GamePlanet: WWE '13 Cory Ledesma Interview

[Sunny]

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WWE '13: done with Attitude.

Cav has a chat with Cory Ledesma, creative director of WWE Games for THQ, about the upcoming WWE '13, the most ambitious title in the always popular series.

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<h3 class="articleType">Interview</h3>

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by <span class="author">Damian Cavanagh</span>

(<span datetime="2012-08-23">23/08/12</span>)

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<p><span class="leadin"/><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>How long have you been a fan of Professional Wrestling?</i></p>

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<p><b>Cory Ledesma:</b> Wow, I’ve been a fan my entire life. I grew up watching the ‘Golden Era’, the '80s. I watched ‘The Macho Man’ Randy Savage, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, Hulk Hogan. I used to beg my mom to order the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, my friends and I used to watch all the time. I continued to watch it in my High School years, through the Attitude Era. I watched it in my college years, so I definitely have been in and out of it my entire life. I’m just a huge fan, so I guess you could put it that way.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>You can’t tell me you’ve never created yourself on the game's Create A Superstar mode: what finisher and whose intro music did you use?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> Haha! No I actually don’t think I’ve ever created myself.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>C’mon! Liar!</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> No serious! I think I’ve always wanted to be someone cooler than I am. I consider myself very boring. I’ve always created fantasy characters. I don’t create characters that are well known, like a Super Hero. I don’t do that, I just create myself as cool as I can possibly be and it usually involves me wearing a mask. For a finisher I’m a big fan of the RKO or the F5, those are kinda quicker to pull-off moves, so I usually stack my finisher with those two moves.</p>

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<p>As for my intro music, that’s a good question. I’m pretty partial to the old DX entrance theme ‘Break It Down’, I love that theme. I love the Evolution theme, I like Jericho’s theme, so depending on the vibe of the fantasy character I’m creating, I’ll use one of those. But DX is definitely at the top of the list. I guess I kinda like the old school tracks better, they’ve got a more classic vibe, a cheesy vibe. They have a lot more personality.</p>

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<b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>On the subject of music, do you get to work with Jim Johnston (Composer for WWE Music) at all?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> Our team does work with Jim Johnston, getting the tracks for the Superstar entrances. I am not 100% on whether Jim Johnston himself is working on the custom tracks they make for us, but we do have custom tracks for some of the situations in the game, where it relates to the story mode. I know he is a busy man, working on tracks for the WWE Superstars. I am a big fan as he has released so many fantastic tracks over the years that really fit the personality of the Superstar he has created them for. So I think he is an underrated musician, kind of a genius in some regards, so I am a big fan of his.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>Agreed. Now, onto the game itself. You’ve been involved with the series for quite a while now, do you think the success of the series comes from the constant evolution of the game itself or the WWE Programming?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> It’s definitely a combination of both. I think it’s important that we continue to evolve the game and continue to offer fresh new ideas each year, that’s a must. We’re not just gonna rely on the roster updating each year and pumping out a game. What makes the WWE such a fantastic license in an entertainment medium is the fact that they come out with new content all the time. They don’t have an off season. They’re just constantly coming up with new characters or new match types, new pay-per-view concepts, new storylines. Whatever it is they just keep coming up with new content.</p>

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<p>It makes it easier for us and keeps the game fresh every time it comes out because they almost overhaul the entire show each year. I mean they have a brand new RAW set now, they have a bunch of new graphics, new Superstars are coming up from the developmental league all the time, so I think it’s a good collaboration of both. We have the onus on ourselves to keep the gameplay and game modes fresh and we have to give the users new modes to interact with. So I think it’s really a two way street, in that we’re both heavily involved in making the product fresh each year.</p>

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<b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>So the roster for WWE 13 this year, is it the biggest roster to date?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> It’s a very large roster. It would have be one of the largest we’ve ever had to have in a game. I’m not a big numbers guy and some fan out there might count every single Superstar in another WWE product and prove me wrong, but it’s definitely up there near the very top of the list of biggest rosters to date. The main reason behind that is that we’ve introduced the Attitude Era into the singleplayer campaign. In order to make that as authentic as possible we’ve added a large roster of Attitude Superstars. At the same time we certainly don’t want to neglect the current day roster. So now that we have those two eras, to make it as authentic as possible, it has created a very large roster.</p>

