"In this world of Defiance, there are things that we have lost," says Steve Geaghan, production designer for Defiance, the television show. Geaghan is a 30-year veteran of television production, with credits on shows including Airwolf, Defying Gravity and the 2011 remake of the classic V. "We have lost our ability to fly. Where [before] we have been in outer space or near space, we can no longer do that."
Defiance, the television show, tells the story of refugees (human and alien) from the chaos of an alien war waged on Earth. Set three decades after the worst of the fighting, the television show — written by Farscape creator Rockne O'Bannon — was designed to be a post-apocalyptic/western/science-fiction yarn full of alien races and down-home drama. Defiance, the video game, is a MMO shooter, in which players will explore parts of the same world presented on the television show, and experience their own adventures, separate from what's on the screen. Each component is being designed separately but equally, so that fans of each will get a complete experience whether they combine the two or not.
Grant Bowler (Lost, True Blood) stars in Defiance, the television show, as Lawkeeper Nolan, driving around in the remains of St. Louis in a souped-up, Mad Max-style Dodge Charger with a futuristic peacemaker strapped to his hip. Bowler also appears in Defiance, the video game, handing out missions to players as they adventure in the remains of San Francisco. He actually recorded his lines for the video game and performed his own motion capture before he'd read a single line of the script for the show.
"That was a very odd thing as an actor," Bowler says. "I walked in with the Trion guys and they were like, 'How would your character do this?' and I said, 'I don't know! We've never done it!'"
Defiance producers say Lawkeeper Nolan's journey from the San Francisco area to St. Louis comprises part of the story arc of the television show's pilot, and that players of the game will therefore be exposed to an extra bit of story by interacting with the character in-game. In the preview demo we were given, Lawmaker Nolan kicks off the initial missions before hopping into a dune buggy-like vehicle and driving away into the sunset, presumably toward whatever adventures lie in store for him in the show.
"I can't believe it took us to 2012 for people to decide 'Hey, let's do a multi-platform launch,'" says Julie Benz (Dexter, No Ordinary Family, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who plays Defiance mayor Amanda Rosewater. "It's such a simple idea, but for it to actually be executed is — it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant, so I'm very excited to be a part of something that's never been done before."
Benz is no stranger to video game work, having performed the voice for the Halo 2 character Miranda Keyes. She says she's proud to be a part of the industry at a time when it appears to be gaining more mainstream credibility.
"I think it was always like, the forgotten stepchild that we didn't really talk about," she says. "We have an audience and we have people that love gaming and love this whole world and it generates income ... it's not the little stepchild anymore. Now it's the big brother. So it's exciting to see that transformation happen."
Exactly how deep the convergence between the two products will ultimately be is still unclear, and will continue to evolve as both projects progress to their April 2013 launch and beyond. Bowler suggests the eventual commingling between the Syfy television show and the MMO shooter developed by Trion Worlds will be strong.
"There will actually be characters who physically ... enter the game and the player can interact with them in the game universe," Bowler says. "And that will change, the characters will change, and the when where and why will change. The story lines of how and why they enter the game and [move] back into the show will change with both the game and the show.
"We've already shot — I'll mention it now — a number of environmental or climactic events that cross over between the game and the show. There's also story points that [enter] the game from the show and will cross from the game back into the show. We're very fortunate; in order to do this congruence and find the synthesis between two media. We're very fortunate that the game is an MMO and is a pervasive world – it continues to exist even when we stop shooting."
Bowler says the benefit of cooperation between the television production studio and the game development studio is mostly to the benefit of the television side. They will have the luxury of having to stop shooting from time to time in order to catch up and integrate what is happening in the game.
"You need one of these worlds to stop ... one of them has to stop so we can reseed, reboot and re-synthesize, and — from an audience's perspective — if you are both watching the show and playing the game that becomes seamless from your end but from our end it gives us the opportunity to see how events unfold in the game and then kind of reengineer so it's a congruent universe in the show.
"It is immersive, but I think what everyone is at pains to remind people is: it's an additive experience. The game on its own can be played without watching the show. You never need to watch the show. The game is complete."
