[PROTOTYPE] • (2005 - 2009)

Development History & Cut Content.

Introduction

PROTOTYPE development began in 2005.

Sierra Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, first announced PROTOTYPE in mid-2007.

The developers planned to release an entire trilogy about Alex Mercer, but unfortunately this never happened.

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ʀᴀᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴇɴᴛᴇʀᴛᴀɪɴᴍᴇɴᴛ sᴇᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏsᴛ ᴅʏɴᴀᴍɪᴄ ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇᴅ. ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜰʀᴇᴇ-ꜰᴏʀᴍ ᴍᴏᴠᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴠᴇʀ-ᴛʜᴇ-ᴛᴏᴘ ᴄᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ. ᴘʀᴏᴛᴏᴛʏᴘᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ᴄʟɪᴍʙ ᴏʀ ᴡᴀʟʟ-ʀᴜɴ ᴀᴄʀᴏss ᴀɴʏ sᴜʀꜰᴀᴄᴇ, ᴊᴜᴍᴘ 30 sᴛᴏʀɪᴇs ʜɪɢʜ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴇsᴛʀᴏʏ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴄʀᴏssᴇs ʜɪs ᴘᴀᴛʜ.

• "We feel we've mastered the technology for an open world, and this is a sandbox we've thrown a bunch of content into. We do not bind the player to play in any particular way. Here you have both the ability to be violent and brutal, as well as being able to be smart and careful."

• "This is a story-driven game that doesn't put constraints on you. You take control of Alex and do whatever you want. Your character evolves depending on what missions you solve and the story, Little By Little, becomes clearer to you."

- Max Belanger

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Online Mode

• "From the beginning, we planned Prototype primarily as a single-player open world game. But thanks to the special qualities of Alex, we began to experiment with a potential idea for multiplayer."

• "While this one is based on a great concept, our conclusion is that we won't be able to develop it with the same level of quality that we're aiming for in single player."

- Tim Bennison

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• "We wanted the player to feel very powerful. We have done this by giving Alex a number of supernatural abilities, which you can see the result of when a crowd of infected walk on him, and only the best tricks in the repertoire are good enough. Alex will learn nye things throughout the game and by the end he is going to be completely sick."

• "We have put a lot of effort into modeling the game after New York. We've taken over 21,000 photographs of the city and reviewed them to determine what the in-Game city should look like. Furthermore, we have also been to many different places and recorded the sound of the metropolis, so that with the help of 7.1 surround you will feel like you are present when you play. In addition to this, we also added a lot of people to the streets. There are not only 21 people living in New York, as some games would have you believe."

- Chris Ansell

Alex Mercer Design

• "Early clothing exploration for Alex's costume. Since majority of the game was to be seen from behind Alex, I decided to emphasize more on what his back looked like. I liked the thinner legs which I felt reflected contemporary fashion styles that I believe a person in Alex's position would adopt but we later agreed that a thicker leg would look more powerful. We knew we wanted his jacket to be a darker almost black color as to allow better blending with the powered forms. By allowing his collared shirt to swapout from his cuffs and collar we can break up the large areas of black and hopefully reinforce the idea that he dresses like a «thirty five year old narcissistic geneticist»."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Once Alex's outfit was agreed on by the IP team, the next order of business was to outline some further variantions. We had already selected two hairstyles that we wanted for Alex. At this point, we had still planned for Alex to have his hair gradually shift to white by the end of the game. You can also clearly see that Alex still had the red infection on his face from where the vial was broken. We were also wanting Alex's model to have as much flair as possible and so his jacket was longer and his hoodie had the drawstrings which would both flap in action."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Alex's final body design amalgamated what we thought Alex's physical appearance should look like. I opted for a slightly slimmer, smaller build as opposed to a typical superhero bodybuilder type physique. Alex is described as a thirty-five year old geneticist who's arrogant, narcissistic, and vain. What that meant to me was brains over brawn. Since we knew that his powers would be a darker color, we in turn needed to make his clothes dark to aid in the blending of powers. This led to Alex having a leather jacket and dark jeans and hoodie. Leather has a certain specularity that would be mirrored in Alex's powers. However, with so much dark in his design, I was concerned that he would read as a single black blob onscreen and so I threw in a white dress shirt to break that up. A dress shirt would fit Alex Mercer's wardrobe and provide some flare (via the collar, cuffs and shirt tales) and the necessary dark-light break up that we needed visually."

- Kevin Chu

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Initial Sketches

• The main character's name was Alex Tolliver.

