PlayStation’s State of Play event that kicked off June had several surprises and some disappointments. After a few hopeful teases, there turned out to be no new Sly Cooper, and by extension, no new Infamous. That PlayStation’s looking to preserve its IPs had many equating that with starting up some dormant franchises, with Sucker Punch’s two heavy hitters high up on the list of hopeful returns. And with the 15th anniversary of Infamous 2 hanging in the air—it hit the PlayStation 3 on June 7, 2011—you can kind of see the vision.
While the Infamous games’ touted original superhero stories, the series borrowed ideas from many popular games of that time, including a morality system. In-game activities and story choices pushed original protagonist Cole MacGrath into heroism or villainy, with different powers and endings offered up as a reward for sticking with a dichotomy. Karma was a constant across the three main games, but Infamous 2 is where it really took off due to random events and collectibles actively pushing players to shape Cole in a particular direction. At their best, these made players feel like a street-level superperson that helped the franchise cement some goodwill.
Narratively, though, Karma’s been the games’ most critiqued aspect, and for good reason. Major choices ask players to choose between well-intended acts or complete destruction, with not a genuine tough call in sight compared to other games like Mass Effect. Cole’s Evil choices often feel out of sync with the general narratives of both games and him as a character, since he’s written as a generally good person well before you can have him do a false flag operation to convince local rebels to join up with him. It makes sense in a dated kind of way that Infamous 2 humanizes its Karma system through two women—Kuo and Nix, who respectively wield powers of ice and napalm and have different types of implied romance with him—that gradually switch sides by the game’s final decision, but morality is at its most natural when it concerns Cole’s friend Zeke.
That he’s the only returning character from the first Infamous gives these decisions the weight they need to land. Since Zeke’s looking to get back in Cole’s graces after double-crossing him in Empire City, it makes sense that he’d go along with whatever calls his electric friend makes. One of the second game’s best moments lets the two men kick back and watch TV to give themselves a brief break before Cole’s got to juice up his powers and get back out there again. Their relationship helps both Karma endings land as well as they do: whether Cole’s mourned by his friend or just had to kill him, these feel like conclusions the game’s earned and naturally seeded.
Sucker Punch wrote Infamous 2 looking to canonize the Evil ending, but player data scuttled those plans. The biggest Karma change from Infamous Second Son is doing the inverse of its predecessor: this time, protagonist Delsin Rowe is the one helping escaped Conduits Fetch Walker and Eugene Sims become their best or worst selves. It’s a great idea, and their respective neon and video powers are cool, but it’s a underrealized concept that doesn’t lend itself to any type of camaraderie or real relationships. Their backstories and status as “bioterrorists” on the run from the government do what they can, but there’s no getting around Fetch and Eugene existing mainly to expand Delsin’s power set, albeit without much variety in either Karmic direction.
Second Son is a step back in many aspects, but Delsin being petty and immature lets his Evil choices feel less forced than Cole’s. The ending where he kills his tribe after they’ve exiled him for the carnage he caused in Seattle is a dark closer that genuinely works and could’ve been canonized to open the door for future installments. Instead, Sucker Punch released the standalone prequel Infamous First Light, which centers on Fetch before she meets up with Delsin. It’s also the only entry in the series to not have much to say in terms of morality—Festival of Blood, a standalone companion to Infamous 2, makes Cole a bloodsucking vampire, and they’re basically evil by default—and might be better for it. Without Karma hovering around her, Fetch can be a fuller character in a way Cole and Delsin aren’t while still in conversation with them.
What is Infamous without its morality? First Light felt like a soft launch to explore this idea, albeit without any true follow through since Sucker Punch moved on to the Ghost games. That doesn’t stop it from being an interesting “what if?,” and if anything, it was overdue. Other franchises like Mass Effect and Deus Ex stepped back from binaries to allow for more nuance, and it’d behoove the franchise to follow suit in the future. Every superhero has to figure out whether they’ll evolve or die, and now it’s Infamous’ turn…provided Sucker Punch or another studio wants take Cole, Delsin, or other Conduits for a spin.
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