Kurt Sutter Brings Us Back Into The World with His New iOS Game | IGN 

Sons of Anarchy: Kurt Sutter Brings Us Back Into The World with His New iOS Game

With the series finale of Sons of Anarchy still fresh in our minds, the release of its IOS game counterpart doesn\'t stray much farther past the guns, sex, and high-octane panache of the show.

Kurt Sutter has released Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect onto the mobile (and soon to be PC) market and its a return to form.

IGN had a chance to talk with Sutter about the new entry in his highly praised IP. Read on for details on how he approached the development of the game and the subsequent storytelling in its 10-episode arc.

IGN: I played the game last night, the first episode, it was awesome. I just want to say, it felt like it took no time for me to feel like I was back in the Sons world, which is a great feeling for me. Going into the development of this, what was it like switching over from TV development to game development?

Sutter: I’d been in this process for a while meaning that I’d been trying to get a game up and running for a few years now. And I’ve documented a lot of my frustrations via social media but it was an education for me, just to backtrack for a bit. It was an education for me. I’m a gamer and I knew the nuts and bolts of what was involved but trying to get off the ground, initially as a platform property and realizing all the complications and quite honestly just the expense of doing that and the time of doing that.

We had a couple false starts and then ultimately we started running out of time if we wanted to get it out at any point near the end of the series, which is what we wanted. I had avoided platform games up until that point, mobile devices, and browser games. I just felt like they were kind of weak and ultimately, I’d rather do nothing than do something sh***y. Then, obviously as iOS games got more sophisticated and the quality of the graphics of tablets sort of getting comparable to that of platform and PCs, I was sort of reeducated as to that and we had Orpheus come in and pitch their concept of what the games look like and really just following the trend that so much of gaming is shifting into the table world. So I was sort of reeducated with all that and we signed off on it and really liked their enthusiasm and their ideas behind it. So that was the first piece of it for me was a little bit of education of what that entails.

Sutter (Cont.): Then, the process of development was really about taking their pitch and their ideas and then my whole sort of mandate was two things really. One is I wanted to protect the mythology that was already out there and not have anything that contradict, or potentially if we ever do a prequel, I didn’t want to do anything that would smash into any narrative that we may want to use.

So the first for me was about protecting the mythology that exists and then it really was about story. I didn’t want it just to be download and ride a bike and club somebody. Not that there’s not some of that involved but I wanted it to be story driven and character driven. Then, I put one of my writers here, Roberta, in the drivers seat with Orpheus and really guided them in terms of the mythology and then I would sign off on the bigger arcs and the character stuff. Then, the complete opposite of what it was like trying to get a platform game off the ground, then it moved very quickly. That was sort of how it all came to be. We wanted it a little bit earlier but then we had some parameters from Apple that we wanted to fulfill so it took a while even after it was ready to go but I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.

IGN: I wanted to ask you about the style of it. Right out the gate, you don’t pull any punches in the intro. And hearkening back to my experiences with the Mass Effect series and the Telltale series where those types of choices are prevalent, where those influences on the design of the game and the story decisions for you guys?

Sutter: I think so. For me, we obviously, in the vein of RPGs, wanted to use the system that best set up story. I think some of the blow back in terms of the game, initially with people was they felt it was too slow and there were too many decisions to be made. Again, I didn’t want it to be like you get into it and it’s just you know simple and kind of thin story and you’re just into the action of it all. Orpheus came up with a great way to weave action into all the storytelling elements. I wanted it to hearken back to some of those character choices that Jax had to make so that there was that sense of right and wrong and how much weight do I give my own sense of morality? How much weight do I give my devotion to the club?

So I think those RPG devices in terms of making those decisions to find out who you are was really important in this first episode. And then I think, as you get into future episodes with some of those choices that are already made, and you\'ve sort of determined the path that you’re on, there’s less of those and the game moves more quickly. But the thing I dig about it is that ultimately, it all comes full circle so none of these choices are just arbitrary decisions to manipulate game play. They all sort of come full circle back to story, so that the choices that you make in the first 30 seconds of the game comes all the way back, full circle at the end of the game. And that I think is a really cool hook that they’ve done well.

IGN: Absolutely. Since playing that Telltale series, the Mass Effect series, this one was right out the gate-- I was like, oh wow, I really have to make a tough decision right away, which I thought was fantastic. You get instantly sucked in.

Sutter: You get sucked in and the thing that I dig is it wasn’t so much about making those decisions from an external point of view, in terms of am I a prospect? Am I a VP? What kind of Bike do I ride? It wasn’t so much about the external choices for your character that you would make in any of those games, Oblivion, any of them. You start to determine who you are, internally before you do anything externally and so I never had a sense of them feeling like okay this is the process you have to go through to play the rest of the game. But yeah, absolutely, that was our intent.

IGN: This choice system, was this something that was kind of prevalent at the forefront of development or did this come about later on? What was the process like coming up with this way of storytelling for the game?

Sutter: Again, it was such an education for me, so it’s not like I went in with any kind of specific engine in mind. We got a couple different pitches and ideas and I really liked the way Orpheus -- which was great for me because the guys are big fans of the show, they understand the show, they’d seen the show. There was a sense of them -- there was a part of me that felt like they cared as much about what we did on the show and were going to handle it respectfully and protect it as much as I did. So that was a big thing for me. A lot of it was their pitch and this is how we think it should be done and then for me it was following that through and going okay well that’s an interesting way in, how does that ultimately reveal story and then sort of were able to look at where it all went and how the story was revealed through that process.

Sutter: It definitely wasn’t me saying I want to do this. They had the knowledge and the ideas for that and I just had the easy part of sitting back and going yes that works.