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Alex's Powers

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• "These are the initial concepts for Alex's Claw and Blade arms. What was apparent at this early stage of concepts was that Alex really wasn't a person, but rather the virus itself taking the shape of a man. As such, materials like skin and clothing were all a part of the fascadeand can be shapeshifted into his Blade and Claw form. There were some nice silhouettes here but I still felt that the shapes looked to be a human arm encased with the virus rather than the virus shifting from a human arm shape to that of a Claw or Blade. Further exploration needed to be done."

- Kevin Chu

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• "For Alex's Claw, I wanted to move away from the «Arm in a Glove» look. Instead I wanted the claw to look like the arm reconfigured its molecular structre to become something else. After a few iterations, I was satisfied that there was enough of a blend of stringy, see through and plated parts that would give the desired look."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Alex's Blade arm was a particuliarly tricky thing. The Blade needed to look large and distinct enough as to differentiate it from the claw arm in terms of how its perceived usage would be. I started by going through some different bladed weapons in history such as the Chakram, Kujang, Bagh nakh, and Kama. From there I applied Alex's viral look to it and emphasized the fact that Alex uses the volume in his arm to formulate the Blade which results in his arm to lose mass."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Alex's Hammerfist had to look like he focused all his arm's mass into the hand to form a large stump or «hammer». I wanted to make it look particuliarly brutal as a pummeling weapon and so threw on some nice knobs over the surface. Another consideration was to make the hammerfist be able to open up like a hand so that Alex can still grab things while his hand is in this form. I decided on three fingers that folded out of the hammered end to further distinguish it apart from Alex's Claw hand."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Alex's shield was one of the easier concepts to realize mainly because at this point we had already established what his powers should look like. I had illustrated the powers to move like ink in water. It would stream and flow and when activated would harden in its current shape-much like stretching out a piece of taffy and letting it dry and harden."

- Kevin Chu

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Alex's Armor

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• "Early sketches of Alex's amorored form. I knew already knew what I wanted the surface articulation of the armored form to look like, so what I was doing here was trying to find an
interesting outline / shape / silhouette. There are heavy influences from insect exoskeletons, human muscle fibre and sugar crystals."

- Kevin Chu

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• "The Armored forms were the most fun to do. I wanted the look to be powerful yet mobile. We needed to believe that Alex in this form was still the same man / entity that was characterized by his dexterous parkour-like movements. With that in mind, I adopted smaller feet to reassert that every step was still precise albeit heavier and stronger. The look of the armor was approached from the point of view that Alex would revert his body back to its liquified viral state which undulates in tendril-like streams and then hardens. It also had to look like what we have already done with respect to Alex's Blade and Claw arms. I used the old trick of removing any semblance of a face to make the form more menacing."

- Kevin Chu

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Initial Sketches

• Alex's Armor was called the Monster Form. Sketches from 2006.

Sketches

Elizabeth Greene Design

• "Elizabeth Greene's design is a mix of wetsuit and bondage gear. The suit itself is a BlackWatch issued Medical suit designed to regulate the subject's vital stats. It has slots on the back to allow for direct spinal injections and various feeds all over the body to distribute drugs. The experiments had Elizabeth Greene semi-submerged in water with her back facing up. This meant that she needed to have a breathing apparatus able to be attached to the suit. Her head has been shaved from various experimentation to her brain. Elizabeth Greene is described as a teenager in the 60's who was infected by the virus and became the first host of the Mother virus. She is the girl-next-door type, sweet and wholesome. Seeing a person like that in this state of experimentation adds a sense of tragedy to the character and gave weight to the spite that she felt."

- Kevin Chu

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Elizabeth Greene Boss

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• "Some early Mother Boss concepts called for the Mother to grow to an immense size made up of the bodies of the infected. These concepts were too literal and extreme. These ideas were dropped due to technical limitations and a artistic move in another direction."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Another rejected Mother Boss concept which called for her to be made up of the infected. The literal nature of the concept resulted in a goddess - like appearance which we decided was not in a direction we wanted to take it."

- Kevin Chu

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Initial Sketches

Peter Randall Design

• "An interesting challenge that was put on the table was to derive a younger version of General Randall. It meant using the older concept and working backwards and preserving facial landmarks and de-aging the character. Flesh swells and sags over time and so in order to make the character look younger, I took the older drawing and smoothed over the wrinkles, the fat, and scaled down the width of his features and gave him a bit more hair."