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<p>It’s also very exciting as we have some of the Superstars who have been with the company for so long that we have multiple iterations of them. Superstars like Triple H, The Undertaker, Mark Henry, a lot of them have multiple in-ring gimmicks and we’ve been able to recreate those in the game. You’ll be able to play as DX Triple H from back in 1998 – 99 versus Hunter Hurst Helmsley from when he was first getting involved in the WWE, or you can play the current day COO Triple H. So it’s cool that you will be able to play against those characters. You’ll be able to create fantasy match ups and find out who was the best Triple H, or would the old Undertaker be able to beat the new Undertaker, that kind of fantasy set up. So that does make for a really large roster.</p>

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<p>We also have some exciting new Superstars that haven’t been on the roster for some time like Ken Shamrock and the Godfather. We also have some cool DLC coming up with the likes of AJ, she’s never been on the roster before. Damien Sandow, who’s a personal favourite of mine, he’ll be in the DLC. So it’s a super diverse and large roster. It’s got a lot of new talent, it’s got a lot of talent from the Attitude era as well as a today’s talent, including Dolph Ziggler, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, and they’re all represented in WWE 13 as well.</p>

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<b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>While we are on the subject of the Attitude Era, was revisiting it something that the creative team wanted to do, or did it come from from the fan pressure?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> What we did was take a look at the Road to WrestleMania format from the last couple of years and we decided that we needed a new direction and maybe it was getting a little bit stale. We wanted to try something a little bit different from original fiction. We worked with the WWE to create original fiction and it’s very cool and all, but we thought ‘If we were going to relive an era which one would you want to relive and what if we were going to go a more historical route with the singleplayer campaign?’ Well, the Attitude era was the first thing that pops into our mind.</p>

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<p>What’s great about that is, well it kinda felt like a perfect storm with CM Punk being our Superstar cover athlete. He embodies that era, in a sense, in the current day. He started his own revolution in the reality era with his ‘Pipebomb’ last year. He’s an edgier character and he’s got a certain attitude and vibe about him, which is reminiscent of some of the Superstars from back then. So Punk, coupled with the new, historic, single player Attitude Era campaign, makes perfect sense. It’s also an era that we haven’t covered in a game in a very long time. It brings back fond memories for die-hard WWE fans as well as ‘lapsed’ fans who haven't been paying attention to current WWE brand. It was such a popular time back then and they know the Attitude Era and what those storylines are all about. It just felt like the perfect time to revisit that and freshen up the storyline mode.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>With regards to the cover star for WWE 13, was it a tough choice who to choose, or was CM Punk your first candidate? I think it’s the best cover since WWE Smackdown vs Raw with Vince McMahon on the cover with his blue and red eyes.</i>

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<b>Ledesma:</b> I know the cover you’re talking about. I definitely wasn’t a tough choice. When we were deciding who was going to be on the cover of this year’s game, he was so popular at that late last year, it made perfect sense. When we talked about some of the features we had in the game with the singleplayer campaign, the grittier vibes we were starting to go with with our box art, with something a little more mature in nature, well I think CM Punk fits that perfectly.</p>

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<p>You could see that last year with Randy Orton on the cover of WW 12 and CM punk this year, it just worked out nicely. We started to do some mock up with him on the cover and it just stood out, grabbed your attention. He’s such a well-known Superstar now, he really exploded on the scene last year Well, he was known before that but he really grabbed the national media at that point, so that made it a really easy choice for us.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>There have been some major advances in the way the WWE Universe appears and sounds in the arenas for WWE 13, known as WWE Live. Can you explain a bit more on that?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> There are two real elements to WWE Live: the audio portion, which we’ve overhauled this year, and also the presentation aspect and what we’re trying to create is an experience in WWE 13. That experience is what a WWE Live event is really like. You want that great sounding crowd, you want the sound effects to sound like you’re watching it on TV with the volume up, or you’re are the live event. You want the commentary to be witty, you want it to sound great, and you want the context to be associated with what’s going on in the ring.</p>

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<p>It’s also the presentation side. We’ve got some really cool new effects in the gameplay, one of them is called ‘Spectacular Moments’, which is the ability to recreate some of those awe inspiring moments that you’ve seen on television, like The Big Show performing a Superplex on Mark Henry and making the ring collapse. What a great moment that was! I don’t think any fans would have seen that coming.</p>

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<p>They would think: "Well, what if that happened in a video game? I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know whether they can pull that off?" That’s where we wanted to blow fans away with that presentation. We wanted to have those cool, awe inspiring moments and have that backed up with the audio to create this complete ‘wow’ experience, to really immerse yourself into the game - to where you’re really sucked in there, you’re having so much fun, the crowd is making the right sounds, while you’re watching the television event. That was our vision for WWE Live and how we wanted to incorporate that into the game.</p>

