DICE's Battlefield games have become multiplayer prime movers since shortly after Battlefield 1942 hit stores in 2002. Why? They were some of the first titles to successfully combine the teamwork and organization of your common-or-garden RTS with the "BOOM! Headshot!" port of the on-line shooter. Now that Battlefield 2142 is on its way, the Globe and Mail blasts 136 years into the future with the game's executive producer, Marcus Nillson, to find out just what the war's going to look like.
Globe & Mail: Why do you think the Battlefield series has been such a success?
Marcus Nillson: There's two things. From a creative standpoint, you basically log in, you walk into this sandbox, you have all the vehicles and all the guns, and you can team up with other players. So you can basically do whatever you want to do on the battlefield.
The other thing is what I've always loved about the series: you're never without a chance. Your odds might be lousy, but there's always a way — there should always be a possibility that you could dodge that grenade, roll past a burned-out tank, and survive. And that's a moment for you. You're like, "Oh my God! I did it!"
In Battlefield 2, that was harder than in previous games. So what we want to do here is allow players to be more diverse.
G&M: Can you give us a brief outline of the game's setting?
MN: Obviously, you know it's 2142. The world is fighting for one cause — survival. The back-story is that we have this new ice-age coming, pretty much destroying everything in its way, and it's pushing everyone closer to the equator. That is, basically, making ten billion people fight for land made for three billion people.
We're aiming the battles around parts of Europe and Northern Africa. There are two different sides to this conflict: the American/European side, and the Asian Coalition, which has become a country in itself.
G&M: Do you think there's a possibility Battlefield stalwarts may feel alienated by the sci-fi setting?
MN: Yeah, definitely. I think that could happen. But if you go back to BF2 — some people said, "Oh, no — don't move away from WWII." We will see that initial reaction, but I know they'll be glad we're being quite conventional.
It's very important to me that we keep this believable. What I usually say to people to explain this is that if you went back to 1860 and you gave people cellphones, the Internet, and so on, they would not understand or be able to use the technology, so they wouldn't appreciate its brilliance. If we did the same thing and brought things we've never seen before into our games, people wouldn't understand it. So, we need to keep it very believable, but add that futuristic twist. You may even think, "Oh, this is just 50 years into the future."
What this means is that we're not going to have lasers, death beams, or plasma guns. We do go down quite a conventional route. We are shooting bullets. We try to keep it believable, but add all the futuristic things around it — a gun's going to look like a gun, but it'll be futuristic. It's going to be a sleek, futuristic weapon, and it's going to sound futuristic.
G&M: Does the lack of any real subject matter to draw on make designing the game more difficult?
MN: The thing is, I've never seen the team at DICE so fired up to make a game, because we have to be creative from point one.
When we did BF2, we Googled "F-16 plane," and we'd get reference pictures of those, and the artists would model and texture them. Then we'd say to the programmers, "This needs to fly like an aeroplane."
Now we can go straight to the designers and say, "Okay, given that we need this to function like rock, paper, scissors, what can we do? What kind of vehicle should we have?" Then, we'd go to the modellers and ask them, "We need something to fly like this. What does it look like?"
I guess what I'm saying here is that, yes, it's hard, because you need to be very creative. But people in this industry are very creative, and they're delivering that right now.
G&M: What new features will the team be adding to BF2142 that will enhance the Battlefield experience?
MN: We're always looking at how we can deepen the 'rock, paper, scissors,' and the choices on the battlefield. At the beginning of development, we said, "We're going to be able to use things that aren't available or possible with today's technology." We are adding toys. Off the top of my head, you can cloak yourself — if you move, there'll be a shimmer around your body, though. That opens up the possibility of sneak attacks. We're using EMP grenades that disrupt and distort vehicles rather than destroy them instantly. And we're adding your own personal drones that you can let out and have them follow you. A lot of cool new equipment will be on the battlefield.
G&M: What weapons will players be seeing?
MN: We're looking at four different kits. We're taking them down from the seven in BF2, and making them both more specific and broad. We're giving them more ability to handle any situation. So, you're going to see the Sniper, the assault kit, the support kit, and the anti-vehicle kit.
G&M: Any idea what sort of vehicles players will be controlling?
MN: We're looking at new types of vehicles. We're going to have tanks, ground attack vehicles, and airships. They're going to be futuristic but still believable.
What might change is the characteristics of the vehicle. So, something that looks like a Jeep may not act like a Jeep. We believe everything is there for a purpose, so, if we can build a vehicle that holds eight people, that is something that would be armored. And that new armor has driven the development of new weapons. So we have flipper mines that latch on the top of the Jeep, so you can penetrate the armor.
G&M: With all this new equipment, has balancing been a chore?
MN: Absolutely. It is hard. We want to make the game playable, and we work very actively with "white rooms", and we tweak every file, and so on.
What it really comes down to, though, is a lot of testing. We play the game so much. Every developer plays this game for a few hours a week. We need to know how different people play the game, which is why we're now going to be doing closed and open betas to work that out. When players run through a level for the hundredth time, they know they have a goal — we have that persistent system.
G&M: The stat-tracking system?
MN: Yeah. We see the importance of that and the value of that system. We can see that it's driving people. We've seen how successful it was, but we don't think we did enough. But that's all I'm going to say about that right now.
G&M: Battlefield 2 was criticized for its shallow single-player component. Is this going to be addressed in BF2142?
MN: DICE is a multiplayer studio. With that in mind, we are always listening to the multiplayer community, and we have a very competent marketing team at EA, and they're telling us what people want to have. And there is a push for something else in single-player, and we're looking into making a few changes there. But that's something I'm going to hold back on at the moment.
G&M: Finally, how's the game going to look? Are you implementing new graphics technology?
MN: Engine-wise, we are basing certain parts of this game on the Battlefield 2 technology. We are rewriting major parts of different systems as well as adding new systems that will give us that future look.
We'll have more effects and improve areas where we don't think we delivered so highly for Battlefield 2 — explosions, et cetera.
