Red Faction: Guerrilla Q&A Feature

The return to Mars is just months away now, as Volition prepares for the final push on Red Faction: Guerrilla, heading to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in early 2009. Having gone hands on with both console editions in recent months, TVG managed to sit down with Associate Producer, Ishmael Vicens, to discuss both versions of the game and Guerrilla's multiplayer experience. TVG: This is the first time since THQ's Gamers Day that Red Faction has been on show... Well, we had something at E3, but this is the first time that we've had the single player and the multiplayer all together, so yeah. TVG: ...what sort of advancements have been made in the months since? Well graphically the game has been completely changed. We've added a lot of new effects; we've added a lot of stuff to the camera to make it more interesting like depth of field effects - just a lot of things that immerse the player into what's going on. We've added a different lighting system that gives it more moody lighting; the thing we like about that is that we can change the way it looks depending on what area you're in. It's like in early areas, the game looks much more Martian with red mountains and rugged [terrain, so] you have a permanently red sky. There are others in the game where it might be colder, so the lighting is very blue and very bright. It's one of those things that we can control, and I think that's one of the things that really tie together the mood of the game. Since then, we've also added loads of weapons and loads of vehicles, just tons of stuff. The cover system has been improved and tweaked; we've now got dive over and dive out of cover manoeuvres and things like that. So yeah, lots of little tweaks. The difference between what we're showing here and what we showed at Gamers Day is immense I think. TVG: You mentioned during your earlier presentation that the covering system was contextual, that it's only available if certain weapons like the assault rifle were being used. How expansive is the covering system in general? You can use it primarily with weapons that make sense. We've got some large weapons like rocket launchers and stuff - they're the big two-handed heavy looking weapons - and it doesn't make a lot of sense to use them around the corner of a wall. But with weapons that it makes sense with, like rifles and remote charges, those absolutely use cover because they're the ones you can imagine using those things with your back to the wall. You can throw the charges over your shoulder beyond the wall. So yeah, the covering system depends on what you've got in hand. TVG: Can you give a brief overview over what differentiates Red Faction: Guerrilla's multiplayer from the host of other action game out there? That's fair. Well, the first thing is that we have the destruction engine in the multiplayer. That alone, I think, would separate us out because there are very few other games where at the end of a multiplayer match, the map is completely different. What's the first thing you're told when you start a multiplayer game? Memorise the map. With our game, that's less important because at the end of it your map is going to look very different. But we also wanted to introduce something very interesting, very unique, to Red Faction, so we've introduced the backpack system. The backpack system is a combination of power ups and player classes, and by using them in combination with weapons completely changes the way you play. We don't even have a favourite backpack to go with a favourite weapon; people kinda make them up on their own, they improvise, they figure it out. It fits in with that 'guerrilla' feel because things are improvised. I've seen people that take the backpack that makes you run really fast, and run round hitting people with the sledgehammer, but I've also seen people that use it with the rocket launcher or charges. You switch those so often that it can change drastically how you're playing from one second to the next. If that had been in another game people would have called it out and said "That backpack system is really interesting!" Combine that with the destruction, and now we have a couple of very unique ideas that are in. On top of that, because of the destruction, we have the ability to have game modes that aren't available in other games. We're mixing them with traditional modes that players also expect to see, but the destruction modes are very interesting. We have a siege mode where one side attacks and one side defends in any given round, and the defenders are trying to protect these specific structures. Now, because of the way our destruction system works, they can go up and just chip away at a particular building, blowing up a wall or two. But if people get close enough and familiar with the building, they can attack the weak points, those structural foundational elements. That does massive destruction to a building in a very short amount of time - so you're not only just defending against general attacks, but also these strategic attacks that people can do. So that's only something that's possible if you have a heavily physics-based destruction system like we have. TVG: You mentioned there about the structural weak points, yet I understand that stress isn't a factor in the destruction of buildings in the multiplayer; so how does that work? Well it