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Army Of Two Q&A Feature
Gwynne Dixon
02/08/2007
Team-work is the key to overcoming any task, particularly ones where failure means a bullet in the head...
Set for release in November, Army of Two will be one of the first games to feature co-operative gameplay as its central feature, rather than simply being an additional mode. You follow the stories of two private military contractors (PMCs) called Rios and Salem as they move around the globe performing military operations for the highest bidders. It's kind of like applying the concepts of tag-team wrestling to a warzone. Expect loads of guns and ammo, vats of splattered blood and a general malaise of carnage.
TVG recently spoke with Lead Designer Chris Ferriera about this, the second title to emerge from EA Montreal...
TVG: For the PMCs - for the themes behind that - did you do any research or speak to any people who'd worked in the field?
Well, when we first made the game we decided to make a co-op game and we looked at all the different genres and thought: How're we going to work this? What's the world going to be? Are we going to be thieves? Are we going to be cops? What's hot right now, what's a hot-button thing? We looked at the theatres of war now, like Afghanistan and Somalia, and did research into that - started watching tons of news feeds.
Then there was a scene where four contractors got killed on a bridge in Somalia and this whole thing about PMCs and how they operate abroad came. We were like: "This is sort of a hot-button topic that people know a little bit about, but not a lot," unless you start reading books and really delving deep, beyond just the news media, to figure out what's the real story behind it. So that was kind of like our introduction into it and on top of that we got a guy who was a PMC who came into our office and explained to us a lot of what he did there, what he actually did in the field, stuff he used in the field, and then we took that and applied it to the game.
TVG: We've seen a few of the levels and you've mentioned areas such as Somalia, for example. Can you tell us what areas are going to be featured and what sort of conflicts there are going to be?
Well, first of all Somalia: that level is about overthrowing a warlord; at that point you're actually working on special operations for the US military. At that point you're like a Delta, or a Seal or something and then, at the end of that mission, you get introduced to the world of the privatised military and we also explain where the characters' masks came from and what led them into that. But, like in Afghanistan, you're eliminating all these gas rockets and what-not. Then there's Beijing, China where you're supposed to be taking out people as well. We have a bunch of other places around the world, like one of them is an aircraft carrier you need to sink and it's a US aircraft carrier. So, PMCs work for the highest bidder so you never know who you're fighting with. Your nationality and allegiance doesn't really play into it, it's just who's the highest bidder, and that's what we're doing differently - we're explaining that situation.
TVG: As far as the multiplayer co-op is concerned, how will that be configured with two people playing offline?
We have three modes: we have a split-screen, we have two players via Xbox Live and one player with a partner AI.
TVG: So the offline multiplayer, is that going to be drop-in drop-out?
It's the same thing. Just like with the online version you can jump in and jump out at checkpoints. A level could have anywhere around fifteen checkpoints so you're constantly jumping in and jumping out at key moments.
TVG: We've heard that the AI partner in the single-player mode will react differently to you depending on your performance. So, for example, it won't let you take the shot as a sniper if your accuracy percentage is too low. How much is that sort of play going to be integrated into the game?
There will be a lot of that because what we do is we're always tracking different variables. We track what weapon you're using, how much you use it, and we can balance the AI's equipment against you that way. We also track whether you're leading the situation, are you playing it the way it should played and getting to the objectives and doing them. In a co-op snipe scenario, you're making the call with the percentages you're hitting. So if the percentage is low then he's going to say 'Well, I'm going to call it instead' and there'll be this banter back and forth. And the same thing if you're going to constantly sending your partner AI out and he's getting killed, he's going to say back 'I'm not going out there. You're crazy, you keep sending me out there to die.'
He's an intelligent being and you're influencing him with these commands. At the point which you become a leader and you're really taking charge or playing it smart, then it becomes more commanding like 'go here' - 'okay, yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it.' But he's your partner, he's not a pet and at the same point he's not your boss. So it's really balancing the in-game statistics which we draw out of your playing style, and then balancing that as to his decision making. If you're going to do friendly fire stuff and just shoot him in the back, he's going to play way differently than if you're actually really manipulating a situation and completing the objectives to get paid.
TVG: Are there any hostages at any point in the game? Because another scenario I heard about involved a hostage being held up and you shoot the hostage. The AI team-mate then slaps you for doing that?
