Engine Room: Dark Sector

Dark Sector has changed somewhat from the incarnation we were privy to back in the day. Gone is the hardcore sci-fi feel, replaced with a more conventional story involving a character called Hayden Tenno (who serves as the protagonist) and the CIA. Producer Sheldon Carter elaborates:

“Dark Sector is the superhero origin story of Hayden Tenno. At the beginning of the game, Hayden is a CIA cleaner who is sent to [the fictional country] Lasria on an assassination mission.”

“Hayden is the type of guy who sees things very black and white and he is incredibly effective at doing his job. For him, infiltrating an eastern European city like Lasria is normally a cake-walk... and at the very beginning it is.”

At this point the plot quite literally mutates, as Tenno contracts a deadly infection. He turns out to be resistant to its effects, thanks to a congenital defect that prevents him from feeling pain and instead of killing him, the infection grants him superhuman powers. As you progress through the game, these abilities will grow in strength and number.

According to the producer, the original setting would not have allowed the developers to carry across the crux of the story – the birth of Hayden Tenno as a superhero.

“We compare it a lot to Spider-Man being in New York City – he just wouldn’t stand out in a place where everyone had powers,” says the producer.

“Same goes for Hayden; for the first game in the Dark Sector trilogy we needed Hayden to be the focal point.” Yes, there are two additional games planned, but more on those later.

“We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that you fully understand Hayden’s struggle to master the monster he is physically evolving into while at the same time seeing how it is actually making him much more human,” says Carter. Allies, enemies and plot twists will help solve the mystery surrounding the infection, Hayden’s powers and Lasria itself.