The Saboteur

Overview

The Saboteur is a third person sandbox game set in the lively streets and rooftops of 1940s Paris, at the height of the Nazi occupation. You play as Sean Devlin: drinker, driver, and womanizer. After seeking revenge for being cheated from a win, Sean finds himself looking for revenge for much more than just a race result. He encounters a rival racer, Kurt Dierker, who happens to also be a proud Nazi. Dierker kills Sean's best friend, leaving revenge a hot topic on Sean's mind.

Gameplay

The sandbox aspect of The Saboteur can be approached in a variety of ways. You can climb up buildings and use stealth to complete objectives, and travel more quietly through the occupied city, or you can go guns blazing into the fight. Regardless of choice, The Saboteur aims to allow players to fight exactly how they want to. Much of the gameplay is based around Sean's attempts to find, and eliminate, Dierker. This means helping the French Resistance, in the hope of finding answers, and also to push the threat of fascism out of the city of Paris.

Fighting against something as powerful as Nazism and the mechanized blitzkrieg is possible in only one way: sabotage. As Devlin, you must sabotage valuable assets to the German war machine to strike a blow in the face of adversity. Sabotaging enemy items is a key part of The Saboteur, and examples of this include planting bombs on railway bridges, bombing fuel depots, and ambushing soldiers, amongst other subversive acts. In a drive to make sabotage a key element of the game, Pandemic added a unique feature called the 'Will to Fight' system. In areas where the Nazis have full control, the game is in black and white. The only relief to this monotone world is the occasional flash of red that signifies something of value to the enemy, or a flash of blue that indicates something important to the French Resistance. For example: the fuel tank on a hostile enemy vehicle would be red, and the ascot worn by Resistance leader Luc is blue. However, as you continue to strike blows against the threat of fascism, the color of that area of the city slowly returns. The idea behind this is that the Nazis sucked all the vibrancy and life from areas under their oppression. When the color in an area returns, it shows the French citizens are more willing to fight. While areas that are colorful are liberated from the fascist regime, this does not remove all enemy presence. It will, however, make the citizens more willing to rise against the invaders. It also includes benefits in the form of French Resistance rebels that are prepared to slow the Nazis to help Sean escape them. Harassment in the liberated locations are much less frequent, and citizens will occasionally get into fist-fights against the German soldiers.

Considering that Sean is an avid car lover, there are many different vehicles in the game that can be stolen and added to Sean's personal collection. Vehicles in the game are not licensed, but they are authentic to the era. In addition to vehicles, there are some different weapons that can be purchased from the Black Market dealers around the city. These dealers can sell you ammo for your weapons, and - if you can afford it - imported weapons, as well. Weapons in the game are reasonably accurate, and include the staples of any WWII game, such as the MP40 and the Kar 98k. The importable weapons include the Thompson and Sten. Weapons and other such goods are purchased through a currency known as 'contraband'. Contraband is earned by causing damage to the Nazi war machine. For example, bombing a sniper tower or putting that freight train in the ocean will earn contraband.

Initially the Nazis you'll encounter are standard fighting soldiers. However, as you anger the aryan invaders, they will send more and more dangerous pursuers after you. These include Zeppelin airships, bombers, the Gestapo, and the fictional Terror Squad. The Zeppelins hover in the air, pelting Sean with extreme firepower. They can be destroyed with anti-aircraft weapons that are frequently mounted on rooftops. Destroying a Zeppelin results in a huge reward of contraband, and a spectacular scene, where it hovers in the air a bit after igniting. Bombers are just that - planes which swoop low over you, and drop bombs. These planes move quickly, but can be taken down as well. The Gestapo have unique vehicles which have a mounted machine gun running along the side. Their cars are also heavier, with more armor, and higher performance. The Terror Squad are fictional super-soldiers who use unique weapons. These weapons also take liberty with history and include an SMG that is more akin to an LMG and an automatic shotgun.

As you play through the game, you will find different ‘ Perks’ to upgrade Sean’s abilities. There are three levels to each perk: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Unlocking the Bronze perk involves nothing more than a simple task, and the tasks grow harder for better perks. The game frequently challenges players to complete different objectives in order to unlock rewards. For example, by destroying four train bridges, Sean can plant explosives without any suspicion. Some of these perk requests make players complete extremely challenging goals; for example: killing 10 Nazis with explosives in less than 10 seconds or gathering up every civilian, race, and Nazi vehicle in the game.

The Saboteur features stealth options, in addition to the standard run and gun choice. If you kill an enemy soldier in hand to hand combat, you can steal their uniform and assume the identity of a Nazi soldier. Doing this means you can enter restricted areas. However, if you get too close to another Nazi, you can be identified as an impostor. The most difficult of these soldiers to avoid are the Gestapo agents, as they can blow covers extremely quickly.