We use it to respond to situations. Like we had a demo where there was this dog and, if you shoot the dog, the guy would get upset and this and that. Not necessarily with killing and killing a hostage, but with certain object interactions in the world he'll respond differently. They're completely different people - Salem is completely different from Rios - Rios is older, more mature, he's seen the world and knows what's going on, whereas Salem's younger and has a bit of a criminal background and he's a more of a wild gun. So his response is going to be the crazier stuff you do, the more positively he'll respond.
TVG: There were a couple of really unique elements we saw like the customisation of weapons. I'm not sure if I've ever seen that used in a game before to the extent that you've used it. Did you take any influences from other games regarding that?
The biggest idea for us was we built a co-op game; the whole idea from the beginning was co-op. We feel the shooter market has been capped. So you play the latest Call of Duty and you're like 'this is a perfect shooter.' It has got everything you need but it's got nothing new about it. There are a lot of green lasers, but there's really nothing new. You walk through, you pick up guns on the battlefield, you fight through.
So, we thought that we could look at all these games and take the best aspects of a shooter, but we're not going to innovate. We could try to innovate but it's going to be crazy and unnecessary, so we'll invent new weapons that make no sense. Why waste our time when where we can really innovate is on the co-op. And not just innovate, so much as creating new ideas, but also bringing in aspects of other games to bring it forward. So, bringing the concept of aggro to the shooter space where, not only do you play the game and play levels, you also play the AI.
It's something which hasn't been seen before and we make the players communicate in such a way that hasn't been seen and that's our biggest challenge. If you run forward and you take all the aggro, you're going to get killed fast. But you have to understand that it's your fault that's happened. It's not because the game's too hard, it's because you weren't playing it properly. You weren't playing a co-op game. It's almost as if it's its own new genre and that's something with EA Montreal: we're ready to bring in new stuff.
We did Boogie, I actually worked a bit on that too. It's like a free-form dancing game. So, people get it and there like 'I don't really know what I'm doing' and we have to teach you a new way to perceive it. We have intensive tutorials and there's a lot of explaining to get people to play it, but once you nail it, it's a completely different experience.
TVG: I guess the market has been opened up for it with Gears of War and games like that, so it's really good for it right now...
And the thing is, when you look at Gears of War it's a very high rated game and if our shooter controls and our shooter stuff is on a par with them it's like, well, what do we need to do?! We look at all these other shooters, all the different controls and you can only take it so far. Then we innovate the co-op space.
TVG: The other unique element I've never seen before is the aggrometer. It plays a critical role in how the whole co-op mode works. Any influences for that, or did you guys just sort of come up with it?
We have a bunch of guys into World of Warcraft and all that stuff. We look at everything when we talk about co-op. We even look at Facebook and MySpace to see how people communicate. And we look at MMOs and one of the things we've found is that a big part of MMOs is manipulating the AI. We thought, well let's bring that to the shooter space. We actually implemented it but you couldn't tell what was going on - it was hard to tell who was focusing on who. So then we put in the aggrometer which would swing left and swing right and it would light up, it was just more communication. We get a lot of people asking 'why is that guy half faded out, and why is he red' and it still makes no sense. But if you look at what it's trying to convey it makes perfect sense. This guy's like a beacon and the other guy is a ghost, so it really comes across as I've got all the attention and you don't because you're actually looking at the AI when it happens. So, it's more about player communication, which is key in a game like this, especially when it's fast paced action.
TVG: I suppose it brings military tactics such as flanking more into it, so when you're taking the heat you're covering your team-mate. You spoke about a Lethal Weapon type of repartee between the characters and you add that element of tactics to. It seems to be a big part of the game...
And the beauty of the tactics too is replayability. If I play a mission with you - you're gung-ho, you're using a mini-gun or a big machine gun. If I use a big machine gun and I'm that kind of player we're going to dance in the middle of the aggrometer and it's not going to move. So it's going to play-out the way a regular shooter would play-out. Whereas if I'm the guy who wants to play more stealth tactics and I compliment my weapon set to yours, and you build aggro faster, I'll play more as a stealthy player - we can manipulate the AI around the level. Or the opposite - I could take the big gun, you could take that and we'll all play differently.
TVG would like to thank Chris Ferriera for taking the time out to speak to us about EA Montreal's upcoming Army of Two, which will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 from November 15th...
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