The Story of Symbiosis
by Messiah, September 15th 2005

Chapter One - From the The-Incident to Project-Alpha
It was June 2000 when Yves Grolet, one of the three “directors” of the widely acclaimed action/adventure "Outcast" for PC, decided to leave his former company Appeal, which he had co-founded with Yann Roberts and Franck Sauer back in 1995. Later he stated that he wasn’t satisfied with the direction the Outcast sequel “The Lost Paradise” was going. Yves was not happy with creating a sequel to one of the greatest games of all time by giving up its unique style in order to create a more arcade-like game to achieve better sales.

On his personal website (http://www.grolet.com) he announced that he’s working on a new game called “The Incident”. He created a unique concept for a first-person squad based tactical shooter with autonomous enemies and team-mates, built around a big amount of interactive story telling. It was planned to be a very ambitious game that touches the player emotionally because of it’s new “Neo-Drama” technology that allows NPCs to interact in almost any way possible to the player’s actions. Yves stated that this is a “do-think-feel” philosophy, which means we are not only beings of action, but we think, we choose, we feel, we love, in a word: we live. The goal was to really create something new to the gaming market.To describe it even better Yves splits up the game in it’s three main points: “action”, “tactics” and “emotions”.
Concerning the action it was planned to let the player create and assemble his own weapons and bombs so that he would be able to create his own unique equipment and ways to defeat enemies. To create a feeling of challenge and tactics, Yves planned to create a very simple but effective interface allowing the player to give commands to his other squad members and quickly coordinate attacks. The emotions were to add a very cool uniqueness to the game. Through highly advanced artificial intelligence, each non-player character would express himself autonomously. Some would betray the player, others would love him and support his effort. Some would even go onto fighting to affirm their opinions.

Although the developement of this early concept was never finished, you can read a small part of what Yves Grolet wanted the game to be like:
I come into the module 3 main garden, and there coming towards me, I find Nevin who, screams at me aggressively and tells me I've lost my marbles, he claims that an attack from the East front would be mad. He says he'd been looking after John who was in a hell of a state. Just then I heard Luo on the radio channel and he says that he cannot move on because the Androids are well covered and only come out to shoot. He carries on and asks me to order the retreat, since he believes the barricade is impenetrable. So I decide to command the assembly on the spot. Suddenly I remember what Luo was saying earlier on: "it's better to fight where the environment is most advantageous to us" While examining my map, I realize that on the West side there is an area where there aren't that many covering possibilities. I got shrewd; I could sneak in onto that area and drop the explosives with a remote control detonator. I could then trigger the bombs off from a distance and draw the androids over that area. Once trapped, I could attack them from the North and that way, I would be covered and they would be uncovered. Once everybody is assembled, I go to Eve, she's dismantling a computer and is recovering a few interesting components. I ask her if she can make up a remote control detonator. She looks up sadly at me and says she's gonna do her best. She shyly goes on to say that she was sorry she'd been distant lately. She then mumbles: "Our relationship is impossible, let's finish it." She runs off with tears in her eyes…

In 2001 Yves Grolet founded Elsewhere Entertainment, the company that should create this first new game under his direction. For the first year Elsewhere Entertainment kept being silent working on a new AI and graphic technology to give birth to this new game. In August 2002, after Appeal went bankrupt, Yves Grolet first informed the gaming world about his new company and plans. “The-Incident” was still Elsewhere’s flagship production, but there had been already a lot of changes on the project and therefore it was temporary called simply “Project-Alpha”. The game’s emphasis on interactive storytelling an emotional connection to the other squad member didn’t change but the game was not yet widely announced nor was any material released yet. It took almost another year of silence until E3 2003 in Los Angeles where Yves Grolet first announced the final title for the game: “Symbiosis”

Chapter Two - Symbiosis is announced
It was May 2003. A very special time for fans of Elsewhere. During the following 3 months a lot of informations and material about Totems reached our fansite. 4 Screenshots from the Tech-Demo of Symbiosis that Nvidia had shown on E3 in Los Angeles, 3 new Concept Arts of the game and a very long Interview which Yves Grolet allowed us to do with him. For the first time more detailed information about this flagship production were released.

This is a summary of what Yves Grolet told us in August 2003 what we could expect Symbiosis to be like:
The player would have been be accompanied by one (or more) autonomous team-mate(s) that would help him during the game. The player would be able to interact in a very rich way with this (these) team-mate(s) during combats and exploration. Symbiosis would not put the focus on the freedom of exploration of big worlds but would put the focus on the richness of the player interactions with the game world and with the characters. The locations visited by the player would be very varied. Elsewhere tried it’s best to do aesthetics that are different from what people generally see inside SF games. There would be parts of the game that would need the player to think and to use the knowledge he previously gained. This would however not be an adventure part with quests as in Outcast, which was a small dissapointment. Elswhere hasn’t decided if Symbiosis would feature vehicles but concerning outdoor levels, it was very improbable that Symbiosis would features big outdoor landscapes as in Outcast. Indeed, the goal of the game was to give to the player a new kind of experience he never got in another game. To achieve that Elsewhere put all its efforts in the depth of the gameplay mechanics and in the richness of the interactions in-between the player and the other characters. Also the question of adding a multiplayer system was never decided. Because Elsewhere was focusing on a very intense playing experience in single player, the most probable option about multiplayer was that it would be an Add-on.

At this point Elsewhere Entertainment had finished almost 20% of Symbiosis and the release was set to be in 2005 on PC, Playstation 2 and X-Box. But the short good time full of facts & images was over again. Elsewhere kept being silent untill January 2004 to inform us that there was again a great re-work on the project and that the whole setting had changed drastically. It was no more sci-fi, but had transformed into an urban fantasy enviroment. Elsewhere also announced that the name had changed and as as result the official Symbiosis game site never launched the web (like Yves Grolet promised in August 2003). The former Symbiosis concept was canceled and Elsewhere started working on their new game “Totems”, which will be released around 2007.

Chatper Three - Future
So what can we excpect from the future? The very promising concept of the squad based action/adventure Symbiosis was canceled. Yves Grolet stated once that Symbiosis is not dead forever and might be released somewhere in the future after Elsewhere finished its work on Totems, but nothing detailed is known yet. It was still an amzing time to watch Symbiosis grow, even if it never made it to be completed. But to remind everybody:

There is a glimmer of hope that this game will be finished...

Somewhere in the future...

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