- Kevin Chu

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• "I designed General Randall to look owl-like in profile. There is an air of wisdom and danger to his face. I wanted him to appear unrelentless, stubborn and unwaivering in his duty. He believes he is doing the right thing."

- Kevin Chu

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Robert Cross Design

• "With a few variants to the initial Specialist head sketch that I did, we quickly figured out what we wanted. The decision was made to move the character away from the heavy facial hair look in favor of a more marine like appearance. However, to me that homogenized the character into the sea of cliche and so we opted for the third variant. Sans the sunglasses, the seed of the Specialist's final design were there already."

- Kevin Chu

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• "Early sketch of the Specialist. His look was later modified to enhance character that this initial design lacked. However, the Specialist's high collar was already locked in my mind as something that I wanted."

- Kevin Chu

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• "The finalized Specialist's head concept collected all the things that the IP team and myself wanted to see in the character: Strength, Intelligence, and a distant sympathy that he would develop later on in the game. His profile should look like that of an eagle-sharp and powerful. To finish off his look, I slicked back his hair, gave him a gruff face, akin to the old Hollywood cowboys, threw a distinguished white stripe in his hair and gave him a lot of battle scars."

- Kevin Chu

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• "The Specialist retains the main elements from the rest of his BlackWatch unit though he has modifed his uniform to give him that seasoned special forces look. The Specialist is the only enemy character that Alex eventually wins over to his side - and as such needs to have his eyes shown to give him that bit of humanity that the other BlackWatch soldiers lack. To that end, I gave the Specialist a smaller version of the gasmask and employ the use of a balaclava to hide his identity. He is further outfitted with a rappeling tool and harness, stun baton and a custom fitted MK19 grenade launcher."

- Kevin Chu

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Initial Sketches

• The Specialist's name was Colonel Robert Crawford.

BlackWatch Design

• "Early exploration on the three classes of BlackWatch soldiers. I knew I wanted them to look unlike any other conventional strike force in the world as their mandate is to fight the Mother virus and infeted. We wanted three distinct classes for the soldiers - a pilot, a trooper, and a heavier weapons unit. We still didn't know which direction to take the BlackWatch at this point and so these designs varied from the conventional to the esoteric."

- Kevin Chu

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• "The final BlackWatch design incorporates biohazard gear with standard military webbing. The trooper wears a full body skin' that resembles a durable wetsuit and a modified gasmask to protect themselves from the contagion that they have been mandated to fight. As the BlackWatch provides Alex's main resistance in the game, the decision was made to de - humanize them as much as possible. The best way to do that was to remove the eyes - its an old but useful trick."

- Kevin Chu

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• "The BlackWatch Supersoldier is basically a genetically modified BlackWatch soldier who was been given a dose of the mother virus. To that end, the Supersoldier has enhanced strength and speed. The decision was to make these guys physically larger than an average human with their strength visably readable. Making the Supersoldier in the semblance of a bodybuilder provided the needed contrast to Alex. If Alex is the 'perfect' version of the virus, then the Supersoldier is a more crude, less elegant version - Like a Mack truck to Alex's Itallian sportcar. The inclusion of some spinal detail adds that bit of 'lab rat' feel to these guys. And again, removing any sign of a face makes these guys all the more menacing - you can't reason with them. On his lower back is a breathing apparatus that would periodically inject a chemical into the Supersoldier to allow him to be receptive to control by the other BlackWatch Troopers."

- Kevin Chu

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Initial Sketches

Hunter Design

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Stages of Evolution

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• The fourth stage of the hunters was never implemented in the game, as a result of which the third stage of the Hunter Leaders evolved into the fifth stage of the Supreme Hunter.

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Initial Sketches

Infected Design

• "The Infected people needed to hit three basic shapes-large male, small male and female. The infected also needed to look like they are failed or imperfect versions of the virus and so their appearance should look sickly and painful. The details I instilled are tumorous, puss-filled, swollen and deformed. All the infected have a lower version of Alex's blade arm - the virus reconfigures the host's bone into a spade just below the elbow."

