In Sifu, Sloclap demonstrates its mastery of kung fuaction

BY ALEX SPENCER

You can use the setting strategically. Launching yourself over a table or countertop can be enough to get the drop on an opponent, or create space if you find yourself surrounded

On our many studio visits over the years, we’ve put difficult questions to a wide range of people, including some of the industry’s most notoriously challenging interviewees. But this, surely, is a first: a query that prompts the recipient to get up from their seat and grab a sword. Then again, how many studios can boast their own in-house master of kung fu? The fact that Sloclap can – well, it explains a lot about why Sifu so violently grabbed our attention in its State Of Play debut back in February. But let’s deal with the armed martial artist first.

The man wielding the sword –a wooden training one, thankfully – is Benjamin Colussi. As well as running a kung fu school here in Paris, he acts as fight choreographer for Sifu, providing the basic moves for its combat and consulting on everything from costuming to feng shui. When Colussi grabs the weapon from a corner of the conference room where we’re sitting, it’s not in anger. He’s demonstrating one of his contributions to the game, with the sword acting as a stand-in for a baseball bat. “They said to me, ‘OK, today we will design movement for the bat’,” he recalls. “So they gave me the bat, expecting me to take it like this.” He holds it in the traditional batting-cage pose. “And I said, ‘Well, all the NPCs will take the bat like this, but the main character? He is a kung fu master.’”

Colussi shifts his grip to show how a master does it, holding the weapon tight against the back of his arm, its tip pressed to his shoulder so we can practically feel the coiled kinetic energy. It’s a pose we already know well, having adopted it many times during our demo of Sifu. This all gives us the strange impression that if we pushed Triangle, we know exactly what Colussi would do next. It wouldn’t be pretty.

In the hands, Sifu’s combat is every bit as stylish and brutal as those sharply edited trailers suggest. OK, maybe not in our hands, not yet –a couple of hours with the game isn’t nearly enough to grasp the full depth of its systems, which are abyssal. But eventually we pass the controller to a master – combat designer Théo Caselli – and watch the game as it is meant to be played. Devastating flurries of blows are chained together seamlessly, incoming blows ducked and deflected as Caselli elegantly juggles a crowd of opponents. Bottles are grabbed and smashed into faces. Skulls are slammed hard against surfaces, with a sense of impact that makes us wince. There’s even the occasional gouging of an eye.

THIS, SURELY, IS A FIRST: A QUERY THAT PROMPTS THE RECIPIENT TO GET UP FROM THEIR SEAT AND GRAB A SWORD

There’s no shame in hitting a foe with a surprise attack – it’ll break their guard, letting you unleash a takedown.

SLOCLAP HAS TAKEN ITS BRILLIANTLY UNUSUAL COMBAT SYSTEM, TORN IT DOWN TO THE FOUNDATIONS, AND REBUILT

In the gallery, fights take place amid works of art. The exhibits have been made by environmental artists, but they’re based on concepts suggested by the entire team

This is kung fu of the Pak Mei style, we’re told. Named for the legendary Shaolin figure (who you might know, thanks to Kill Bill, as Pai Mei), it’s a ruthlessly efficient way of fighting. Colussi first encountered Pak Mei on a trip to China in his youth, practised under a master in Foshan, and now teaches it in his own wuguan, a Chinese word for a martial-arts school, somewhat akin to the Japanese dojo. ‘Wuguan’ was actually the original codename for this project, before Sloclap landed on another piece of kung fu terminology. ‘Sifu’ is an honorific meaning ‘master’ – again, think of the perhaps more familiar ‘sensei’. Everyone at Sloclap refers to Colussi, with reverence, as ‘Sifu Benjamin’.