LittleBigPlanet: The Very Big Interview

We talk to Media Molecule co-founders Mark Healey and Alex Evans, as well as Sony's Pete Smith, to get the FULL story behind the big PS3 game from a little British studio.

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With most of the game now done, Media Molecule's first session of work on LittleBigPlanet is coming to an end. The ultimate success of a game as innovative as this one will, in large part, come down to how the game is positioned by Sony in its marketing campaigns. For a while the sentiment seemed to be that because the game was built with online as such a key feature that it was something less of an experience than a full, boxed product. That has largely been put to the side.

"In my mind, my ambition was not to do a minigame. My ambition was to do a full title in how it reached people," says Evans, who points to Sony's other PSN-and-Blu-ray game Warhawk as an example of how people at Sony are thinking about LittleBigPlanet. "I think consumers are only just getting there. I mean, there's this conception that if you download it, it's mini, but over time there are going to be bigger and bigger games." He says that in the minds of the developers, no matter the medium of release, this was always a full title for Media Molecule.

Pete Smith - Sony Producer for LittleBigPlanet

For all their transparency, the Media Molecule guys are still keeping some plans to themselves. One of them is any potential spin-off on the PSP, something on which Smith refused to comment. Then there are the company's thoughts on just how well LittleBigPlanet is going to do. Will it meet the rising expectations being build up by incessant media coverage? "We know it's going to have a long tail," is all Smith would say. "With this game it's been really quite tricky to say who's the target audience because it's so broad."

It's too early to think about a sequel of course, but Smith says that Sony does not think of this as a one-off. "We believe that this is more than just a single game." The availability of downloadable content after launch is something that's definitely on, but specifically what that DLC will consist of is open. There is talk of levels and costumes but about the interesting stuff we're still in the dark. "We've got plans for the future which I can't talk about. I just can't," Smith adds.

"We're going to treat this game very carefully. It's so special. it's a once-in-a-lifetime game and it's just so good. The potential's amazing but also we have to treat it carefully because I think it would be quite easy to break it. Some difficult decisions have to be made to make sure we stay true to the vision of what we want to do."

LittleBigPlanet is released in America on 21 October 2008 and in the UK on 24 October.

We've been playing our review version of the game like mad, but our lips are sealed until 14 October when you can expect our verdict.

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