Story

The game begins with Sean Devlin drinking in a strip club called "La Belle du Nuit" (literally, the Beauty of the Night) which is otherwise full of Nazi soldiers, where he is contacted by a Frenchman named Luc. Luc is a member of the French Resistance, and he wants Sean’s assistance in fighting the Nazis. At first Sean treats him with hostility. However, after Luc says that the Nazis are everywhere, and they will continue to be unstoppable until people rise against them, Sean reluctantly accepts the offer. Luc directs Sean to follow him out of the building and get in his car. In the car, Luc tells him of his plans to bomb a German fuel depot. However, he needs Sean’s expertise and skill with explosive weaponry to succeed. The mission goes ahead, and is a success. Sean is thanked by Luc and is told that he will be in contact again. Sean returns to the Belle, where he enters a hidden back room, his safehouse, where he lies down in bed and dreams of events that took place three months ago. The flashback begins with Sean and the rest of his racing team loading their racing car, the Aurora, onto a truck, and then travelling across the border from France into Germany to partake in the 1940 Saarbrucken Grand Prix. Once the group arrive in the small village of Saarbrucken, they store the truck away and Sean, his best friend Jules, and Jules' sister Veronique (whom Sean obviously has feelings for, and which may be reciprocated) head to a local hotel bar. At this bar, the group meet the favourites to win the race: local racers called Team Doppelsieg. Doppelsieg are sponsored by a local automotive factory, and their victories are touted by the Nazis as evidence of the superiority of the aryan race. Their driver is Kurt Dierker. Initially Dierker makes a sexual remark at Veronique, and Sean turns around and punches his rival before a fight with the Doppelsieg workers breaks out.

The fight escalates until the group are outdoors, brawling outside the hotel. This fight is broken off when one of Sean's former lovers, a British woman named Skylar St. Claire, stops to watch. Sean and Jules jump into her car, and proceed to speed off with her in the middle. Skylar seems relaxed about the fact they are driving off in her car, considering the fact that they would have been killed otherwise. After losing their Nazi pursuers, Sean and Jules return to the hotel, where they are informed that Veronique has left the area to return to France, where she will wait on the team to return.

The next day dawns, and it is time to put Dierker in his place. To start with, the race goes in Doppelsieg's favour, and they take an early lead. Sean catches up on them, and passes Dierker on the final corner, practically guaranteeing him a victory. As he does so, Dierker cheats by pulling out a Luger pistol and shooting out the tire on the Aurora. The car spins out on the final straight, and Sean winds up coming last overall in the race. Understandably, he is furious, and intends to deal with Dierker. Vittore, the team leader and mechanic, and Jules and Veronique's father, restrains Sean and tells him it is not worthwhile to get mixed up in something that is 'so large' as the Nazis' beloved poster child. Sean reluctantly backs down, but Jules convinces him to seek revenge on Dierker more subtly. The two follow the German driver into the Doppelsieg facility on the outskirts of the village of Saarbrucken. The two men manage to drive Dierker's racing car off the cliff into the ocean. However, they are captured by security and interrogated by Kurt himself.

During this interrogation, Dierker reveals to the men that he is able to serve the Reich in "much more valuable ways than merely driving quickly". He is a full Nazi officer, and a specialist in torture and interrogation. Initially he believes that either Sean or Jules is a spy sent by the British to search for Nazi plans at the Doppelsieg factory. Sean denies this profusely, and then Kurt threatens him. Either he admits to being a spy, or Jules dies. Jules and Sean both deny that either of them are spies, and Kurt retaliates by unloading his entire magazine into Jules, killing him.

After this, Sean manages to escape from the Doppelsieg facility. He happens to be travelling the same route that the Nazis are taking on their way to invading France, but he manages to speed through all the invaders and reach France just in time to evade the blockades. At this stage, the farmhouse that Jules' family resides in is being torched by the Germans. Sean saves Vitorre and Veronique from being killed and rescues them from the blaze. However, when he reveals that Jules died, Veronique grows hysterical, blaming Sean for his death (and losing any feelings she may have had for him). Sean then vows to kill Dierker.

After this, Sean wakes up from his sleep and the game returns to three months after the ill-fated race. At this stage, Sean can freely explore Paris.

Missions in The Saboteur are structured in a manner similar to that of Grand Theft Auto. As Sean completes missions for his contacts, he will meet more contacts, and these contacts will request that he fulfill objectives for them as well. After completing some of these missions, you will eventually move on to story critical missions.

