It’s hard not to think of Dead Space while navigating the winding corridors of Fort Solis, an abandoned Martian base that has recently suffered a mysterious tragedy. The influence that the USG Ishimura had on the design of Fort Solis is obvious. As you slowly explore the derelict industrial base, a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia permeates every moment. Every forward step into the unknown brings you closer to danger. But while Dead Space reveals its necromorphic enemies almost immediately, Fort Solis isn’t so quick to reveal its hand.
I played a 15 minute chunk of Fort Solis at PAX East this past weekend, and while I expected to come away with a better understanding of the game’s story and themes, instead I left with even more questions. The setup is simple enough. You play an engineer responding to an alarm at a neighboring base, but when you get there, the crew seems to be missing. As you make your way deeper into the station by the usual means - rerouting power, unlocking doors with nearby computer terminals, playing simple rhythm games to turn cranks and knobs - you’ll discover the story through emails, audio logs, and videos of Wyatt Taylor (Troy Baker), a medical officer stationed on Fort Solis. Whatever it is Taylor is going through, and the situation unfolding on the base, remains a mystery to me. The only clue director James Tinsdale, who I spoke with after my play session, offers is that there isn’t anything supernatural happening - no necromorphs, no cacodemons. He says to think of Fort Solis as a psychological thriller, not a horror.
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As I play, the game’s leads Roger Clark and Julia Brown watch on. Clark portrays the player character, Jack Leary, a blue collar type that seems to approach the situation with a ‘just doing my job’ attitude. Jack speaks with Clark’s unmistakable accent - a uniquely subtle blend of Irish, Welsh, and suburban east coast that reflect his eclectic upbringing. There isn’t even the slightest hint of Arthur Morgan in his voice, and Clark says that’s partly what drew him to the role. “I love working in games, and the opportunity to do something like this, which is different from what a lot of people know me as, was too much of an invitation,” he says. “It turned out I couldn’t not do it.”
Brown plays Jessica Appleton, a crew member that serves as Jack’s constant in-ear companion - the Delilah to his Henry for Firewatch fans. I enjoyed their banter, at least what little of it I heard, and it’s immediately evident that the two have strong chemistry together. Neither actor is willing to tell me much of anything about their characters, but Tinsdale lets slip that Jessica is playable in a later section of the game.
This is Brown’s first video game role, and she says what drew her to the project was Tinsdale’s script, which she found engaging and character-led, as well as the opportunity to work in Centroid’s sophisticated performance capture studio. “It felt like a project where I get to explore the world of games but also tell a story that’s quite similar to my film work, which I love doing.”
While conceptualizing Fort Solis, Tinsdale knew that full performance capture would be essential to create the kind of immersive and emotional experience he wanted. The studio utilized the latest mo-cap technology in order to recreate each performance in the game as authentically as possible. Clark, who had extensive performance capture experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, says the way mo-cap is evolving is a dream come true for actors. “It’s really more and more becoming every day just a question of whatever your imagination is,” he tells me. “That’s your limit. When you have an up-to-date mo-cap volume, you’re able to do anything. You could be in the desert in the morning and you could be out in space in the afternoon, and I just love the freedom.”
Within the volume - the studio space where performances are captured - there’s no elaborate sets that represent the world of the game. Sometimes they would wear padding under their mo-cap suits or neck braces to help them imagine the feeling and restriction of wearing space suits.“There’s nothing there to aid you, you have to build the world around you,” Brown says. “All those little things helped you, then you could let your imagination go wild.”
Being able to look at in-progress images from the game really helped the actors put themselves in the scene too. “We have a dimensionally accurate set,” Clark says. “But when they actually show you the real environment, that greatly informs your performance and you’re able to put yourself right there on the spot. There’s no more suspension of disbelief on a mo-cap than there is on a stage. It’s the same.”
Clark has a background in theater, and he finds that working on games has a lot of similarities. In mo-cap, there’s no lighting setup or camera positions the way there is in film. The performances are captured from every angle simultaneously, and the director and animators can decide later on what camera angles to use. That, Clark says, has an impact on how you perform a scene. “Knowing that the camera can move makes your performance a little bit more theatrical,” he explains. “James would be very helpful in saying ‘this is probably going to be a medium shot’, but that fact is you know he might change his mind two or three weeks later. You have to be able to give a performance that can accommodate either/or.”
Brown adds that she was anxious about the artificiality of performing in mo-cap prior to starting, but she found that in some ways it was actually easier to get into character and experience Jessica’s emotions. “You’re able to be more so connected with the other actors than in TV or film,” she says. “A lot of time on TV I’m staring at the edge of a camera pretending it’s a person, whereas [on Fort Solis] we’re able to, the whole time, give each other as much as possible.” Further, the story is presented in a single, continuous, God of War-style shot, which naturally lends itself to longer, uncut scenes. “Because we were able to do these big long takes, you could really get into a scene, rather than getting cut into pieces where it’s harder to sink into the feelings.”
The cast and the developers at Fallen Leaf are hoping that all of the effort put into capturing these performances will make Fort Solis an engrossing, cinematic experience for players. It is clear from talking to the creators and my short experience with the game that it will have no shortage of production quality. Here’s hoping the story will be as strong as the performances when Fort Solis launches later this summer.
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