- Kevin Chu

Concept Art

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• "This is the first piece I created for PROTOTYPE. The sun is setting and tomorrow a new chapter in human evolution will begin. I dropped in the military helicopters as a foreshadowing effect of what's to come. This is the seed that inspired my thoughts to visualize the rest of the story and lock down on a style that would cover all visual elements of the game. Before painting this piece the last phrase I read in the design doc was "Reality plus one fantastic element". I therefore treated the city as reality and the virus as the plus one and pitched this piece to the team as the calm before the storm."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "The heavy traffic in Times Square was to depict chaos and confusion just minutes into a new reality from what we knew of our everyday life in the city. Innocence no longer exists. To enforce that point when pitching this piece I opened up with the innocence of the child in the center white vehicle and then trucked out exposing more and more of the scene. As you began to notice the child just witnessed a killing of a man from the yellow cab to the left and the killer's reflection is on the side window to the vehicle to the right. The loss of innocence is the point of no return."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "This piece is to show that military strength is the only answer to a complex infection problem. I pitched this piece as the point of no return and heading to your local church or synagogue is probably a good idea at this moment in the game. This is also to show that Alex Mercer is a weapon and it will take an army to match his power."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "«The end of time» is what I call this piece. This is a snap shot of the future if you fail. I really enjoy painting these types of destructive concepts."

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- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "How do you inoculate millions of people? Crop dust! What these people don't know is that it's nothing more than a sugar pill. However, believability in a concept is crucial as it's the way to draw you into the scene emotionally. These people must have hope that they will be OK and so I've depicted them those eager to hang onto hope and welcome the dusting. This is why no one is running."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "In this piece I wanted to show three zones of our game. Color played an important role in this piece to really express the emotional nature for all zones."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "This is an early infected zone concept. I wanted to set a subdued mood and a feeling of uneasiness to the pedestrians walking in the area. You know that feeling when something just doesn't seem right but you go about your day then fall deadly ill hours later. The pedestrians in this illustration will get to know that feeling all too well. I especially like the couple sharing the umbrella at the right. It is a moment they may never share again which makes their moment in this piece extra special. Love is a great contrast to evil."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "One of a few night shots for the game. Here I wanted to show the city at night showing ambient light blending and reflecting reflected off a polluted sky. NYC is over 200 year old and showing its progressive history adds the believability factor. My thought in many of the concepts was to show that many of the buildings had different power sources for example: If a 100 year old building was burning coal then it's still burning coal today. While the 5 year old building next it would be using electricity. This is the one element of the city that does not evolve. This is why many of these concepts have lots of smoke and pollution and at night the pollution reflects a bit of red as you can see in this piece."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "What happens when you're sick? Quarantine, as this piece depicts. It was important to show what happens when you get infected and so I placed quarantine under a bridge and out of sight from most not yet infected by the viruses. Here a solder is unlucky and is carried by his brothers to the quarantine area, little do they know but they too will join their fallen brother. To decipher the difference between those infected in the quarantine area I painted them nude and exposed. The foreshadowing element is, you came into this world naked and so you will leave it the same way. I left to the team's imagination the following snow."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "The story evolves so does the environment. Times Square is now split between a military zone and an infected zone with red tones depicting death and blues depicting hope. Here Fire and Light are just as much in a battle as the infected and non infected military soldiers."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "NYC is very much vertical as it is horizontal with many great locations on roof tops. I needed to give you a reason to scale buildings and take advantage of all that added real estate. When I thought about how the virus would grow I decided to place them in water tanks and it was a reason to explore up. But you still would not know a Hive was above you if you where at ground level and I did not want you spending a lot of time looking for these areas so I conceptualized that infected Hives would attract Raven as symbol of illness and death. They are easy to spot from the ground as they would be circling the Hive form the air. This piece is the last of four in the series and the Hunter has broken out of the water tower."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "One of my favourite pieces, here I wanted to show how the Hive is a character. A vector finds a damp dark area under the elevator shaft to spawn a Hunter from its hive. Human-like infected creatures are the guardian of this spore and piles upon it human bodies who are barely alive and are used as a food source to grow the creature incubating inside. The hive generates so much heat that all the floors above collapse to the bottom."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

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• "I needed a piece that showed chaos and the possibility for Hydras battling military choppers on a large scale."

- Skip Kimball, Art Director / Sr. Concept Artist

Concept Art

Alpha

Prior to the merger with Activision, Radical Entertainment, together with Sierra Entertainment, created PROTOTYPE with a different vision from early to mid-2008, and only a small part of the original version, which is now called Alpha, remained in the final version.

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Alex Mercer Design

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• Alex was wearing a black vest with a white thick one underneath which was a white T-shirt. A shadow fell on his face from behind the hood, which made him look more gloomy. His jeans were a faded shade of blue. He also wore black and white sneakers, which gave him a sporty look.

• This design had to be abandoned due to the fact that Alex was too similar to a character from Assassin's Creed franchise.

