 Empire City was designed to marry with Cole 's new @-@ found superpowers . The city was built with a " crime ecosystem " , where petty crimes or calls for help were always occurring outside of the main story , requiring the player to decide to stop to help or not to resolve them . A portion of the team was devoted to implementing the behavior of the citizens of the city and how that behavior would change as the state of the city altered due to the player 's actions . Climbing buildings was considered to be an important aspect of the game , both as part of the superhero motif and because it was considered " fun to do " , and Sucker Punch set out to make the whole city climbable . Many details of every building have been modeled to allow the player to climb the buildings , " down to the last window frame , lighting sconce and storefront " , however , Fox noted that getting the climbing system " just right " was the most challenging aspect of development . One employee was dedicated to making sure the entire city was climbable . Fleming noted that during Infamous 's development , both Crackdown and Assassin 's Creed , two games with alternative takes on the climbing aspect , were released ; the team felt that each of the games ' climbing systems had their own strengths and weaknesses . To reflect the nature of change of the city as the player interacts with it — either restoring power or taking it away — the developers created a " deferred shading " rendering engine that would render the effects of moving and damaged light sources . 
