9 Video Game Plotlines You Didn't Realise Were Based On True Stories
6. The Saboteur
The game: Pandemic's swan song before EA did what it does best and closed the studio for good, The Saboteur, like a plethora of open-world titles that came before and after it, presented itself as a living world filled to the brim with side missions, secrets and miscellaneous activities, but where this particular entry into the genre stood out was its setting.
Paris, specifically a version of the city occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, was the backdrop for Pandemic's final game, one with a noir-like aesthetic robbed of all its colours except black and white. Only through the efforts of Irish race-car-driver-turned-secret-agent Sean Devlin would Paris' true colours return, representing their liberation from Axis hands.
The inspiration: The life of French-born William Grover-Williams was the direct inspiration for Devlin's life in the French Resistance. Like Devlin, Williams was a successful Grand Prix driver who, after fleeing the German occupation of France, was recruited by Britain to help sow the seeds of resistance in Paris.
Sadly, the selfless career wasn't to last. Williams was captured, interrogated and executed by Nazi forces in 1945.