Fans' shots from Infamous' 'Photo Mode' end up on Sony execs' phones

One of the most crowd-pleasing aspects of Infamous: Second Son is the Photo Mode the game delivered with a mid-April title update. Sucker Punch, the studio behind the game, says they wanted to give players the same tool they use to create killer screenshots that promote the PlayStation 4 game.

Akin to taking screenshots in the instant replay of a sports title, photo mode allows players to stop the action, rotate the camera, remove the HUD and do all sorts of neat stuff to the shot — including change the time of day (for those who have completed the game.)

"I heard a story today that some Sony execs now have fan-made shots from Second Son as their phone backgrounds," said Matt Durasoff, a senior software engineer at Sucker Punch.

"Photo Mode itself is a simple tool," he said. "This was not a big R&D project. Camera, depth of field, color grading — the support for manipulating these already existed in our game engine, it was only a matter of creating an interface for them," he said.

The combination of Infamous: Second Son's visual appeal with the convenience of the PS4's Share button has turned Photo Mode and photo sharing almost into a game unto itself. Fans are pushing cool shots onto Reddit and NeoGAF, some trying to outdo each other.

For those looking to create the same kind of eye-popping, wallpaper-worthy visuals, Durasoff advised, jokingly: "Lots of particles. Everybody loves particles."