Panopticon

[Kevadu]

Hey, let's talk about a game we don't know anything about!  I'm putting this here for now because we don't even know the genre, but it could very well be an RPG.  We don't know the system either (though a lot of people are speculating Vita).  What we do know is that it has a pretty awesome teaser trailer.

So what have we got?  Let's analyze the heck out of limited information!

The name 'panopticon' refers to a prison design proposed by philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century.  It consists of cells arranged in a circle around a central guard tower, and the whole point was to make it so that guards could monitor the inmates without them knowing when they were being watched.  Remember that this was before CCTV and all that stuff, so that was actually hard to do.  In a normal prison design patrolling guards would be obvious and prisoners who were up to no good would have time to hide what they were doing.

Now obviously in this sci-fi setting there are no literal panopticons.  However the monitoring theme seems to be pretty big, so I seriously doubt that name was chosen at random.  In the trailer there are several shots of cameras and of people clearly watching what other people are doing.  Not to mention that the people in the trailer do appear to have been captured and are prisoners of some sort, but we don't really know why.

Then of course there are the numbers over everyone's heads, probably the trailer's most distinctive feature.  But what do they mean?  I've seen a lot of people speculate that it's something like the "shinigami eyes" in Death Note that shows how much time people have before they die, but I don't buy that.  I rewatched the trailer and noticed that most of the time these numbers don't change.  If they were just clocks counting down to somebody's death then they should be changing all the time.  If they never changed at all I would be inclined to believe it was some sort of ID number attached to each person (which would fit the whole monitoring theme), however there is that one scene at like 2:20 where the guy's number is changing after rescuing the girl.  That's the only point in the trailer I noticed a number changing, but it's changing fast.  What does that mean?

Then there's the color of these numbers.  Normally they're blue, but we saw people's numbers change to red after being captured (0:50 in the trailer), which would make one inclined to believe that the color has something to do with criminal status.  But, then there's the baby born at the end.  Number 1,000,000 and born with a red number.  What the heck does that mean?

I have no idea, but it's a pretty cool trailer...

Now what about gameplay?  A lot of people are speculating that this is yet another Monster Hunter clone based on the second half of the trailer that has a bunch of people fighting big monster things.  Of course this is just cinematics, not gameplay.  Final Fantasy games have cinematic moments of a bunch of people fighting big monster things, but that doesn't mean they play anything like Monster Hunter games (well, except maybe Type-0 a bit...).  Certainly the setting and style are very different, though I suppose you could say the same about Soul Sacrifice.

What we do know is that it's being made by Son's Japan Studio, though Japan Studio is actually more of an umbrella label that has a lot of different teams within it.  It's been speculated that it's the team behind Gravity Rush doing this, since they've been kind of quiet since Gravity Rush came out.  That would be pretty cool.

There's obviously a lot of stuff we don't know.  This was just a teaser.  But it was a damn nice teaser.  I'm definitely interested.

[Yggdrasil]

Well you pretty much mentioned every known piece of info so far about Panopticon.

There's suppose to be more concrete info coming on the 21th so this definitely has more my attention than whatever Microsoft does on the same day. That said, I can't really imagine this not being a Monster Hunter clone with what has been shown.

It's been speculated that it's the team behind Gravity Rush doing this, since they've been kind of quiet since Gravity Rush came out.  That would be pretty cool.

That's odd, I thought they were working on a sequel.

[Kevadu]

I kind of hope it's not a Monster Hunter clone because I feel like the Vita has enough of those.  First there was Ragnarok Odyssey, then Soul Sacrifice, and now Toukiden and God Eater 2 (which, stylistically at least, is much closer to this game) are coming out soon. Sure none of these games will do Monster Hunter numbers but how many Monster Hunter clones do you really need?

At the very least Panopticon seems to be putting a larger emphasis on its setting, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  Of course we don't even know for sure that it's a Vita game yet...

As far as a Gravity Rush sequel goes, I don't think that was ever officially confirmed.  I could be wrong, though.

