Trivia / Sunset Overdrive

• Acclaimed Flop: Despite receiving fairly strong reviews and sales — especially considering the console it was on wasn't a huge success in its own right — a Content Leak from Insomniac's servers in December 2023 revealed that the game was only barely what could be considered a success, with the estimated profit from it apparently being just $567 across both the Xbox One and PC releases.
  • Sunset Overdrive was marketed and advertised as a lighthearted and irreverent game with a focus on humor and over-the-top action. However, as you mentioned, the game did include darker elements, such as the opening tutorial mission and the unsettling respawn animation (Player walking like a mummy, with a woman's scream in the background), which may have created a disjointed experience for some players.
  • The release of Sunset Overdrive in 2014 put it in direct competition with other highly acclaimed titles, such as The Last of Us and inFAMOUS: Second Son, which were exclusive to the PlayStation 4. These games garnered a lot of attention and praise, potentially drawing away some of the player base that Sunset Overdrive was targeting.
  • While Sunset Overdrive was well-received critically for its gameplay, humor, and creativity, the decision to lock a significant multiplayer component behind a paid subscription barrier could have negatively impacted the game's player base and overall sales. Gamers may have been hesitant to purchase or engage with Sunset Overdrive if they were required to pay for an Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to access a key multiplayer mode like Chaos Squad. This additional cost could have been seen as a barrier to entry for some players, particularly those who were primarily interested in the multiplayer aspects of the game. Furthermore, if players were already paying for an Xbox Live Gold subscription to access online multiplayer features in other games, the additional cost of playing Sunset Overdrive's multiplayer mode may have been perceived as an unnecessary expense. This pricing structure may have deterred potential players and limited the game's reach and appeal among the gaming community.
• Development Gag:
  • Two of the games listed on the Insomniac Games poster◊ are “Catchet + Frank: 4-Play” and "Overstrike." These were the original titles for Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One and Fuse respectively, both of which having been changed due to publisher Executive Meddling.
  • The "Fizzie: The Inside Story" sidequest is essentially one big Take That! against the practice of focus testing, with it revealing that Fizzco has a focus group of robots programmed to dictate what is best for consumers as the company believes humans can't decide for themselves. This was directly inspired by Insomniac's experience developing Fuse, a game that infamously got overhauled after its publisher EA put it through focus testing.
• Dueling Games:
  • With Splatoon, Nintendo's attempt at making a wacky, colorful shooter with a Totally Radical tone, which was revealed at Sunset Overdrive's second E3 showing. Since they were also opposing console exclusives, this was also an extension of the Xbox One vs. Wii U console battle, too. Of course, the similarities end there: on top of having different gameplay styles, Sunset Overdrive prioritized its single-player campaign over multiplayer, while Splatoon did opposite. For a bit of Hilarious in Hindsight though, Splatoon 2 would go on to introduce grind rails as a mechanic for its single player campaigns (plus one of its Salmon Run and Shifty Station stages).
  • Also Hilarious in Hindsight with Dead Rising 3 (aka the dark and gritty Playable [PROTOTYPE] (P.P.) of this game).
• Orphaned Reference:
  • Due to omission of the multiplayer mode in the PC port, the joke in “Fizzie: The Inside Story” where the player character says their name floats above their head in multiplayer no longer makes sense.
  • The Player’s acknowledgements of the Xbox console itself are this twofold: For one, the Player saying things like "Xbox, record that!" was a bit based off the voice command function of the Kinect, a peripheral that Microsoft began to phase out not too long after SO's release. And secondly, the acknowledgements became entirely irrelevant in the PC port since, of course, it’s not being played on an Xbox.
• Referenced by...:
  • The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum: Light Despondent: Chapter 8: "Sunset City / God Bless Us Every One": The chapter's title is a double reference to Sunset Overdrive and A Christmas Carol.
  • Hardcore Henry: The punk rocker Jimmy is dressed up the same as the punk gracing the cover.
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Sunset Overdrive is the video game Josh Chan plays in an episode.
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (also doubling as Company Cross References):
    • Once upgraded, the RYNO 8 weapon has a chance to spawn an Overcharge barrel and Fizzie.
    • A currency replacement option in the extras menu allows the player to replace the series’ bolts with cans of Overcharge.
    • Figurines of Sasquatch and Friends can be found inside the jukebox at Zurkie's.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The aforementioned Content Leak also revealed that while Sony Interactive owns the IP itself^note Insomniac's publishing deal with Microsoft allowed the studio to own the property, and thus Sony Interactive then acquired it when they bought out the studio in 2019, Microsoft still owns the publishing rights to not just the game's original release but also to any ports, up to two sequels, and any additional DLC for any of the above, with the contract seemingly having no expiration date / clause. This means that neither Sony nor Insomniac can do anything substantial with the property without first working out a deal with Microsoft, but due to the game already not being a major success it's highly unlikely that they will pursue such an endeavor, leaving the title in limbo for the forseeable future. The one silver lining is that this exclusivity agreement doesn’t prevent Insomniac from putting Sunset Overdrive easter eggs in other titles, as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart demonstrated.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A work-in-progress version of "3 Hours Ago" flashback opening cinematic that shown at RTX 2014 was originally going to be a bit different than the final.
    • The OverCharge pre-release party's buildings were originally more lit-up.
    • The party's spotlights were orange and some of them were missing.
    • The partygoers wore different shirts with no symbols on the front.
    • Fizzco Spokesman's layered t-shirt was originally more-colorful on his orange sweater underneath.
    • A Bushido girl scout trooper who gets attacked by mutants was going to have Sound Ideas, SCREAM - FEMALE, MEDIUM, HUMAN, HORROR 01 stock sound effect when a male raver mutates in front of the Player. The female scream stock sound effect was later dropped in the final version because developers at Insomniac found it too jarring and didn't fit with the tone of this cinematic.
  • An early vote between Floyd and Buck National's outfits also decided who would be the focus of a quest in a future DLC. Buck won, and was subsequently featured in a quest in the Dawn Of The Rise Of The Fallen Machines DLC.
  • The initial E3 2013 announcement trailer was going to have more-stylized art-style for characters, 1-24 players rather than 1-8 players, some scrapped or changed weapons (the "Dirty Harry" weapon was originally a shotgun rather than a revolver), earlier versions of Fizzco (the logo was originally resembled either current Pepsi logo or Saban Brands logo), their mascot Fizzie, and their energy drink OverCharge (OverCharge's can was originally yellow and the font was much different and colored black with white outlines) and some city elements were changed (like the early car models).
  • The prototype box art featured a female humanoid Fizzco robot in a suit that was ultimately cut from the final version of the game. According to the game's art director, the design for the robot was scrapped because the developers wanted to keep the game's characters grounded in reality and not deviate too much into the fantastical or stylized. This decision to remove a robot character is likely what changed the prototype box art to the final version of the game's box art, which features a human male protagonist.
  • An early prototype boss was a bus that had a bunch of OD congealed together inside it.
  • Early versions of the game were darker, grittier, more-realistic mutants, more combat heavy, included weapon challenges, and had the traversal aspects as a separate meter.
  • Once again, the Insomniac data leak revealed that the studio had actually planned a sequel at one point, but cancelled it due to the game's middling sales as well as them prioritizing the Spider-Man game that PlayStation had just hired them on for.

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