Playlogic's first-person opus Infernal is due out next month, with the demonic rise approaching, Gary Flavell sat down with producer Martin Janse.

For those that don't know, what is the basic premise behind Infernal all about?

Infernal is a 3rd person perspective adventure. You play the part of Ryan Lennox, a former employee of the angelic organization EtherLight, now hired by the devilish organization Abyss to find out what EtherLight is up to with mankind - in order to save the eternal balance between good and evil.

Previews of Infernal talk about a battle between good and evil of 'epic proportions' - how does this translate when playing the game?

Before joining the Abyss, Ryan worked for the 'good' guys. So he has still some emotional connection with Etherlight, and friends that are still working there. Ryan is also very critical about what Abyss is doing. During the game, Ryan will discover that everybody has his own secret personal agenda that will result in a big surprise at the end of the game. To get to this end, Ryan has to go to various locations and fight many different opponents to find out what is the truth.

Third person shooters often need a charismatic protagonist to keep gamers coming back - Lara Croft, Solid Snake, etc. Given the lack of huge silicone mammary glands and a sneaker suit, what is it about Ryan Lennox that will keep us interested?

What makes Ryan Lennox different from your regular generic hero is not only his cool looks, gorgeous red glowing tattoo on his right shoulder and arm and kick-ass attitude, but also the sarcastic humor. We carefully looked at many Hollywood and Hong Kong action and comics to see what makes an action hero interesting and appealing. From there we started to work on Ryan until we had this cool action hero. Another interesting part of Ryan is his personal struggle with his past. Now fighting against his former employer and working for his old enemy brings a lot of personal conflict. This adds a lot of depth to his personality and to the story of Infernal.

Screen shots have shown lead character, Ryan Lennox, with his torso and left arm on fire - what's that all about?

The fire on Ryan's arm is caused by the Infernal powers he received once he joined the Abyss. With these powers Ryan can perform many demonic acts, like for example obtaining health from defeated enemies, powering up his weapons or teleporting either himself or objects within a level. These powers are very useful when fighting against angelic agents.

What sort of weaponry might a soldier of the dark boast when dealing with his foes?

Throughout the game, Ryan collects many different weapons - handguns and machine guns as well as a rocket launcher, hand grenades or flamethrowers. He also will need to use gun turrets, and can even use hand to hand combat when fighting enemies. Also, Ryan can use his Infernal ability for additional powers and possibilities to his weapons. But Ryan can also use his teleportation skills to quickly teleport himself behind an enemy and perform a surprise attack from behind.

The narrative of Infernal seems hugely similar to Russian vampire Nightwatch - what are the game's major inspirations?

As I mentioned before, a lot of our inspiration came from many different movies and comics, but also from many contemporary game classics like and Diablo. Maybe it's hard to imagine now, but in an early stage Infernal was a kind of game. But we were not really happy with it. We were playing around with several different new concepts and one day out of many different concepts the idea of Infernal came up.

Resident Evil 4 set the benchmark for third person shooters. What does Infernal do to offer a healthy supplement to the genre?

Resident Evil 4 was indeed a very impressive game. But where RE4 also tries to emphasize horror elements, with Infernal we try to focus more on action shooting and tactical fighting. The pace of fighting in RE4 was lower to increase the tensions of the attacking zombie-like creatures. In Infernal the pace is much, much higher. This is because the enemies in Infernal are much faster and smarter then in RE 4 and they can attack you from everywhere. This creates a much more action orientated gameplay. You have to think before you start your attack and use your surroundings to get the best attack positions. The enemies will try to defeat you by using different tactics depending on your behavior.

There's been a lot made of the Ageia PhysX processing unit. How might Infernal fair against recent graphical extravaganzas and Lost Planet?

Even though Gears of War and pushed the graphical aspect of Next Gen gaming to a new height, I believe Infernal can compete due to its unique style not seen before in games, which looks impressive even without an Ageia PhysX card. Still, for gamers who have the Ageia PhysX board we have added a variety of incredible looking additional effects like liquids and fire. When you have an Ageia Physics card installed and you use your flamethrower against a wall, you will see the flames realistically crawling up the wall and the ceiling.

How do you think the Christian gaming fraternity will take to being forced to play as an agent from hell?

I think people who criticize the game should first play it. It's not so much that you work for the devil to create as much destruction in a short period of time and to wipe away all kindness on earth. It's much more complex then that. It's about what is good and what is evil, and how to choose what is good or bad, and taking your responsibilities. Let people play it before they judge it. I think they will be surprised.

What will keep us coming back to Infernal once the single player mode is completed? What kind of functions will there be?

There are 3 different difficulty levels available that will create a new challenge to play the game all over again. The game also creates a different experience if you change to a different tactic (although the game is essentially an action shooter, try to do a more approach). Also the player can unlock items or cheats when completing the game in a difficulty level. We focused on a single player mode in this game because we wanted to focus on the story. This game was built on a single player experience and we tried to get the maximum experience out of it. We didn't want to force a multiplayer part in it that might in the end jeopardize the overall game experience.

Thanks for your time Martin, best of luck with the game's launch and future projects.

By Gary Flavell