Near future techno-thrillers are still popular in novels and one of those authors, Dale Brown, is helping developer Eugen Systems and publisher Atari create the upcoming military RTS title Act Of War: Direct Action. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with Atari producer Henrick Strandberg to find out more about their plans for the game
HomeLAN - First, how did the idea Act of War: Direct Action come about?
Henrick Strandberg - We've always been huge fans of technothrillers and felt there wasn't really anything out there which captured that spirit in a truly entertaining way. We also felt the traditional way of presenting stories in games is really dated, so we're trying a bunch of new ways of creating a really immersive and captivating game play.
HomeLAN - What sort of military research did the development team do for the game?
Henrick Strandberg - We have worked with Dale Brown, ex Air Force, best-selling author and expert on the future of warfare to create a realistic view into "tomorrow's war".
Some of the hardware we're using in the game has been operational for many years and is familiar to any techno-thriller fan, whereas other stuff only exists as prototypes, concepts or ideas. In both cases though we're maintaining the authenticity in all details that are relevant for the game.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the playable sides for Act of War?
Henrick Strandberg - In the single-player campaign you control the Task Force Talon, a direct action team (opposite of covert ops) reporting directly to the president. These are the guys that have access to all the really cool high-tech stuff. In most scenarios, they're supported by the regular US Army, which uses a mix of weapons and equipment that's both been around for a while and that's kind of experimental.
The "bad guys" is a mix of terrorists, mercenaries, and locally recruited military units, i.e. anything that could possibly pose a threat in a military conflict, and they use a wide variety of existing, mostly non-US hardware, and experimental high-tech stuff.
Of course each side has its own strengths and weaknesses to be balanced in the multiplayer mode.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the single player campaign for the game?
Henrick Strandberg - The enemy is only revealed gradually as you play so we won't give away too many spoilers, but a secret international organization called The Consortium is recruiting global terrorist groups to create chaos and uprisings around the world. This is all a means to the Consortium's bigger plans of controlling the world's energy resources. But to what end? Is there an even bigger goal? When facing off against the Consortium the player will do battle with terrorists, mercenaries and nation specific military units.
HomeLAN - What kinds of missions and locations will Act of War have?
Henrick Strandberg - The story takes the player around the entire world, from the deserts of North Africa to Europe, the US and Russia. The developer, Eugen Systems, has taken the time to recreate the architecture and sections of exciting cities like Washington DC, San Francisco and London in extreme detail and perfectly to scale, as well as smaller cities and villages in North Africa and Soviet architecture in Russia. This is an international military technothriller and players will definitely feel that.
HomeLAN - What are some of your favorite units in the game?
Henrick Strandberg - Probably the "SHIELD" units, basically combined infantry personal protection suits and weapons platforms, "mech units" if you like. These are based on exoskeleton prototypes developed at UC Berkeley and could very well be operational within say 10-15 years.
We also have the remotely controlled multi-purpose "Spinner" drones, which can be customized to be used for surveillance, as reloadable bomb drones, or as anti-tank or anti-aircraft drones; and stealth vehicles that use optical camouflage technology as well as technical detection prevention devices, sort of like James Bond's invisible car. (This is however not science fiction, it's a realistic projection.)
HomeLAN - How does Act of War handle things like resources and unit creation?
Henrick Strandberg - Resource management in Act of War reflects the resource and supply issues faced by any contemporary fighting force. It's simply about money, equipment and time. Players will adapt their strategies depending on the mission and try different solutions to reach the same objective. This creates a much more dynamic experience than a linear or tactical game where pretty much every game situation can be predicted.
The most important resource by far is what we simply call the "human resource". Wounded enemy soldiers and downed pilots can be captured and turned into prisoners of war, which give you both an instant and a long-term cash bonus. On the flip side, preventing the opponent from capturing your own wounded soldiers (by keeping them safe until they can be medevaced) is of course an equally important part of this "resource". To add to the mix, all units gain experience which makes a big difference to their overall efficiency, so you really want to be careful with the most experienced ones. The game is balanced so that players that "manage" these "human resources" the best will win in the long run.
