THE LOST (Unpublished)

PS2

Long before Bioshock came to be, 2K Boston (then known as Irrational Games) attempted to create a “survival-horror RPG” for PS2 as the spiritual followup to the critically-acclaimed PC classic, System Shock 2. I worked The Lost primarily as a level builder, using both the Lithtech and Unreal engines. The design goal for this game was to merge the deep character development and player choice-driven design conventions of PC RPG’s with the platformer and melee combat mechanics more commonly found in console action titles. Edgy, sophisticated, and ambitious, The Lost was a surreal, modern re-imagining of Dante’s Inferno where the player would assume the roles of several interchangeable, upgradeable characters as they explored the seven levels of Hell, each one based around sins such as Violence, Corruption, and Ignorance. I really cut my teeth as a professional level designer on this game, and working on it gave me a great opportunity to conceptualize and construct levels for a wide variety of fantastical, highly creative, and thematically diverse environments, including industrial factories, classical Greco-Roman temples, and even a 3D representation of the pencil-drawn optical illusions of MC Escher. Levels were interchanged fairly often between designers and artists on the team (and I worked on many other scenes than what is shown here), but I’ve tried to include screenshots of content that I contributed towards.

The game floated in development limbo for many years, and eventually Irrational licensed the IP an India-based game developer called FX Labs. After retrofitting the game’s fictional background and premise to Hindu Mythology, FX Labs released the game for PC under the title Agni.

If you are interested in learning more about The Lost, IGN is still hosting features, movies, and screenshots for the game, including a designer diary I wrote for it a long time ago.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/090/090565p1.html

http://ps2.ign.com/objects/015/015041.html

PS - Please keep in mind that what you see here represents my work and contributions to VERY early versions of the game. This game also has no relation to the Dante’s Inferno game from Electronic Arts’ Visceral Games studio.