Recent Interviews with Joe Halper and Frank DeLise

Joe H. wrote:In the multiplayer game what it has is the three roles you upgrade through. So we're going to have it adjustable so the player can select how fast those roles upgrade, or you can start with a role [or] two for everybody. But the actual roles in themselves are over a time basis. It's actually once you complete objectives or if you use that role for a goal. So, for example, if you blow somebody up with the drone, you get more role points and it adds to the actual bar that goes across. So you go over to the next round, you'll still have that role and you can just upgrade through there, but if the map resets completely or goes to a new map then you clear everyone's slate. That happens pretty quickly, about over an hour or an hour and a half--depends on the setting. But through the single-player game you pick the elements through the game so you select those weapons and roles. It becomes almost like a load-out, but the roles are more unique and you have to scroll down even within it. But even if you die you still have those elements you picked up, you just don't flush the palette until you get to the next map. So when you get to the next campaign, if it's more of a sniper campaign, you start with your sniper rifle or you can select your heavy assault [weapons]. At the beginning of the campaigns you have less to select from because we funnel it out a little bit. The further along you go, the more weapons and roles you pick up.

Joe H. wrote:We didn't want to do a Star Wars game, and we didn't want to do an old-school game, we wanted to do something that was a mix of a Call of Duty and a Battlefield--cinematic, but open world. It's kind of a mesh of those two, but there's other games that we've pulled elements out of too. A lot of military stuff out there that's not that fun, it's cool to look at, but it's not fun to play. Like fire and forget? Who wants to forget it? You want to see that thing, you want to feel, you want a missile [whooshing sounds and hand movements]...ah, that's fun. There was a big controversy when we were doing an antiaircraft, we could just have fire and forget. No! Bullets man! Rip into that thing! It's all about what we know would be fun.

Frank D. wrote:One thing we're big on with the game is that with some games it's hard to get better. So that means that a lot of shooters can be 80 percent spread and 20 percent recoil. We're actually the opposite; we're 20 percent spread and 80 percent recoil, and that means you can get better at your aiming with a mouse and keyboard because it's more about controlling the gun than controlling randomness. That was one of the big things. We always wanted to make a game on the PC side to be very skill-based--you can get better at it and make it competitive.

Frank D. wrote:Yes, we have an amazing mod suite. We're using Unreal Engine 3 for Frontlines, and everything we use will be 100 percent available to the public. We pretty much use Unreal Engine and then tools--there are some tools for Maya and Max. We've heavily modified the engine for the large-scale openness, but everything we use is going to be available, so the cool thing is not only can they make multiplayer maps, but they can make single-player maps, vehicles, weapons, and everything we've done.