After working with the Resistance for quite some time and making serious headway against the Nazi occupation, Sean is contacted by Skylar St. Claire, who is somehow in France and wants to see him. Though he assumes she wants another of their customary one-night-stands, Skylar drugs his wine and takes him into custody, revealing that she is a British operative; she was the spy Dierker's men were looking for back at the Saarbrucken Grand Prix. Initially Sean dislikes her for capturing him, and blames her for Jules' death, but he begins to be more relaxed about this when he realizes that with the British there to help the Resistance, he could inflict major damage to the Third Reich.

After some time, Skylar gets in contact with Sean and instructs him to meet her in the French countryside. She wants him to bomb a freight train from the Germans that will be supplying vital armaments to the Nazi forces. To do this, Sean has to plant explosives at weak points in the structure of the bridge.

Skylar then orders Sean to help destroy a Zeppelin airship before it leaves France. However, when Sean arrives it is already preparing to take off. This means breaking onto the Zeppelin, destroying it, and then escaping it. As the ship detonates, he leaps into the ocean below. This ocean happens to be near a German harbour, and the Kriegsmarine investigate.

Before too long, you are forced into hiding in the Paris catacombs. Unfortunately, the leader of the Black Market dealers made an agreement that he would be spared if he sold out the location of the Resistance headquarters, inside an abandoned slaughterhouse and butchery, to the German military. The Germans are hell-bent on killing any opposition, and send in their Terror Squad, which are the (fictional) elite soldiers of the game. These men are armed with special weapons, such as the Terror Squad MP60. In these catacombs, Luc is trapped under a collapsing piece of rock, where he demands that his fellow rebels kill him, as he feels the Germans would interrogate him, and he would give up information. Sean hesitates to kill him, having grown to like the man despite their rough first encounters, and Veronique fires a single round from her rifle into Luc’s head. Veronique was Luc’s protégé, and she killed him, despite the fact she was a good friend to him. She feels that his death is a tragedy, but the death of them all would be more of a tragedy. She says Luc would have felt the same way.

After completing the majority of story missions, you are contacted. The 1940 Paris Grand Prix is starting. Dierker will be racing in the event, and Vittore has a plan. However, his plan means that he will be killed: he plans to wire his car with explosives, and rather than overtake Dierker, he aims to detonate himself beside his enemy. Sean tells him that he will enter the race in Vittore's place, but that the only person who will be dying is Kurt. This race means having to drive a sports car neatly through the streets of Paris without setting off the bomb. After completing this race, Sean puts the car into its highest gear, aims it directly at Dierker as he celebrates his victory, and leaps from it. While the car explodes, and destroys the pride of Team Doppelsieg, it does not kill the target. This event terrifies Kurt, and he begins to lose his mind. The Nazis retaliate and fight hard against the resistance, bringing in major reinforcements and brutalizing the citizenry, covering all of Paris in black-and-white once more.

The final mission of the game involves heading to the Eiffel Tower, where Dierker is making his stand. Upon arrival, Sean discovers that Dierker has completely gone insane and turned on his own men, slaughtering them for imaginary insubordination. He stands at the top of the tower, where he executes a helpless Nazi just as Devlin arrives. Dierker soon realizes he used his last bullet to murder his own man, and finds himself helpless before Sean. He asks, ‘Are we to die here, Irishman?’, to which Sean replies ‘No. You will. I won’t,’ before pulling the trigger. Dierker's lifeless body falls from the tower, and as it hits the ground, the symbolic gesture of killing the German commander restores colour to the entire city. Alternately, if Sean waits long enough, Dierker will be overcome with despair and leap from the top of the tower himself, which has the same effect. Veronique finds Sean as he descends the tower, asking him if it is finally over. However, Sean is aware that while his personal revenge has been fulfilled, the Germans still control most of France and pose a threat to the entire world. Setting the game up for a sequel, he replies

"No. We're just getting started."

Vehicles

All the collectible cars in the game. Sean obtains cars either by stealing them, car-jacking or by rewards.

Civilian

*. R/P= Repair price, T.S.= Top Speed, Acc.= Acceleration, S/B= Strength and Body

Military

Vehicles that are captured from the Nazis.

*. R/P= Repair price, T.S.= Top Speed, Acc.= Acceleration, S/B= Strength and Body

Tanks and APCs.

Tanks and APCs can be found around Paris unattended. If Sean get the perk "Wheelman" he can store tanks and APCs in the garages. To obtain the Wheelman perk you will have to collect all standard cars in the game or just buy the Gold Perk upgrade at a weapons dealer.

