Developer : Insomniac Games
Release date : October 31, 2014
Synopsis :
Sunset Overdrive is an action-adventure shooter video game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Microsoft Studios. The game is set in 2027, in a fictional metropolis called Sunset City. The player controls an employee of FizzCo, who has to fight off the OD, short for Overcharge Drinkers: humans who have turned into mutants after drinking FizzCo’s energy drink beverage. In the dystopian Sunset City, the player character can wall-run, use zip-lines, and grind rails to swiftly navigate through it, with a large arsenal of weapons to use. The game also has a cooperative multiplayer mode called Chaos Squad, which tasks players to complete a series of missions with seven players. As the game puts emphasis on momentum, the game does not feature any cover system.
The development of the game began in 2011 when Insomniac completed Resistance 3. After the project was green-lit internally, the studio partnered with Microsoft Studios, which helped fund the game and allowed Insomniac to keep the rights to the franchise. Insomniac described the game as a “celebration of games”, as the team took inspiration from different sources, including Prince of Persia, Jet Set Radio and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, though at its early stage of development the team took inspirations from DayZ instead. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic future, but the team depicted it as an “awesomepocalypse” that turns the game’s initial world depiction into a “playground” for players. Sunset Overdrive uses Insomniac’s internal engine, previously used in Fuse.
It was announced at E3 2013, and released worldwide for Xbox One in October 2014. A Windows version, developed by Blind Squirrel Games, was released in November 2018. The game received generally positive reviews, with praise for its visuals, traversal system, combat system, and humor. However, the game was criticized for the lack of a compelling story or innovative quest design. It received numerous nominations, including Best Xbox Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. The game was supported with multiple pieces of downloadable content, including the story-based The Mystery of the Mooil Rig and Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machine, after the game’s release.
On July 13, 2027, megaconglomerate FizzCo hosts a massive pre-release party in Sunset City for its new energy drink, OverCharge Delirium XT (also known as OverCharge), allowing the citizens to be the first to try it. In an attempt to sell OverCharge faster, FizzCo skipped health regulation protocols and rushed through testing, leading to the drink being so toxic that anyone who drinks it transforms into a violent, boil-covered mutant known as an Overcharge Drinker (OD). In order to cover up the deception, FizzCo claims that a viral outbreak has happened and quarantines the whole city, preventing anyone from entering or exiting. The player, a FizzCo employee who works in the sanitation division, is saved from an attacking OD by Walter, a fellow survivor; the player is unaffected by the drink, as they were not allowed to attend the launch party for OverCharge, later referred to as “Horror Night”.
Upon learning that Walter is creating a plane to escape the quarantine, the player obtains the aid of Sam and the Oxfords, a group of rich but lazy geniuses from a local university. After multiple errands, the Oxfords build a propeller to complete the plane. The player joins Walter in his plane to escape the city and reveal the truth about the outbreak. At the last second however, Walter notices an invisible wall preventing their escape and pushes the player out of the plane before dying in the subsequent crash.
Still planning to escape, the player aids Troop Bushido, scouts living in a samurai museum, and the Fargarths, a group of larpers. In thanks, the two groups design and build a ship out of garbage which tricks the FizzCo sensors and allows them past. As the player is about to escape, they learn that FizzCo robots are attacking the Oxfords and Troop Bushido in order to kill all witnesses and complete the coverup. The player returns to Sunset City and rescues the survivors. Sam informs the player that there is a deadly superweapon in FizzCo headquarters, which the player is able to break into after obtaining the help of Las Catrinas, a group of skeleton-themed Mexican American cheerleaders caring for the children’s ward of a hospital, by recruiting a band fronted by King Buzzo (voiced and mocapped by the real Melvins singer)[19] to perform for the children.
The player rallies the four factions to attack FizzCo headquarters, and attempts to destroy FizzCo HQ by riding a giant bottle of OverCharge into it. The player is killed in the blast, and the factions mourn them. However, the player breaks the fourth wall by pausing the credits rolling after this scene to complain about how depressing the ending is, and decides to change it. The player survives and gets respawned in this ending, and it is revealed that the FizzCo building is a robot that is meant to destroy the city to cover up the OverCharge outbreak. The player destroys the robot and has milk and crackers with the other survivors. After the credits, however, computers in the FizzCo headquarters automatically activate a protocol sending FizzCo helicopters full of OverCharge around the world, foreshadowing an international OD outbreak.
Source : Wikipedia
