Now that the world has finally seen Sunset Overdrive , the primary question about the game is no longer how Insomniac -- toting a nearly 20 year-long relationship with Sony -- ended up with Microsoft. But it's still an interesting and largely unanswered question, one that I asked Sunset's co-creators Marcus Smith and Drew Murray when I visited them at Insomniac's Burbank, California headquarters.

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“ ...afterwards, they were all like, 'what the **** are you guys talking about?'

Good lord.

“ All of a sudden, people thought that we were making Brutal Legend…

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“ It was epic, and I'm shocked they didn't walk away from the table at that point.

FizzCo has a sense of humor. Or so it appears.

The story of Sunset Overdrive begins during the tail end of Resistance 3's development. After working for years on the PlayStation-exclusive post-apocalyptic shooter series, the pair -- who are, by the way, good friends in and out of the office -- settled on another, very different dystopian story. But they weren't quite sure how to pitch it to their bosses."We were really convinced people didn't want to get bogged down in details of gameplay mechanics or story," Smith said facetiously, with Murray laughing alongside him. "And so, instead, we did a presentation where we just showed a bunch of influences." Those influences ranged from the Hyena Men of Kenya and the Tank Girl comics to the novel I Am Legend and the TV series The Young Ones . "[There were] '60s Halloween masks, and LEGOs were in there somewhere," Smith said.Smith jumped in: "It was basically like a hoarder showed up with a bag and dumped it on the table. 'Guys, check it out We're gonna do this!'""'Here's everything we like!'" Murray exclaimed, chuckling."So that went over well," Smith said with a smirk. "And they were like, 'hey, how about you do it again. We'll give you a week.'""Try not to get fired this time," Murray said with a smile.Smith and Murray tackled the presentation again, focusing more on what Sunset Overdrive would be. Their second pitch revolved around a core mechanic that actually wouldn't end up making it past the planning stages. "It's changed dramatically since then, but I think the important thing was, this is not a game where we said, 'we want to make a game like Blah, and we're influenced by a mechanic, or by another game,'" Smith explained."Which confused everyone," Murray interjected."It confused everyone," Smith agreed. "All of a sudden, people thought that we were making Brutal Legend... so it was confusing. So, a huge part of this game for us was how do you communicate the box that we're making? And I think after we communicated the high action, fast action, high energy Awesomepocalypse, and these sort of broad concepts, people ran with it, and the team [working on the game] has bought in. And so the game has been made better and different by the team since we were able to communicate better."With the idea of Sunset Overdrive set internally, it was time to bring it around to publishers. While Insomniac ended up settling with Microsoft, Insomniac pitched it elsewhere first.Insomniac's obsession with owning its own IP started with its co-op shooter Fuse , and comes from a long legacy of making famous franchises -- like Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance -- that it doesn’t own. "Most publisher conversations begin and end with IP ownership," Murray said candidly, "and I think [Microsoft] has been talking to Ted for a while, and at some point it was like, 'you can retain the IP,' and suddenly, it was a conversation point."Murray and Smith went to Seattle multiple times to pitch Sunset Overdrive directly to Microsoft. Murray remembered "the main" pitch, where he wore his lucky shoes, riddled with holes, which he hadn't changed in two weeks. "We're presenting, and I have these wet socks up in Seattle. I swear, there must have been six or seven levels of hierarchy at this thing."Smith agreed. "It's the guy we know, and his boss, and his boss, and his boss... But it started off with us cluing into the speaker system in the conference room and playing the sample from the beginning of MC5's 'Kick Out the Jams' , where it's like, "kick out the jams, mother fucker,' not knowing that one of the executives there hates swearing. And then it ended with Drew on top of a chair, mimicking how the game was going to play, and the last minute heroics. It was epic, and I'm shocked they didn't walk away from the table at that point. But for some reason, here we are."For more on Sunset Overdrive, read our preview , take a gander at the new trailer (and our Rewind Theater!) embedded above, and keep an eye out for more of our interview with Drew Murray and Marcus Smith in the coming days.

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter.