Games
We chat with the team behind the technical and musical sides of Redout 2 to explore what it takes to make an exhilarating future racer.
Redout 2 is here and fans are starting their engines in anticipation of the long-awaited sequel. Paying an affectionate homage to the arcade racers of old, this hyper-speed trip into a colourful dystopian future looks set to be an exhilarating release.
The creators at 34BigThings claim it's the "fastest racing game in the universe" and it would certainly be hard to argue otherwise. Once players get behind the wheel of one of these futuristic hoverships, the antigravity tracks allow them to reach phenomenal speeds. More than a simple turn of the wheel, Redout 2 will give players a chance to rise to a significant challenge, as they loop and swoop their way across a semi-abandoned Earth.
This second instalment keeps a fine balance between the potential of the high skill ceiling and the ability for new players to just pick it up and have fun. As well as an extensive career mode, Redout 2 has competitive online multiplayer, where up to 12 racers can face off in a series of fresh challenges. For players who like to swerve in style, each hovership is also fully customisable with anything from technical specs to aesthetic adornments.
As with the first game, the stunning soundtrack is part of what sets it apart from others in the genre, with a cleverly responsive algorithm that keeps things in pace with the race itself.
Clearly fans of the genre, from WipeOut to F-Zero, we sat down with Producer Filippo Gabello and Paolo Armao, Lead Sound Designer, to ask them how they brought this high-speed racer to life.
Steering into the future
Before Redout 2 could be realised, the team knew exactly which aspects needed to be brought up to speed. "It's the fastest racing game in the universe, not just the world," Gabello remarks. "And we have this opportunity to go back to the franchise in a bigger and better way. We were able to just increase everything – more speed and more style."
The team were working on the basis that the first game was famous for (alongside other things) a complicated and highly technical driving system, which a sequel would be expected to expand upon. "We didn't want to shy away from it," says Gabello. "We wanted to keep adding options. There are a whole bunch of actions a player needs to do when playing, like steer straight, pitch their ship, use hyper boost and keep an eye on things like heat management and gravity controls."
Despite its intense driving system, Redout 2 isn't just for experienced players. "We have six levels of difficulty," explains Gabello. "They range from a chill one, which is made for anyone who isn't used to the game, to Nightmare, which is on the opposite end of the scale. We wanted to be more accessible to newcomers, so we spent a lot of effort giving it more variety and implementing more ways to play the game."
More of everything
The mentality of the Redout 2 team appears to have been focused on providing more in all areas of the game. "We have more tracks, more events, more ships and we also have ship customisation – a lot of ways for players to express themselves in the game," says Gabello. Alongside these sizable additions – which total more than the first game and all its DLC put together – the game now also comes with more ways to play.
"We have a huge Career Mode, which is made up of around 250 events where the player can race through modes like Arena Races, Time Attacks and Last Man Standing, which is basically elimination mode," says Gabello. "Then, we culminate in Boss Mode, which is three tracks from the same environment all linked together in a very long and very difficult race." Oh, and if that wasn't enough of a choice, every track is also reversible.
After unlocking all the challenges and tracks that career mode has to offer (or maybe between races), players can also lose themselves in Arcade Mode and hone their skills. This mode features all the race modes, all the tracks and all the environments available in an offline single-player format.
The most impressive thing about all this content is that Redout 2 was developed during the pandemic, with the team having to adjust to a new way of working and an ever-growing staff.
"It was difficult not only on a day-to-day basis, but also the fact that in a single year we doubled our size," explains Gabello. "So, together with managing remote calls, calls on calls on calls, of course, you also had to onboard a lot of people and get them to start work on the projects, but also trying to make sure that they were comfortable and still able to become part of the family, even from our remote positions."
Sound and vision
Part of what gives Redout 2 its unique and arcade-like feel is the way that sound is used to enhance the entire experience. Paolo Armao worked on both the composition of sounds and the music design, and how that fed into the overall feel of the game. "We had a long phase of selection, choosing genres and artists we wanted to work with," he recalls. "Creating the musical world of Redout was really important. Music is one of the essential tools we have to support the player in empathising with the driving experience."
Alongside the chosen artists, the team has a selection of their own talented composers and producers who all worked together to get the world of Redout to reflect the diversity of real-world music. "The soundtrack for the original game was quite a success. We had an orchestra that played some of the tracks all over Europe, but we still wanted to expand a little bit, to include more genres, more artists and better represent the musical world of Redout."
Crucial to building the responsive acoustics of Redout 2 was the choice of sounds that accompany the music and ships whizzing around the tracks. "The music has to be… violent. Fast-paced. But it shouldn't distract you when you're in that trance and driving at 1,000kph. Music can be really distracting, but it can also help you focus on your driving experience."
Redout 2 is available now on PC, PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X.
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