Rez (video game)

Lore & Background

Rez was conceived by Tetsuya Mizuguchi during 1994 and 1995, drawing inspiration from European disco music. Production began in 1999 after United Game Artists finished work on Space Channel 5. The design concept drew from rave culture and classic rail shooters, and level design made extensive use of wire frame graphics inspired by the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky. The music, supervised by Keiichi Sugiyama, featured collaborations with multiple Japanese and European music artists and influenced level designs. The narrative is told without dialogue and using minimal description, relying on in-game visual storytelling. In the future, amid a rising population and an overflowing amount of information corrupting cyberspace, a new network dubbed 'K Project' is created to manage the data. At the heart of K Project is an artificial intelligence called Eden. Overwhelmed by the ever-increasing flow of information, Eden begins doubting its purpose and existence, withdrawing into sleep at the heart of cyberspace. The player, a hacker, dives into cyberspace and fights off viruses and infected firewalls to find and wake Eden. When they reach the final area, the hacker is confronted with questions about the meaning of life, then after a final battle succeeds in reconstituting and waking Eden.

Reader's Guide

Rez met with low sales, but strong critical reception due to its music, gameplay and graphics, though several reviewers faulted a lack of content. It also received several industry award nominations, and has been remembered as one of the Dreamcast's best titles. Rez HD and Rez Infinite have likewise met with praise from journalists. Rez Infinite in particular was hailed for its virtual reality integration and its additional Unreal Engine 4-powered zone Area X, described as the closest people might see to a true sequel. Mizuguchi eventually produced a spiritual successor to Rez at Q Entertainment titled Child of Eden. The game's legacy includes its innovative synesthetic design, where gameplay and projectile hits sync with the music and have vibration feedback for different controllers, aiming to create a sense of synesthesia. Its wire frame graphics inspired by Wassily Kandinsky and its narrative themes of the journey of life and technological singularity have been noted as distinctive. The game was the first Sega-produced game released on the PlayStation 2, and one of Sega's last first-party titles for the Dreamcast.

Did You Know?

• The game's title was meant to be a contraction of 'Resolve', but during a studio visit from Edge Magazine staff, Mizuguchi was inspired to connect it to the concept of 'de-rezzing' from the 1982 movie Tron.
• A large portion of the staff were drawn from Team Andromeda, creators of Panzer Dragoon.
• The game went through different working titles including 'The Sound Project', 'Project Eden', 'K-Project' and 'Vibes'.