*. R/P= Repair price, T.S.= Top Speed, Acc.= Acceleration, S/B= Strength and Body

Racing Cars

Race cars can be stolen or acquired through completing perk challenges. The racing perks Lead Foot, Speed Demon and Godspeed, all give you a race car in the garage.

*. R/P= Repair price, T.S.= Top Speed, Acc.= Acceleration, S/B= Strength and Body

Weapons

Weapons are used throughout the whole game, even though you technically can use your fists to win missions. Here follows a list of the different weapons you can obtain. Some weapons wont be available without finishing some challenge perks to lock them up at the Black Market weapon dealers and smugglers. Other weapons will not be available until you progress in the game and have finished specific story missions.

You cannot buy weapons until you have finish the "The Black Market". It is obtainable in Act 1 and is the third mission.

Pistols

These are the pistols you can use throughout the game. There are a total of 5 different pistols available.

*. DAM=Damage, RAN.=Range, ROF=Rate of Fire, ACC.=Accuracy

Rifles

These are the rifles you can use throughout the game.

*. DAM=Damage, RAN.=Range, ROF=Rate of Fire, ACC.=Accuracy

Shotguns

These are the shotguns you can use throughout the game.

*. DAM=Damage, RAN.=Range, ROF=Rate of Fire, ACC.=Accuracy

Sniper Rifles

These are the sniper rifles you can use throughout the game.

*. DAM=Damage, RAN.=Range, ROF=Rate of Fire, ACC.=Accuracy

Machine Guns

These are the machine guns you can use throughout the game.

*. DAM=Damage, RAN.=Range, ROF=Rate of Fire, ACC.=Accuracy

Perks

Acquired by completing special challenges. There are ten Perk categories, each with three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Main Missions

Prologue

Act 1

Act 2

A Whisper or a Roar

Jailbreak

The Big Gun

Rolling Thunder

South of the Seine

Repo Man

Boiling Point

Dark Reign

From the Ashes

Act 3

• 'C'est ici l'empire de la mort'
• Deja Boom
• Angel of Death

Side Missions

Le Crochet Story

• Belly of the Beast
• Doppelganger
• Legio Patria Nostra

Father Denis Story

• Unforgiven Sins
• Wrath of God
• Red Wedding

SOE Operations

• Behind the Convent Gate
• Dying Through Chemistry
• Set Up Us the Bomb

Margot Bonaire Story

• Fahreinheit Four Fifty
• Bulletproof
• Symphony of Destruction

Duval Mingo Story

• Loose Lips
• The Hunter or the Hunted

Dr. Kwong's Story

• The Bavarian Candidate
• Guardian Angel
• Deutschland Uber Phallus

' Ten Dollar Project’

Electronic Arts reward players who buy their games new with codes to download $10 of DLC for free. In the case of The Saboteur, this DLC is the ‘Midnight Show’. Inside the game box, there is a card insert designed to look like a WWII era ticket. This ticket contains the redeem code for the downloadable content. The Midnight Show grants access to the Belle de Nuit's exclusive basement, adding the ability to play a knife-throwing minigame (in which the player can win the Palomino car) and watch exclusive lapdance animations. Also added are several hiding spots, mostly brothels around the city, and an option to add toplessness to the game. It should be noted that this DLC no longer works on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of The Saboteur, as the servers the game needs to connect to to authenticate the codes have been taken down by Electronic Arts. However, all of these features are available out of the box in the PC version, which is now available on EA's Origin service.

Box Art and Other Information

The Saboteur was released with the one box art design globally. The design shows Sean Devlin in black and white, with a red Eiffel Tower on a dirty white colored base in the background. The tagline running along the back of the box is “Viva la Vengeance!”.

The game was originally announced simply as "Saboteur". It is unknown why "The" was added to the title. The German release of the game is still called "Saboteur", but there are no confirmed reasons as to why this is. Had the game received the same altered title, it would have been "Der Saboteur".

The title is not the only thing that is different in the German release. Swastikas and other symbols linking to national socialism have been cut out, as well as two audio excerpts from speeches given by Adolf Hitler. If the box is turned upside down, it is possible to see Sean's fist clenched in a manner similar to that of the 'raised fist' design. This is normally a symbol of resistance, and fits with the game itself, though this is of course a complete coincidence, and was unintentional on the part of the developers, so should be ignored.

System requirements

• CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or AMD equivalent
• OS: Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7
• Video: Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX with 256MB of VRAM or ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB of VRAM
• RAM: 2GB or more
• Sound: Direct X 9.0c compatible sound card
• Hard drive: At least 7GB of free space
• Disc drive: Dual Layer 1x or faster DVD Drive