[Aeolus]

Then of course there are the numbers over everyone's heads, probably the trailer's most distinctive feature.  But what do they mean?  I've seen a lot of people speculate that it's something like the "shinigami eyes" in Death Note that shows how much time people have before they die, but I don't buy that.  I rewatched the trailer and noticed that most of the time these numbers don't change.  If they were just clocks counting down to somebody's death then they should be changing all the time.  If they never changed at all I would be inclined to believe it was some sort of ID number attached to each person (which would fit the whole monitoring theme), however there is that one scene at like 2:20 where the guy's number is changing after rescuing the girl.  That's the only point in the trailer I noticed a number changing, but it's changing fast.  What does that mean?

Then there's the color of these numbers.  Normally they're blue, but we saw people's numbers change to red after being captured (0:50 in the trailer), which would make one inclined to believe that the color has something to do with criminal status.  But, then there's the baby born at the end.  Number 1,000,000 and born with a red number.  What the heck does that mean?

Perhaps its some sort of death clock! /farnsworth

With that said, all I know is that my gut says "maybe" (and that Durarararara!!!! character designer guy continues to get work).

[Yggdrasil]

'Panopticon' revealed as Freedom Wars for PS Vita -- Source: Gematsu

[Dice]

'Panopticon' revealed as Freedom Wars for PS Vita -- Source: Gematsu

I thought Panopticon had a way better name, freedom wars is as generic as monster hunter as far as a title goes...but hokay.
Hopefully more info soon.

[Kevadu]

I thought Panopticon had a way better name, freedom wars is as generic as monster hunter as far as a title goes...but hokay.
Hopefully more info soon.

Yeah, seriously.  Panopticon was an awesome name.  "Freedom Wars" sounds terrible...

[Annubis]

"Freedom Wars" sounds terrible...

It sounds post 9-11 American if anything...

[Dice]

"Freedom Wars" sounds terrible...

It sounds post 9-11 American if anything...

Might become a surprise hit in the States then (jkjkjkjkjkhahaha).

I wonder if it'll be one of those "alt titles", like "Gravity Daze/Rush".  I hope.

[Yggdrasil]

Might become a surprise hit in the States then (jkjkjkjkjkhahaha).

Too soon.

[ZeronHitaro]

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one. The story angle has me mildly worried though. Japan's pretty 'obsessed' with the subject of population control, using mass extinction and/or mass executions as fantasy solutions to said problem. Pretty much in the same way Michael Bay's obsessed with the military/explosions or Abrams is with Lens Flare. Usually with the same "This could really suck..." results in the end too.

[Kevadu]

Japan's pretty 'obsessed' with the subject of population control, using mass extinction and/or mass executions as fantasy solutions to said problem.

Um...they are?

Not going to pretend the subject has never come up before in Japanese fiction, but it doesn't seem particularly common to me, let alone an 'obsession'...

(Also, Japan has one of the fastest-shrinking populations in the world.  It's a big problem, and if anything they want to encourage people to have more babies.  I've probably seen more fiction related to that theme than population control...)

[ZeronHitaro]

'Obsessed' more meaning 'pops up in their fictional works often enough that an outsider can see it as a trend'. Kinda like saying for a while there America was 'obsessed' with cowboys. I'm being loose with the word. XP

Without even doing any research I can at least toss out a handful of things you've possibly heard of in passing: Battle Royale 1&2 , (might still be a semi-spoiler for any late comers to the game)

Code:

Virtue's Last Reward and its future sequel; which retroactively makes 999 such a story as well

, Evangelion, Black Rock Shooter, Bokurano, Higurashi (to an extent if you think about the logic of the reveal), Final Fantasy 7 (possibly 10 as well, been a while so I can't remember if the excuse for Sin's mass slaughter was too many people or some other arbitrary excuse), and arguably C: The Money of Soul and Probabily Control (from what I remember I'd argue they basically replace 'people' with 'money' and run the theme pretty much to a tee otherwise).

Basically for the stuff more easily seen outside of Japan's shores you can't throw a stone without at least hitting one such 'people must die en masse to reduce the population for X reason' story.

[Kevadu]

I think you're really stretching things with some of those examples.  Crazy evil forces wanting to indiscriminately kill everyone isn't the same thing (isn't that just the most stereotypical evil villain motivation of them all?).  But whatever.

[Annubis]

Yeah, stretching way too much =/
Saying Evangelion is about lowering the population is like saying World War 2 was about lowering the population.