Tom Clancy's EndWar Q&A Feature

Tom Clancy's EndWar certainly is unique. Not only as one of the only strategy titles to have been built specifically for the consoles, or simply due to its unique voice-activated command system, but also because of the online World War 3 that it promises to unleash. TVG caught up with Senior Producer, Audrey Leprince, to discuss some of these features.

TVG: Michael de Plater, formally of The Creative Assembly, is heading up production on Endwar; what has his experience in strategy gaming brought to Ubisoft Shanghai, a studio not normally associated with the genre?

From the beginning we knew we had to do something different to create a successful strategy game on console. What our studio lacks in experience in making RTS games is largely compensated by its strong experience in making good console games. What could be considered a disadvantage by many is actually our main strength: we have a highly creative team with no preconceived ideas on how to make strategy games and solid experience on making console games.

Of course the genre has its rules, and we couldn't have made this game without strategy veterans to show us the way. Michael is a respected creative leader for the team; some of his past games are among the best strategy games ever and he has many fans within the studio. Todd Owen, our lead level designer, and Dan Kennedy, our lead AI programmer, also brought to the team their huge experience acquired on genre-defining game series such as Command & Conquer and Total War. But what's really great with these guys is that they're really turned toward the future; it would have been so easy for them to stay within the framework of the genre's ageing conventions.

TVG: Endwar's premise begins with the construction of an anti-nuclear missile shield between Russia and the West; how strange was it to hear earlier in the summer suggestions from the Russian Government that US plans for a similar shield that encompasses North America and part of Europe should be expanded to include Russia too - mirroring the fiction?

It was really just one of many strange moments where real life has echoed our story, a product not of our prescience so much as the fact that we took inspiration from current events and trends. The escalating tensions between Russia and the West have been the most ominous. On the other hand, we never foresaw that North Korea would agree to give up their nuclear arsenal, so maybe the world is doomed to follow our game's timeline after all!

TVG: The voice-controlled command system is one of the key features of Endwar; has the technology been based upon the tech used in Rainbow Six 3, is it proprietary, or is it middleware? How confident are you that the technology will be consistently accurate to provide gamers with the immersive experience it hints at?

We license the best voice recognition software on the market, get them to support us on optimization and put it in the game.

The English version of the voice command is already working with a 90% recognition rate, and we'll keep on pushing and optimizing it until completion. The team is very happy with the reactions to our Games Convention demo; all the gamers and journalists who saw it left super-impressed by the voice command.

To be honest, the challenging part of the voice command isn't so much the interface or the voice recognition; it's having units who are smart enough to follow your orders like real soldiers. You are the General so you don't want to be micromanaging every footstep of the most elite soldiers on the planet.

TVG: Endwar has been described as 'Ghost Recon but fifty times bigger' by de Plater; having hundreds of units on screen at one time is something that has only recently been achieved on PC RTS titles like Supreme Commander, so how challenging has it been to create such huge forces on the consoles?

Thanks for asking. This is quite a challenge indeed, to get that many characters and vehicles moving and fighting as real soldiers while keeping a spectacular and fluid battle experience. However, we made sure we had enough time and enough good programmers to develop our own engine to meet these requirements. Although the EndWar engine was built around Unreal 3, we had to add so many features to it that, in the end, there's less than 20% of the basic, original engine remaining!

Also, we've assembled one of the best and most experienced teams of AI programmers. Those guys have tens of years of cumulated experience in game AI programming, some having worked on the best strategy games like Dan Kennedy, our lead AI programmer, whose credit includes some Total War games.

However we are not solely obsessed with the pure technical achievement of cranking out the largest number of units possible on a map. Numbers alone don't make up for a fine strategy experience.

TVG: One of the most compelling elements of Endwar is the persistent online world war; can you go into further details about the mode, and how a player's army and the game world develops as the war progresses?

Every time you log in you will see the shifting front lines of an entire world at war where every player is participating in a unified global version of World War 3.

Players will have their own fully customizable persistent Battalions they will keep all along the campaign, from battle to battle. There will be hundreds of unlockables, ranging from performance upgrades to eye-catching customizations, so that each player's battalion differ from one another.

Every battle you fight will be taken into account to calculate the shift in frontlines. There are different missions and objectives on the campaign map. These include Conquest missions where you invade or defend countries, but also Siege Missions where you fight to hold cities and Sabotage Missions behind enemy lines where you must take out your enemies' air support or other facilities. Certain territories, such as air bases or ports, have more strategic values than others as winning them determines the range of off-map support you can request in battle.

So, in short, the entire world war experience is totally created by the players.

TVG: Additionally, will the defeat of a higher ranked opponent on Live/PlayStation Network have a greater effect on the persistent world war than if you were to beat a lesser army?

First, the Theater of War includes a skill-based matchmaking system that matches players according to their experience and skill levels so unbalanced, frustrating confrontations will be avoided. Secondly, as with a real war, the effects on the persistent world war are determined by the outcomes of battles, not how and by whom those battles are won or lost.

TVG: Are the units for the three factions (Russia, United Europe, and USA) comparable? For instance, are Russian tanks on a par with European tanks, or do each of the three sides have their own pros and cons?

EndWar gameplay is centred on seven main unit types: Rifleman Platoons, Combat Engineer Platoons, Tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Command Vehicle, and Artillery.

