Field Ops Developer Diary #4 - The Final Chapter Feature

As development enters the final stages and distribution deals such as the recent agreement with Take-2 appear, the final chapter of the Field Ops Developer Diaries takes a conclusive look at the innovative FPS/RTS hybrid; the hopes and aspirations for the title and what lies beyond for Freeze Interactive, Digital Reality and Field Ops.

Freeze Entertainment's Mourad Majeri along with Digital Reality's Kovary "Z" Zoltan and Csaba "Air" Toth provided their final thoughts.

Problems Conquered, The Final Goal In Sight... - Mourad Majeri

Our vision was to create the best RTS-FPS combo in history :) Seriously speaking, we worked hard to mix the two genres, and I can say, the result is better than we hoped.

At the start of the project although people could understand our idea of creating a game with dual genres/styles many thought that technically it was impossible and why had it not been done before. Looking back now, we have certainly achieved a lot more than we originally set out to do and the more you create your own style and presentation, the more ideas start to formulate and the boundaries of the concept grow. Already we are thinking about the sequel and our imagination is running wild but there are still many goals to achieve with Field Ops.

One of the real problems, if you can call it a problem, is that in the early days as Freeze was a new publisher, perception of this title was almost non existent and so the only way to show our idea and spread the word was to literally go to as many shows as possible and present the game to as many people as we could. We went to all the main shows and visited all the main territories and without exception everyone who saw the game 'live' was bowled over and fascinated by a number of the features and ideas we had implemented. Of course some believed the biggest challenge was in producing final code and the game hitting the stores, which is now very much set in stone within the next few months!

The Future for Field Ops -

Throughout development there has also been talk of the sequel being better suited to a console format. The implementation of FPS mode increases the basic slower pace of RTS genre and along with the controls being more dynamic and closer to console standards we can understand this comment. Our aim was to present PC gamers with a dual experience and with this objective achieved we can soon start looking towards future development.

There are many areas of the game we are proud of, from online play to the various modes and plausibility of the story, which we have tried to present in an authentic manner.

We have gone through a number of phases with the game and the graphical presentation of the game was one of the last areas worked on. Even mid way through the project people were impressed with the game features, but we could tell that they felt the look of the game did not have that 'wow' factor that many have come to expect. Over the last couple of months much effort has gone into improving the graphical detail. Everything now looks as good from close up as from the birds eye view. We managed to meet the demanding visual expectations of FPS players, while keeping the manageability and transparency of the RTS genre.

As a result, our game is ideal for next-gen consoles, where the players want to see instant action, fabulous graphics and new ways of play, but best of all, it now looks impressive on the PC, which was our aim!

Two Teams, Two Types of Players - Kovary "Z" Zoltan, Csaba "Air" Toth

The synergy between Freeze and ourselves, Digital Reality, has grown and developed throughout and the vision to present a game with innovation and real quality has remained the prime goal and reached fruition.

It is always difficult to put different kinds of people in touch with each other. Doing the same with two different kinds of genres, played by millions of gamers, can be a real nightmare. In the past 2 years the team faced several problems and great challenges, but I think we managed to find the best solutions. The final result became more than the sum of the parts, a new game that can bring many friends together again for a quick multiplayer game.

The great thing about this co-operation is that Field Ops will build greater respect from the gaming community for DR and Freeze and we now hope to go on to even greater achievements.

Status update

The current status of the game is Alpha, the Pre-Beta version is under evaluation.

The project team is working hard on adding more fun to the game:

• We are fine-tuning the weapons and vehicles
• The team is placing signs and landmark objects according to the results of game-play tests, which allow for better orientation for the players on the levels.
• We are improving the look and feel of the game with effects (smokes, sand storm, etc), signs of wildlife and special ambient sounds to bring the environment alive.