These choices ultimately affect character growth, the reaction of the city's populace towards Cole, and finer elements of gameplay and the story.

Sucker Punch developed Infamous as a change of pace from their earlier Sly Cooper series of stealth-based games, but using a similar comic book-inspired origin story to help the player become more connected with Cole.

The game's pacing in the introduction of new super powers and ease of movement about the city by unconventional means were critical factors during development.

Reviewers commented on the repetitive nature of combat and enemies, limitations of the Karma system, and technical aspects in the graphical display.

Infamous is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective where the player controls Cole and primarily interacts with the world of Empire City through Cole's newly gained electricity-based powers; these are used for movement, offense and defense in combat, and either for better or worse in dealing with the citizens of Empire City.

Certain actions, such as stopping to help injured citizens or draining their health to restore Cole's, will affect the Karma level in either direction.

The game's premise is built around the partial destruction of the Historic District by a mysterious explosion, followed by a viral epidemic that forces federal authorities to seal the only bridge leading to the mainland.

The protagonist is Cole MacGrath (Jason Cottle), a bike courier accused of triggering the explosion, which leaves him with the ability to absorb and project electricity.

His closest friend, Zeke Jedediah Dunbar (Caleb Moody), allows Cole to hide on his rooftop, despite his envy of the former's powers.

Trish Dailey (October Moore), Cole's girlfriend, abandons him out of anger over the death of her sister Amy, while most of Empire City's residents view him as a terrorist.

Meanwhile, the Warren has been overrun by the Dust Men, an army of homeless militants led by Alden Tate (also Jason Cottle), the original leader of the First Sons, who possesses telekinesis.

Kessler (Sam A. Mowry), the true antagonist of the game, is a shadowy figure who controls the First Sons and takes an obsessive interest in Cole and his powers.

Separated from his friend, Cole meets Moya, an FBI agent, who persuades him to return and find her husband, John White, who was supposedly tasked with investigating a group called the First Sons.

White, who turns out to be an NSA agent with no connection to Moya, reaches out to Cole and explains that the Ray Sphere is designed to consume bio-energy from thousands of lives and transfer it to a single user, making them a Conduit.

During their search for the Sphere, Kessler publicly challenges Cole to stop a series of bombings across the district, ending with him being forced to choose between saving Trish or her colleagues.

"[8] However, as fans of the "comic book" motif, they decided to develop it in the direction of a superhero game,[8] working with the idea of an origin story that would allow the player to experience the growth of the character.

[7] Director Nate Fox stated that much of the inspiration of the superhero story came from two DC Comics series, DMZ and Batman: No Man's Land.

[8] Fox considered his own personal involvement in the Seattle WTO riots of 1999 as influencing the reflection of "spending time in a lawless place" within the game.

[15] Darren Bridges, a developer for Sucker Punch, noted that they wanted to make Infamous about "becoming a modern-day superhero", stressing the word "becoming" as the key motivator to show the growth of Cole from a simple bike messenger to someone with god-like powers.

One power, gained through the Evil karma path, was called "Minionize", and would have allowed Cole to control the minds of civilians and force them to join him in battle.

[16] The ability to use Cole's electrical powers to ride along Empire City's elevated train rails was a last-minute addition during the last month of development based on a play-tester's suggestion.

[9] On December 10, 2010, the "Gigawatt Blade" which had previously been available only as a preorder incentive - was made available on the North American PlayStation Store as a free download.

[24] Good and evil versions of Cole and Zeke appear as downloadable content for the multiplayer mode of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

[28] Tobin was specifically brought on board due to his recent trend of blurring the lines between music and sound design as exhibited in his then-recent album, Foley Room.

[28] Tillman was brought in late to the process to add the cello sounds, but the group was so impressed with his work that they remixed already-completed pieces to incorporate his contribution further.

Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker considered that Sucker Punch had "nailed the basic gameplay elements", tying all the various aspects of the game together.

According to X-Play's Matt Kiel, the missions forced the player to consider the full extent of Cole's powers through their difficulty but provided "generous" checkpoints to prevent too much frustration with the game.

[39] However, some reviewers noted that Cole's climbing ability was too touchy, with the character grabbing onto ledges too greedily, making it difficult to fine-tune jumps.

[35] The game is also considered to be rough around the edges in technical execution, with the lack of anti-aliasing and occasional "pop-in" rendering, as well as drops in frame rates when there was a significant amount of action on the screen.

[33][37][39] Infamous was released a few weeks before Radical Entertainment's Prototype, a game with many similar concepts including a character finding himself with super powers, a large open-world environment that can be traveled by climbing up buildings and gliding about the city, and several other comparisons.