Aside from the human resources we have oil (harvested from oil wells) and banks (buildings you have to occupy and hold) that continously add cash to your war chest. Mainly, these provide static strategic objectives and are a good way to kick-start gameplay before you've had any enemy contact. Finally, achieving certain objectives will sometimes give you cash injections.
Different missions use these resources in different ways to provide the maximum amount of variety -- some missions have no resource management at all. And of course, in skirmish and multiplayer games it's vital to find the right balance -- you can only capture prisoners of war with your infantry units, but these in turn are vulnerable to being captured by the enemy. This way of putting human resources in the fore-front is totally in line with how today's warfare works, and I believe we're the first game to simulate this in a way that's really user-friendly and easy to understand.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the game's multiplayer modes?
Henrick Strandberg - We're supporting up to eight players over LAN or internet using GameSpy for matchmaking. We've included a bunch of persistent and customizable content to the player profiles to encourage both practice and ladder gaming.
HomeLAN - What other unique gameplay elements will Act of War have?
Henrick Strandberg - By far the most unique thing about Act of War is the integration between game and story into a single, coherent techno-thriller experience, but strictly in terms of gameplay, probably the most unique thing is the resourcing model which has been built from the ground up to reflect the tactical considerations you have to make in real warfare.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the game's graphics engine?
Henrick Strandberg - What stands out the most is probably the shadow/lighting system; we use a "warm lighting" system that includes high resolution real-time depth shadow maps for bright and sharp sunlight and precomputed radiance transfer (part precomputed/part real-time radiosity) to provide a warmer feeling in shadowed areas. Our PRT scheme uses many more lights than just the sunlight to offer full sky lighting, and all world objects are then ray-traced with several rays per surface element to see how they are influenced by the sky lighting. The result is then compressed using a lossy compression scheme using spherical harmonics. When the objects are rendered in the game, they use that compressed information to figure out how they are lit by the sky. This way we almost get the quality of radiosity, but in scenes where the objects can move. The clouds also modify the way objects are lit. We use both volumetric lighting and per-pixel shading to give that little extra touch of luminosity, detail and crispiness, neither of which has ever seen in a strategy game before and just makes the whole game world look so much better.
HomeLAN - Are there plans to include a mission editor and other mod tools for the game?
Henrick Strandberg - Yes, the map editor will be downloadable at launch, after that we'll continue to release dev tools to meet whatever demands the community has.
HomeLAN - Atari recently announced plans for an upcoming beta test for the game. What will the beta test have?
Henrick Strandberg - We'll offer two multiplayer levels for up to eight players, and all three sides playable with their full tech trees. The objective of these tests is basically to ensure that the balance is right between the three sides and we'll need as much help as we can get with this, so please go to
www.betatests.net and sign up!
HomeLAN - What is the current status of the game's progress and when will it be released?
Henrick Strandberg - We've just passed the gameplay Alpha and are currently finishing and implementing the last media content, music and cinematics. Street date is late winter-early spring of 2005.
HomeLAN - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about Act of War: Direct Action?
Henrick Strandberg - To counter our current most FAQ's -- yes, the screenshots and videos we're releasing are actual in-game footage; yes, the textures are that hi-res; yes, all units have that many polys; and yes, that's exactly what the visual effects look like when you play the game. Sign up for the public beta if you don't believe it!
Information:
A ruthless secret group of petroleum company owners known as the Consortium finances an international terrorist organisation to stage a series of attacks around the world in an effort to destabilise the global economy and profit from skyrocketing oil prices. A group of seasoned military veterans and young techies are recruited into a special high-tech task force and begin the worldwide job of tracking down the terrorists and uncovering the international conspiracy before the terrorists can strike in the heart of America itself.
Ripped from today's headlines, Act of War is a frightening and believable tale of suspense, international intrigue and geopolitical military conflict. Through a techno-thriller story constructed by best-selling author Dale Brown, this real-time strategy experience puts you squarely in control of counterterrorist forces to defend cities of the world. It's the first look at tomorrow's war. No place is safe!