X-Men Legends - Development

Development

It was basically Final Fantasy with X-Men. Over time, however, it really started to evolve. As development moved along, we added more and more elements of action and combat to it.

One thing that remained a consistent mantra through development of the game over the last few years has been the team. To be able to bring something like this to the X-Men universe was very important to us. Even when moved to action, we went into it with the idea that you are controlling a team.

“ ” Co-project lead Patrick Lipo on the development of the game

X-Men Legends was announced in a press release by Activision on April 23, 2003. The game is Raven Software's first console title; after a number of successful titles for personal computers, it wanted to expand into the console market. The company developed the three console versions simultaneously, and used Vicarious Visions' Alchemy engine as a base for the game. After deciding to make an "X-Men RPG", staff began brainstorming story, gameplay and design ideas. Raven wanted to feature a team-based dynamic, something it felt was absent in previous X-Men games. The original concept featured turned-based gameplay, similar to a Final Fantasy game. However, the team concluded that players would prefer more action that allowed control of the character's super powers. The genre switch proved problematic to maintaining the team aspect of gameplay.

The group experimented with several gameplay models, and opted for one that allowed players to freely switch characters. The final product mimics isometric dungeon crawling video games. Raven designed gameplay with strategy in mind; each character's abilities allow different interactions with the environment and other characters. For example, a physically strong character like Colossus can break walls but is unable to reach certain areas that require the ability to fly, and Iceman is able to freeze enemies so that other characters can easily defeat them. Staff hoped that the differences would force players to switch characters regularly during missions. Extraction points, specific locations that players can switch characters, were added to allow players to continue without a game over in the event one or more team member was defeated. Raven included flash back missions as an homage to the franchise and based some on specific comic book issues. Originally a single-player game, Raven eventually incorporated simultaneous co-orperative gameplay. The developers chose to not create an online multi-player mode, stating that the gameplay was "designed around localized encounters."

The game's story was penned by a group of former Marvel writers known as Man of Action, consisting of Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, and Steven T. Seagle, with Stan Lee consulting. Man of Action chose the character Magma as their lead because she was an "appropriately blank slate as a character." Man of Action also stated that the script for X-Men Legends was in excess of five hundred pages. The writers created a story that would allow for players to change their active team throughout the game and not affect the overall flow of the story.

The game's voice cast consists largely of television and film stars as well as veteran voice actors. Patrick Stewart reprised his role as Professor Xavier from the X-Men films, while Tony Jay voiced Magneto. Ed Asner lent his voice as Healer, a Morlock shaman. Lou Diamond Phillips voiced Forge, a Native American mutant whose power grants him intuitive talent for inventing mechanical devices. Danica McKellar voiced Jubilee, a young mutant who generates plasmoids from her fingertips. Veteran voice actors Steven Blum, Grey DeLisle, Dee Bradley Baker, Robin Atkin Downes and Dorian Harewood also lent voices as Wolverine, Mystique, Nightcrawler, Cyclops and Shadow King, respectively. Music for the game was composed by Rik Schaffer of the Los Angeles-based Womb Music.

Characters were selected from different time lines in the X-Men universe. Art lead Brian Pelletier stated that they took the most memorable characters from the last 40 years and grouped them together. X-Men Legends uses cel shading to give the characters a comic-like appearance. However, Raven cited that they opted for then-high resolution textures to stay away from "cartoony looking" characters. Character costumes were inspired by Marvel Comics' Ultimate X-Men. However, some of the X-Men playable in X-Men Legends had not appeared in the comics at the time of its release so, with permission from Marvel, Raven created unique looks for those characters. During development Raven tried visual formats for the X-Men, including using their New X-Men uniforms as well as removing the cel-shaded look from the characters. In contrast, the back stories, relationships and personalities of the X-Men were taken from Marvel's mainstream universe. Angel was also to be included in the game, and was to be voiced by André Sogliuzzo, but was cut from the final build.