Having explored futuristic battlefields with its Ground Control games, for it's next RTS developer Massive Entertainment has decided to step back in time to the 1980s. World in Conflict is based on a Cold War scenario, although its storyline is fictional and penned by author Larry Bond.
Bond's plot takes us into an alternate history on Earth where the Berlin wall never fell and the Soviets, fearing certain collapse, have advanced into Europe. NATO responds in force but is met on a second front, a surprise full invasion of the US of A. You come in as a field commander who is leading military muscle and fighting the Soviet forces in America, Europe and the Soviet Union itself.
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World in Conflict is already being looked upon as a potential contender for the RTS of 2007 - we caught up with Massive Entertainment's founder and president Martin Walfisz to find out how the game is coming along...
It's been some time since we last spoke with you about World in Conflict. What are you currently working on with the game at the moment, and what major changes if any have you made to the game during the last six months?
Walfisz: At the moment, we're very busy with our closed multiplayer alpha test. This is very rewarding, as we get a lot of feedback from brand new players who've never even seen the game before! The groundwork for the game is done and nearly all of the features are in, so we're working on a lot of balancing and some tweaking of already existing features. We're also working on maps and the single-player part of the game.
All in all, we have a solid, enjoyable alpha in our hands, which is great! Many big and small additions have happened since we spoke last. Notable are the Special Abilities: one offensive and one defensive for each unit. And the introduction of Fortifications: fixed bunkers and machine-gun nests that you construct by holding a command point for a duration of time.
Is it still the case that you're leaning more toward a multiplayer experience with World in Conflict? How is that panning out and how has the multiplayer side of the game developed?
Walfisz: The multiplayer will go hand in hand with our singleplayer campaign. While the single-player campaign will give players the chance to experience the unique 1980's Cold War setting to the fullest, the multiplayer mode is very important to the game's replay value. The game idea was initially multiplayer based, so a lot of the gameplay concepts come from our original ideas, and it's only gotten better over time! Our play testers love it, and we still play it with enthusiasm each time we finish a new build!
Are you now able to elaborate on the game's storyline and key characters involved? We've heard of some interesting things you're doing with friendly AI in single-player too...
Walfisz: Yes, we can finally start talking about this. The single-player campaign follows the American army in their war against the Soviets. The battles take place in America, Europe and also in the Soviet Union itself. One of the central characters is Colonel Sawyer, who is this tough, rough necked war veteran, who acts as the player's commander. There are many other characters as well, all of whom will give the player a feeling of a full-scale war going on.
A lot of them are AI-controlled soldiers and commanders, who fight side by side with the player on the battlefield, sometimes to request aid from the player and sometimes to offer help in tough situations. The AI does a great job, both in offering good challenges to the player and in giving the player a rich and varied experience. And playing alongside the allied AI will work as a good introduction to the multiplayer teamplay experience.
The storyline's been penned by Larry Bond. What difference is that making to the overall World in Conflict experience?
Walfisz: Larry Bond helped in getting the setting and storyline as realistic as possible! We really wanted the turn of events to feel probable, even though they're (fortunately) purely speculative. Larry Bond's writing has done that, and we think that a lot of players will enjoy our single-player campaign!
Lately we have also been working with Ed Zuckerman, an Emmy-award winning Hollywood writer (Law & Order, Star Trek, Miami Vice), and his additions to dialogue and character development are awesome.
WiC is a Games for Windows branded title. What benefits does that bring to the table?
Walfisz: It gives us a lot of support to reach out to many PC gamers out there. Not all who enjoy PC gaming are hardcore, hardware-tweaking tech gods, so that's a really good thing for the average strategy gamer! Accessibility is key to a game like WIC, and Microsoft has a vast reach.
You're a developer that's been working on RTS games for some time now. Do you ever feel the urge to dip into a different genre, say a Massive Entertainment FPS or RPG?
Walfisz: First of all we have some unfinished business within RTS, and we think that we're really pushing the envelope with World in Conflict! Our goal is to make WIC unforgettably good, and we're constantly doing our best to make it perfect.
But yes, the team consists almost completely of gamers, many of whom enjoy a lot of other genres than RTS, so it's very possible that a future project will not follow our traditional line of games. We have a couple of guys who are experimenting with some weird game ideas, but to be honest, we're still so knee deep in WIC that we'll have to reveal our secrets some other day.
Games for Windows - Live is introducing cross-platform play between PC and Xbox 360. Is that something that excites you as a developer? Can we expect to see a Massive Entertainment game that supports this?
Walfisz: For the right game cross-platform play will be very exciting, but it's not something we're planning for WIC. Right now we just want to get the game out on PC and start having fun matches with our fans.
EA has seen success with Battle for Middle-earth on console, and of course is bringing Command & Conquer to Xbox 360 and then there's Halo Wars... What are you thoughts/opinions on the RTS genre on console machines?
Walfisz: It's great to see high-profile RTS games coming out for consoles but I still don't think that there's an RTS game that has really convinced a good part of console gamers that it's a fun genre. What the consoles need is a game that proves that strategy gameplay really works with the gamepad.
Before Halo, everybody said you couldn't play FPS games on console, but now look at the market! I don't think this threshold has been crossed yet with strategy games. It's something we've been thinking on a lot over the years, and maybe someone we'll get it right in the future. We'll see...
Finally, what's been your best moment to date from playtesting of World in Conflict?
Walfisz: One of the defining moments happened in Germany, before the game was greenlit by Sierra; we tested an early prototype of World In Conflict. The test leader (behind a mirror-glass wall) said that we shouldn't expect too much from the gamers, because "Germans are pretty picky". The test moved ahead, and the guys in the room were getting more and more excited. They started shouting and laughing, and then one of them dropped the Nuke (a really silly version, in hindsight, but still...) and all of them just let go of their keyboards and cheered!
The test leader still said not to expect too much from the scores, but as they came in one by one, we had 10s and 9s all across the board. I felt this tremendous joy, pride and anticipation! I knew it right then, that we would get the greenlight, and that we were about to embark on a really, really great project. And here we are today, almost two years later.