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<p>Audio plays a huge part of that. We’ve gotten a lot of the audio assets from the WWE directly, so we have a lot of authentic sounds: the sound effects, the mat sounds, a lot of crowd chants, the boos, the cheers, they’re all taken directly from WWE Television. We’ve recorded a bunch of new commentary lines. We’ve had the commentators ad-lib to actual WWE 13 gameplay and say what comes naturally to them at that point to really give an authentic feel. With audio we know we’re not going to be able to turn it around 100 precent year one. It’s a process that we’re going to invest heavily in it over the next three years. The audio experience in WWE 13 we’re going to go from good, to great, to world class. We are going to strive to have the best sport or sports entertainment audio experience out there, and that’s our goal.</p>

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We know it’s such a big game and 30,000 commentary lines are not going to happen over night, but we want fans to know that it’s going to be a serious investment at our end and they’re going to see those results right away in WWE 13.

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<b>Gameplanet:</b> We were speaking of DLC before, can you tell us about some of the upcoming content for WWE 13 or give us any hints on who may be appearing in future drops?

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<b>Ledesma:</b> DLC is my favourite. We have planned our roster in advance, so we can work on the Superstars and their in-ring moves, finishers, and entrances. So DLC is an opportunity for us to incorporate Superstars who are coming onto the scene now. A lot of times, what you’ll see in the DLC packs are emerging Superstars. I mentioned a couple earlier in our interview: AJ is a star who has recently been thrusted into the limelight, she is really a major player now. She’s obviously the new general manager of Raw, so she plays a major role and is heavily influencing main event storylines. So we definitely wanted to get her included.

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<b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>Has Vince McMahon ever played a WWE game in your presence?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> Haha! I don’t think I ever... Well, I never had Vince McMahon play the game in my presence, but I have played the game in his presence. He’s probably not a huge gamer as he’s a very busy man. I respect him a great deal because they always put on a fantastic show, they put on several shows a week, including house shows. They’re like a non-stop freight train when it comes to putting on such a great production.</p>

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<p>I've been able to play the game and show him a lot of the new features. He absolutely loves what we do and he’s amazed on how realistic the game looks. He’s seen a lot of the character models and he likes how life-like they look. It’s pretty fascinating for someone who’s slightly removed from videogames to see how close we can get the likenesses. I know he’s a big component of the WWE games, but he’s probably not playing them online on the weekends.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>How do you see ANZ in the WWE market compared to the rest of the world?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b>I’m not really heavily involved in that. But I do know that WWE is an international affair and we want WWE 13 to be an international product. We want to make sure fans across the world to feel like this is a game that they can play, and is accessible. We also want it to have a bit of every country’s flair in there. The WWE Superstars are a very diverse group themselves with stars from all over the globe. So no matter what country you are from, we want players to feel like they can have someone to represent them in the WWE space. We’ve worked very hard to make sure that fans across the world can enjoy the WWE experience.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>Other than The Miz, have any of the WWE Superstars ever come back to you with either positive or negative feedback on the way they look and/or perform in the game?</i></p>

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<p><b>Ledesma:</b> We receive nothing but positive feedback. I know you might expect me to say that and not mention negative feedback. The WWE Superstars, when they see themselves in the game they’re just so blown away with how life-like it looks and that they are captured in that game-form. They get so excited as some of them have grown up wondering what it would be like to be in a videogame, and what it’s like to have the fans play as them. It’s like a link to through to them in the videogame. I think they always get very excited about that.</p>

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<p>We do get additional comments, which are very valuable, which may be related to their move sets, their updated look or their attributes and stats. We actually really appreciate it. There are a lot of WWE Superstars who are big gamers so we appreciate and value that. We consider them a partner when it comes to creating the game and their likeness. We can’t admire the WWE Superstars any more, we think the world of them and it’s really our honour to do them justice and recreate them as best we can.</p>

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<p><b>Gameplanet:</b> <i>Thanks, Cory.</i>

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</br>Source: GamePlanet

[Smacktalks]

I'm guessing Cory is talking about the likes of Ryback and Tensai when he says the DLC will feature Superstars coming onto the scene now.

[the King Lives]

I'm guessing Cory is talking about the likes of Ryback and Tensai when he says the DLC will feature Superstars coming onto the scene now.

Yeah Pretty Much

which is a good thing...

OffTopic: It's Me, It's Me, It's @Jeffsdomaincom! LOL I just signed up!

[Smacktalks]

Nice to see you signed up Jeff, welcome to the forum

[the King Lives]

Nice to see you signed up Jeff, welcome to the forum

Thanks! I just hope DDP doesn't find out I used his catchphrase lol