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Alex's Claws Design

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• Alex's Claws resembled human skin and had a dark orange color, they also had 3 claws and there were no knives in them.

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• Claws from the Alpha are present on one of the art with the final design of Alex.

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Alex's Armor Design

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• Armor clearly highlights Alex's hood and pants, the spikes running up the ribs are noticeable on the back, and resemble ivory.

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Hunter Design

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• The Hunters had a wolf-like appearance. There were spikes sticking out along their backs, and there were also spikes on their paws. Their dark skin was soaked in the blood of their victims.

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Marine Design

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• Marines wore dressed in an American camouflage uniform of the forest type, there is a bulletproof vest on the body, sand-colored balaclavas, a slightly gray helmet.

• Marine Officers wore the camouflage uniform of US woodland, on their head was a hiking hat with two crossed sabers on it.

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• In the current version, only pilots have this form with a bulletproof vest.

Gameplay (2008)

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Alpha Gameplay from GDC

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• Alex's only abilities were Claws, Armor, Infected Vision, and a Thermal Imager.

• When taking damage, the screen turned red.

• The absorption animation lasted longer and looked more detailed.

• Were more elements of parkour.

• When performing parkour or running up walls, camera vibrations are similar to Hulk Ultimate Destruction.

• The HUD of the map is made in the style of Spider-Man's web.

• Bloodtox pumps are present on military bases, and are common vehicles that belong to the Marine.

• New York looked less voluminous.

• The Civilians had a different design.

• The drawing range was low. This is especially noticeable when flying by helicopter.

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Alpha Gameplay from G4TV

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• The military base that Alex is attacking is located in the western part of Midtown, but in the current version this building does not have any military facilities.

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Early Build

Trailer

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First Trailer (2007)

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• Perhaps the General is the first version of Peter Randall. The guy on the left seemed to be his right-hand man, who was eventually replaced by Robert Cross.

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• Alex had sharp limbs on his hands, most likely this is the very first version of the Blade.

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Alpha Trailer (2008)

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• In computer graphics, Alex has a design from an early sketch, which consists of a long jacket and ties on the hood, while the gameplay uses footage from the Alpha.

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• In the trailer can see an early design of Elizabeth Greene with a different face.

Trivia

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• To familiarize yourself with the game, there was previously an official website telling about Alex Mercer, his abilities and the infection of New York.

• Initially, it may seem that this is an early design of the main menu of the game, perhaps something similar would have been waiting for us earlier.
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• Xbox 360 - PROTOTYPE (2007)

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• 172nd issue of Gameinformer - PROTOTYPE (July 2007)

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• GamePro - PROTOTYPE (May 2008)

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Developer Interview (2008)

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Interview from GT (2009)

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• Powers, Weapons and Combat.

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• Artistic Vision.

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• Environmental Interaction.

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• Alex Mercer.

Unused Content

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Light and Shadows

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• In the Beta had other light and shadows, but for some unknown reason they were removed at an early stage of development. In the Final Version, they were replaced with those used in Gmod, but with a more improved quality.

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The Chameleonic Power

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• The Chameleonic Power would've presumably made Alex invisible to the military and infected forces, but devs did another form of disguise (morph into consumed human).

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The Spines

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• The Spines could have been a defensive force that would have reflected the damage inflicted by the enemy, but they were replaced by a Shield.

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Radical Medal

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• For the side quests the Radical Medal was deleted as the original easter egg.

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F-35

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• The Jet Aircraft could initially be used by the player. If you force Alex to be a driver through the command, then you can find that such systems as a two-speed drive, bombs and withdrawal are quite serviceable.

More Prototype Guides

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982227338
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2967025079
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2966981403
Created By: PROTO 殺

[Lugocain]

This is an amazing post. Thank you so much for sharing it.

[Slevin]

Very interesting details about the history, the development of my all time favorite game. I love the concept arts.

[starium]

Incredible post. Thank you for the effort

[Marianozi]

Nice

[Guy in Sweater]

Man you did not have to good this hard on a steam guide much respect glad to see love for the old gen console games.

[Datkidkerr128]

Now i wish they kept the jets in the final game.

[GhosT]

[Lorne Malvo]

Two of the pics under Alex Mercer design look exactly like Jeffrey Dahmer lol, glad they didn't go with that look for him

[Raiho]

This is some sick effort, bro! Have an award!

[Roger]

Thank you for finding this stuff. Its rare to hear about this game. The effort you put into this is insane and all of that for a sadly dead Game Franchise. Stay Safe Bro