still fits in because [even though] in multiplayer there may not be any stress, but at the same time these weak points still control large areas of a building. It's still going to be that if you take out a certain large supporting structure and then take out some of the things around it, you're still going to see a general collapse of at least a portion of that building. So it depends; if you play [the gametype] 'Damage Control', some buildings are help up on stilts. You can destroy the top portion of the building that's held up, but if you take out the stilts then the whole thing topples over. Even with no stress system, it still destroys the whole building - that's just because of the way it works. We don't entirely need stress to convey the way weak points work on a building; they still work even without stress in multiplayer. TVG: There are four or five backpacks on show here today... Yeah, there are four or five in the Beta - we'll have significantly more in the final build. TVG: ...there'll be more? Oh yeah, absolutely. Some of my favourite backpacks aren't even present in the Beta. There are some that people will expect to see, and some that will be really surprising for people. It's one of those things, people quickly develop affinities for certain backpacks, so I think that when the full game comes out and people use backpacks they haven't seen yet, then they'll be very shocked, surprised, and happy! TVG: You're currently showing eight-player multiplayer here; is this the final figure for the end game? Oh no, we're looking at twelve to sixteen players. I believe we have the ability to go up to sixteen players now in some of the game modes. Some of the maps we're showing today are the smaller maps; we have much larger maps that can support those eight on eight matches. TVG: I was just wondering if the sixteen player maximum is limited to North America or will it be rolled out to Europe? I only ask because THQ's Frontlines has fifty players in North America but for whatever reason it had to be dropped to thirty-two in Europe... As far as I know, if we're supporting sixteen [players], then we're going to try and support sixteen everywhere. Of course, we have code in the game that detects your network connection and tries to match you in a game that's going to run well, but as far as I know we're trying to keep it to sixteen everywhere. TVG: Microsoft recently announced Avatars; with the game set to launch by the first quarter of 2009, is this something that you're looking to introduce? That would be a tight feature to get in now. We're paying attention to those announcements as they crop up, not just Avatars but PS3 Trophies too, but it's not something we can necessarily integrate into development - it just depends on how circumstances works out. If we get people that want it and we can fit it in, maybe that's something that we can make [a decision about]. If we feel that it's something that would impact the quality of the game or our development time, then we'll say that we didn't get it in this time, but maybe in future iterations... TVG: But it could be downloadable content? Well we do have plans for downloadable content, so it's something that we could perhaps integrate there. TVG: So you're waiting on Avatars and Trophies - what about Home? That's again something that we haven't seen enough about. Right now, we're focusing primarily on the game. These extra things like the trophies, even the achievements on Xbox 360, are right now in the back of our heads as we finalise everything that we want to put in-game. At that point we can start to revisit some of these things and saying 'Ok, what works with our game and what can we do in the time we have left?" TVG: That's fair enough! A beta of over 27,000 gamers is currently on-going in North America; are you going to roll it out further as the release date gets closer? No, the beta [has] a set timeframe. Some people use betas as a marketing tool, but we really wanted to use it for testing purposes. Our designers created all these really awesome tools that we're hoping to make some use of once the game ships. You can look at the maps to see where people died the most, where they used what weapons the most - all these statistics. So it really helps us debug how we're making our maps, which with a game based on destruction, is very important. It's also helping us balance things, so the beta is for a limited time. Really for us at this point, most of the beta is running itself except for collecting information and responding to that information; we're progressing forward on finishing the rest of the game. We have a small core group of people that are paying attention to the beta and taking the feedback that comes from it. For the most part though, we've set it loose and now we're just letting it happen. TVG: Several games use community websites to show off the stats - is this something you're interested in? Well, our community site has just launched recently at community.redfaction.com; the beta section is closed to people taking part in the beta, but the rest of the site is up and running. We're definitely thinking community with this. In fact, THQ in general is driving a large scale community effort for its upcoming games, especially its original IP games. So yeah, we really want to create a strong community based around that, especially with a game that's as driven