Although these unit types are the same across the 3 forces - The US Joint Strike Force, the European Federation Enforcer Corps and Russia's Spetsnaz Guard Brigades - the vehicles and weapons differ from one faction to another to reflect the specific style of each.

The Joint Strike Force is the best of the best of the American forces. They are an elite, next generation strike force based on the real Future Combat System which is also the reference for the 'Advanced Warfighter' systems and technology in GRAW. So, where GRAW enables you to fight as the soldier of tomorrow, in EndWar we let you play with the army of tomorrow. The advantages of the US forces are superb training which gives them very high morale; high tech un-manned systems like combat robots and drones; and high-tech precision weaponry, from anti-aircraft rail guns to satellite kinetic strikes.

The European Enforcer Corps are the most elite troops from all of the nations of the newly formed European Federation and combine the best of German and French technology. The European Federation is the act of unification which turns Europe into a genuine superpower with its own army. Their specialization is speed and stealth, and they have the most sophisticated directed energy weapons such as high powered microwaves and lasers.

The Spetsnaz Guard Brigades are the most hardened and experienced veterans of Russia's new imperial wars in the Baltic, Balkans and Caucasus. Russian military technology is also in resurgence thanks to the increase in oil revenue and overseas weapon sales. They don't have the same level of high technology as the Europeans and Americans, but they make up for it with heavy guns, heavy armor and incredibly tough warriors.

In addition, each unit can be upgraded and customized with a whole range of faction-specific skills and equipment. For example, depending on your play style (and available credits), you can decide to equip your JSF Riflemen with GRAW-style counter-snipe rifles or Gears-of-War-style Gatling guns, and/or train them to acquire varied skills such as stealth, sniping and demolition abilities. Players also have access to a range of faction-specific support units and weapons including Combat Drones and UAVs, Ground Attack Aircraft, Regular Army forces, EMP strike and, of course, WMDs such as tactical nukes for the Spetsnaz or space satellite laser strikes for the Enforcers.

TVG: There have been hints that the Special Forces already established in the Clancy universe, like Ghost Recon and Third Echelon Splinter Cells, will feature in the game - can you confirm this and are there any links to narrative strands in the other series?

Players will definitely notice connections and I think hardcore Clancy fans will find themselves smiling, or even chuckling with delight as familiar personalities show up. There is definitely continuity, but players don't need to know anything about previous Tom Clancy's titles to enjoy EndWar.

We made efforts to be realistic about it. You might hear mention of Third Echelon but Sam Fisher isn't going to pop up as a field agent - by 2020 his arthritc joints and daily intake of prune juice pretty much make it impossible for him to carry out stealth missions.

TVG: At UbiDays, De Plater announced that Endwar has been pencilled in for release in February 2008; is this still a realistic target considering the number of games Ubisoft has in the first quarter?

Sure the competition will be tough; the beginning of the year is traditionally a crowded period for quality video game releases. Being gamers ourselves, we can't reasonably complain too much about having Christmas twice a year! We're confident that our fresh take on the strategy genre will strike a chord with many console gamers.

TVG: Despite EA and SEGA both working hard on Xbox 360 RTS titles Ubisoft remains adamant that Endwar will be the first true strategy game for consoles built from the ground up; is this a claim that can be truly justified or is it little more than PR spin?

Today, the strategy genre on console is still pretty much at square one. To date, the attempts at releasing RTS titles on console have actually set the genre backwards by focusing on porting the PC experience with inferior controls and convincing gamers that 'RTS is better on PC'. So we're actually fighting to change gamers' minds, not to build on what's gone before.

Interestingly, while the RTS genre has been stuck in a dead end, many sport and war games on consoles have been adding loads of cool strategic and tactical features: Madden, GRAW, Battlefield to mention a few. This is where we looked for EndWar.

We claim End War is a true console strategy game in that it is not a PC RTS game fitted on console. The focus on battlefield tactics over micromanagement, so you're concentrating on the combat not on a spreadsheet of numbers representing different types of resources, the 'pick up and play' UI and camera, with a third person camera that gives you line of sight to the horizon and immerses you totally on the battlefield from the soldiers eye view, and the voice controls, which, for the first time, lets you play like an actual general, are all good examples supporting our case.

TVG: No doubt, early discussions are underway about where the series will go from here - would an Endwar 2 focus on the aftermath of the original's story or from the perspective of additional factions or global regions? How are you planning to support EndWar post-release?

The team is currently focused on making this game top notch, and we still have a hell of a lot of work to go. That said, we can't say we never think about expanding the game into a series, and your examples sound like reasonable suggestions.

As for now, we're just eagerly waiting to have the game in the hands of gamers, see their reactions, and listen to their feedback. We're very aware of the importance of post-launch support to keep the game, the Theatre of War, and the community alive and you can definitely expect new content to be made available at some point after the release - more details on this content will be announced in due time.

In the end, we're making games for gamers, not just for ourselves; obviously the feedback from our players and community will have a strong impact on the future of EndWar, as a game first, then, possibly, as a series of games.

TVG would like to thank Audrey Leprince, Senior Producer on Tom Clancy's EndWar, for taking the time to talk to us about Ubisoft Shanghai's upcoming strategy game for Xbox 360 and PS3.