5 Times Gamers Fought The Developer And Won

This one is similar to what happened with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, except that the problem wasn’t the game’s overarching appearance. Rather, it was the significant and – by many accounts – inferior character design changes made to snarky protagonist Cole MacGrath for 2011’s inFamous 2.

In both look and voice, the Cole from 2009’s inFamous was like modern-day Jason Statham, with his extremely short hair, muscular build, and raspy matter-of-fact speech making him a cool and relatable badass. Couple that with his iconic courier clothing, charismatic personality, and heroic quest to save Empire City from further destruction and it’s no shock that innumerable players adored him.

Before long, he even became an easily recognizable mascot for the PS3 and the PlayStation brand as a whole.

Why, then, did Sucker Punch Productions choose to radically revamp their depiction of Cole’s when they started work on inFamous 2? They must’ve known how much blowback they’d get, right? 

Indeed, that’s what they got following the game’s gameplay reveal at E3 2010, when plenty of people scolded the developer for making Cole nearly unrecognizable.

Among the major modifications were replacing his buzz cut with a lengthier stack of dark hair; adding tattoos; and giving him a uniform black color scheme and more generic facial structure. Plus, original actor Jason Cottle was swapped for Eric Ladin, which understandably rubbed certain fans the wrong way on principle if nothing else.

Granted, Cole was never an especially unique character, but he stood out more than the artless create-a-character Sucker Punch Productions turned him into between the original inFamous and its direct sequel. Apparently, the changes were driven by the developers wanting to do more with motion capture, as well as the switch in setting from the chilly New York-inspired Empire City to the hotter New Orleans-inspired New Marais.

In an August 2010 interview with Engadget (via Yahoo! News), art director Mathias Lorenz affirmed that they altered Cole’s outfit because there was “no way he [could] keep his leather jacket on” in such “humid” weather. In addition, they replaced Cottle with Ladin because he “could do both the voice acting and . . . the motion capture, and we tried to imbue some of his likeness into Cole.”

In their June 2010 preview of inFamous 2, Engadget joked that Cole "acquired . . . the ability to grow a soft, voluminous head of hair. He's also been put on a regimen of Ricolas and piping-hot peppermint tea, curing his perpetually gruff voice from the first game." They continued: "[H]e's clearly taken a few lessons from the Nathan Drake Institute of Grooming, Speaking and Generally Being an Edgy Dude."

The next month, multiple reports emerged of Sucker Punch Productions going back to the drawing board because of the vitriolic responses they’d received earlier that summer. Although they kept Ladin – who, to be fair, ended up doing a fine job in the finished product – they modified Cole once again to strike a finer compromise between old and new styles.

“[W]hen we revealed Cole at E3 2010, we were taken aback by the uproar of fan support for the original Cole,” Lorenz added in the Engadget interview. “We were positively surprised and we didn’t expect it, so of course we listened . . . and went back and took the best of everything to end up with the design we have settled on now.”

Ironically, Sucker Punch Productions co-founder Bruce Oberg similarly told Eurogamer in September 2010 that despite “the media reaction to the original Cole [being] lukewarm,” they knew they had to return to it after seeing “16 pages of [new] Cole complaints” on fan forums.

Said compromise, which essentially put inFamous 1 Cole in a short sleeve T-shirt, was widely welcomed by gamers. Furthermore, it even became the character's signature look in the 2011 expansion – inFamous: Festival of Blood – and when Cole guested in 2012’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and Street Fighter X Tekken.