by player actions as Red Faction. I mean who knows, when the game comes out people will probably be recording YouTube stuff of all the crazy things they've done in the game. We want to foster that community feeling, that people are connecting over the game. So yeah, if those stats are something we can integrate in some way, if we get the technology and the opportunity, then we'd certainly see about trying to do that. TVG: If I can ask about one area of the presentation you made. In one area, you had to chase down and kill an EDF Colonel. If you hadn't managed to kill him, would it have affected the flow of the storyline or the levels of the Red Faction morale? With the missions, if you fail them, you're essentially - like any game - given the opportunity to replay them. Activities are different; if you fail those, they do have an affect on the game, morale can be lowered. Essentially, the game keeps going when you fail those. It acknowledges that failure and if that activity comes back later dynamically in the game, then yes you can try it again - but that failure stays with you. But with the missions, since those are very heavily story-driven, those are times when we do say 'Let's rewind and let you try that again,' so it just depends on what you're doing. TVG: Going back to multiplayer, because of the destruction and the weapons/backpack combos, how difficult is it to balance in order to avoid something similar to the 'dive and shotgun blast' technique of Gears of War? That's one of the reasons why we're doing the beta right now, to find out how these things work in combination. We watch all this very carefully, we can see which weapons people are using the most. We've had people on the beta forums responding with 'Ok, I've found this combination...' or 'This location on the map is completely too powerful...', and so we respond to that. We're tweaking it, we're trying to go in there and find out how it works. One of the things we have to keep in mind as well is how experienced the players are; as you play through the game, the way you play it changes dramatically. That's something we are responding to and can respond to in the future. TVG: I also noticed some of the side-quests like demolishing certain buildings in the fastest time. What other examples are there, and will the times be tracked in online leaderboards? You know, that's something we hadn't thought about until recently. We've started to try and think about some of the crazy things we can track in game, and how we can be innovative [with them]. It's something that we're thinking about now, now that we have enough of the game together that we can see some of the crazy things we're doing. We want to encourage community a lot, so what are some of the creative things we can do with what we've got? Again, we wanted to wait until we got to a certain point in development before we started to look at all that stuff, and figure out how we can tie it back to the community and player reward. TVG: You've been demoing the PlayStation 3 versions of Red Faction here today... We showed off the PS3 at E3, and if you didn't look at the controller you would swear they're basically the same game. They're identical to each other, they're on parity with each other. I have both on my desk; I play on both, and I can switch between the two and it's an identical experience. TVG: I always find that sort of answer interesting given that the PS3 is more powerful on paper; should we really be surprised when it hits the same spec? There are things that each console does differently. On the Xbox 360, you get a lot of extra memory for some of the graphical effects, and on the PS3 you a lot more power for Havok for instance, and things like that. It ends up balancing each other out, and what you end up are these platforms on parity and talented programmers on both - and there's no extra effort required on either of our parts to get these consoles running identically. That's what we want. We want all the platforms we release on to be identical experiences for people because we have a vision for the game. We want it to play out and look the same no matter what you play it on. TVG: How far behind is the development of the PlayStation 3 version? They're the same right now, [and] will release simultaneously. Like I said, they look functionally identical, they play functionally identically. They're feature identical across the platforms... TVG: And there's DualShock 3 functionality too? I believe so. I don't have a DualShock 3 at my desk, but we have them at the office. Our programmers are gurus so they probably already have it in there. TVG: What about the PC version; will that come underneath the Games for Windows banner? It will be one of the Games for Windows; THQ is very involved with Microsoft. That one [PC version] is something that I would say is a little behind the console versions, but at the same time because there are less submission requirements you get some extra time. TVG: Is the early 2009 release date still on track? Yeah, [the] early portion of 2009 is when we're looking to get the game out. Hopefully you'll have the game in your hands soon enough! TVG: Thanks Ish. Thank you very much. TVG would like to thank Ishmael Vicens at Volition for taking the time to answer our questions. Expect more on Red Faction: Guerrilla as the early 2009 release date begins to loom on the horizon.