out who these characters were and now we’re here.”
Coming from former developers and former accountants, player agency will be at the heart of Expedition . Players will be able to choose Robertson’s actions and dialogue, and the characters “will remember it,” just like in Telltale games. When asked how Adhoc would ensure these choices are reflected throughout the game and its endings, Herman responded bluntly. “Yes, it’s hard. That’s the short answer. It’s hard.”
But it’s not something Adhoc worries about initially, knowing that the stories and characters have to grow and that the developers themselves may be surprised by the directions they take. “It’s actually very organic, and it’s pretty close to how you would write a television show, I think,” Herman said. “The problem is, you just have to write multiple television shows or multiple endings, multiple big payoffs to these topics, and I think that’s the part that some people might not understand.”
Image: Adhoc Studio
On the topic of endings, Herman pushed back against the idea that more is always better; instead, the Expedition team is focused on ensuring that every possible ending offers a satisfying conclusion. “I think as a team, we’re less interested in [having a lot of endings] because you have to have 30 amazing endings, otherwise a percentage of the audience will just have this kind of shrug-off conclusion, right?
“So our focus is on making players care, especially about characters and relationships,” Herman said. “We want to allow them to invest in those relationships and have meaningful consequences, and that’s where we put most of our effort.”
This effort is still ongoing; Expedition has a 2025 release window, but there’s no concrete release date yet. So far, it’s only been officially announced for PC, but Herman said, “We have plans to go to consoles. Those plans haven’t been shared yet, but that’s our intention.” Until then, you’ll just have to enjoy Steam Demotion and watch some SportCenter commercials. Scott Van Pelt taking LeBron James’ throne will never get old.
