The Saboteur

If you caught wind of The Saboteur when it was first unveiled, you probably remember it as “that black-and-white World War II game.” At first blush, it’s sort of an odd concept, and Pandemic lead designer Tom French admits that “a lot of people rolled their eyes” when the game was first pitched internally. It’s been kept under lock and key for the past two years, but when we recently checked it out, all that quiet alone time seems to be paying off with the kind of promising sandbox play that made Pandemic’s Mercenaries such a hit.

And while they won’t come right out and say it, The Saboteur looks very much like the sequel to Mercenaries — at least spiritually. The idea for the game was born on a trans-Pacific flight where Pandemic co-founder Andrew Goldman tore through a book about William Grover-Williams*, a real-life British race-car driver who became a roguish secret agent — just the kind of résumé that game creators dream of. But Pandemic also wanted to “sell the fantasy of getting on top of buildings [in occupied Paris], looking around, and pouncing on Nazis,” reports French. “[We’d been] watching a lot of French films, and Paris is such a colorful city, but we wanted to stick the Occupation on top of that. So we decide to go black-and-white to suck the life out of it.”

It “proved difficult” to pull off, continues French, “but when Sin City came out, we learned a lot of tricks from the DVD — especially the making-ofs.” Whatever the source of their inspiration, The Saboteur’s black-and-white stylings are executed to impressive dramatic effect. It absolutely doesn’t look dull for being in B&W. Spots of red color highlight the swastika armbands on enemies or the lighting on a radio tower; flourishes of blue and yellow also help break up the monotone factor. And even if gray is the only color on the screen, the canny use of contrast and lighting give the action a vibrant feel. The Saboteur is nothing if not striking to look at.

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