IGN: That’s awesome. I have a question about some thematic elements, especially in this first episode. I noticed a lot of duality happening with almost all the characters. There’s that and you get a sense that a whole bunch of different characters have that same sense of duality which is really cool to see. Is that a thing where you’re playing with themes or the thematic element of each episode. Is that a type of thing that’s going into the development of each story arch in each episode or is it just kind of the way it flows in the arc?

Sutter: The thing that felt organic to me was that the process that you would have to make in any kind of role playing game of this sort, as far as who am I or who am I going to be based on the choices I make. I loved it because it really lent itself to the conflict and the themes that we deal with on the show. And not just with Jax but with all the characters over the course of seven seasons. They all had those moments where they had to make the decision about is this the right move for me to make? Is this who I am? Is this who I’ve become? And we’ve had almost every character face those decisions.

So to me, it sort of lent itself perfectly because now, you’re in the process of determining game choices that lead you to the direction of the conflict, but you’re also staying within the themes and the conflicts of the show and the world. Look, some of it was just the nature of the show and it really lends itself to that. I think as the episodes progress, there’s a lot more nuance so it’s not quite so black and white because as you determined who you are, and the choices are then made based on previous choices so it becomes a little bit more nuanced.

Sutter: (Cont.): I do think that sense of duality, which is a great way of putting it, that sense of these decisions that I make are not decisions that I make easily. So as the episode progress, there is that sense of every decision I make is going to have a very specific cause and effect. So I think that theme of it continues to flow through it but I think as you make these choices, and obviously not for every character because there’s just not enough room for that much data, but at least with our prospects.

IGN: Speaking of characters, I noticed, this is a ten episode season guess. Are you doing seasons of this or is this like a trial run for one season? On top of that, we have Tig. Without giving anything away, will there be any more familiar faces potentially showing up throughout the season at all?

Sutter: That’s our goal. Quite honestly it was tricky because the time frame is sort of vague. In terms of where our characters are and at what part of when we’re plugging in to this in terms of when we left the show. I don’t want to initially give away who those characters may be but I think the hope is, at least if it goes beyond the ten, which at this point still will be determined by how well it does and feedback and all that stuff, the hope is to definitely continue to weave in familiar characters.

IGN: That’s awesome. I’m stoked to see who shows up. Now that you have this game set in motion and you’re working on your new show The Bastard Executioner, which is like the greatest title I’ve ever heard, are there any plans to do any more Sons stories in other formats, shows, apps, books, anything like that?

Sutter: Yeah, we’ve been very -- we never really saw it coming in terms of the popularity of the show and the potential of merchandising of it all. There’s kind of a veracious appetite for stuff. There’s f***ing tons of SOA merch out there, none of which I actually make money off of but you know, Rupert’s getting some cash for it all. My mandate for all that stuff was I’m open to it all, I think it’s great because it helps when the show is running, it’s free marketing and as the show goes on and goes off the air it keeps it alive. My whole thing was that whatever we do, not that it has to be uber high end s***, my whole thing was I just don’t want people to feel ripped off.

IGN: As long as it’s sticking to the show bible, basically?

Sutter: Yeah, and whatever the price point is, that people, when it shows up at their house they go “oh that was cool, that was worth the whatever.” What I don’t want to do is have people feel like they’re taken advantage of because they wanted the f***ing whatever it was, the SOA snuggie and it came in as a piece of s***. So that was my mandate.

And the merch is really... we’ve handed it off to a few different artists and they’ve done their spins on it and all that stuff is cool. In terms of narrative and story, that’s the hope. There’s been serious conversations and I’ve mentioned this many times, about potentially doing the first nine prequel which would most likely be a mini series like a ten-off or something like that. So with all that stuff, it’s really important and we wouldn’t do that for a couple of years. So it’s great to keep the IP alive and we’re lucky that because of digital media we can establish new fans through iTunes and Netflix and Amazon and all that stuff. But my mandate for the narrative is kind of the same as it was for the game in terms of I want it to be like the novel we did. It’d be well written, the story would be well constructed and not that it’s f***ing War and Peace but that when people finish the book they go okay that was worth a couple hours of my time and fourteen bucks or whatever it was.

Sutter: And that whatever it is, again, that it doesn’t contradict or fly in the face of our mythology. As long as it didn’t contradict anything, as long as it didn’t create a narrative line that might impact what I want to do with the prequel, those are sort of my creative mandates. The comic books, the same thing and so far all those things have done very well. The stuff we did with Boom Comics, I think they’re going to continue to do those graphic novels The novel did really well. I’m sure there’s been discussion about having second one. I think all that stuff will continue and hopefully the game goes well and we do another, whether it’s with this organ charter or whether we, almost like an anthology, we have a whole different character. Those discussions, we haven’t had those yet but I’m sure if it does well, we’ll be more than open to continuing to do it.

IGN: With The Bastard Executioner that you’re planning, are there seeds planted right now for somehow down the line, to also do some kind of video game adaptation with this as well? Has that thought ever crossed your mind?

Sutter: Yeah absolutely. I think it also lends itself to the gaming environment. There hasn’t been any serious discussions about it. We shoot the pilot at the end of March and then if it gets picked up to series, I’m sure at that point they’ll be questions and discussions about potentially doing all that. I love all that stuff. I think it enhances the viewing experience, it engages and fans and anything we can do to bring eyes to the show but also bring people some enjoyment in the world is all good.

Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect has been released onto mobile market and soon to be PC.

Brandon Hunt is an Associate Editor for IGN. You can chat with him on Twitter @mediavandal 

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