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Battlestations: Midway Q&A Feature

Derek dela Fuente

20/10/2005

The battle of the Pacific begins as TVG chats to the Creative Director behind Eidos' latest...

Battlestations: Midway is a blend of intense 3rd-person action and large-scale naval combat, bringing to life the Battle of the Pacific in a WWII shooter from the chaos of Pearl Harbour, through the Philippines, Java and the Coral Sea all the way to the epic Battle of Midway.

See, follow, and experience the war through the eyes of new recruit Henry Walker and lead your fleet through 11 extensive campaign story missions, including 12 bonus challenge missions. Gamers will take direct control of over 60 different warships, planes and submarines from a 3rd-person perspective. Whether you issue quick orders to your fleet or take command of the overall battle is your choice. Derek dela Fuente spoke with Zsolt Nyulaszi, the creative director at Mithis, the developer of the game.

Please tell our readers a little about Mithis; how many are working on the project and what the team, as either individuals or collectively, have worked on previously.

Mithis is a three year old company, located in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. Our studio is currently working on 2-4 projects at the same time, but Battlestations and the Battlestationâs team is our biggest project. The number of the current team varies between 30 and 40. We started with around six to eight people and the maximum number has topped 44, along with some external artists. Hungary is a small country so people in the industry know each other and a lot of us already have worked together before Battlestations or even before Mithis, but in theory I must say it is a new team.

How would you best describe the game, what do you see as its innovative or special qualities and what has inspired it?

The core concept was inspired by Michael Bayâs Pearl Harbour movie and by a great documentary book titled Incredible Victory written by Walter Lord. This was one of my favourite books in my school years. And of course we were inspired by brilliant games such as Battlefield. Battlestations: Midway is a pretty unique game. It is action and strategy at the same time. You can command your ships and aircraft squadrons like in a RTS, but you can jump into any of these units to sail or fly them, to aim and shoot and take part in all the action yourself. It is up to you to do what you want and you can do it in a graphically spectacular 3D environment!

The game offers a mix of action and strategy. What kind of split does it have, how do the two aspects work together and do you see this as a kind of hybrid? To clarify what is one arcade gameplay focus and one strategy gameplay focus when playing?

These things work well together. In theory it is a hybrid but when you play it you feel it as an âorganicyâ one. The game becomes more complex as your character, Henry Walker, advances in his military career. It is similar to reality: on a lower rank you donât need to think too much but fulfil your objectives â“ this part is pure action with a little tactics to whet your appetite. Later youâll be able to affect the outcome of a whole battle through tactical decisions as you can command more and more units. At the end you will reach the Admiral rank, and will be responsible for a whole fleet and its strategy. You cannot win the later missions by ignoring the strategy part, but in the early game strategy is not a must.

The player can take control of different vehicles including fighters, ships and carriers. Firstly are there unique handling aspects for each and can you expand on how this works and the actions required by the player to succeed?

Generally you are doing the same thing with all of the units. You can sail or fly them, aim and fire their weapons and give them targets and commands. Itâs simple and the control is intuitive but of course there are differences in how to aim and what to attack with a fighter aircraft or with a battleship. Everything here follows reality and common sense.

Most of your time youâll see your units from a 3rd-person view, you can control them or move the camera around them and aim by the crosshair and shoot. You control only one armament at a time - main batteries, AA-guns, torpedo tubes, for example. While you move the crosshair, all of the weapons and turrets of the current armament are turning in that direction and waiting for you to pull the trigger. You can switch easily between these armaments at anytime. For example you can shoot a full broadside from the main turrets of your ship and then simply by pressing one button you can switch to the torpedo station and let rip. The destruction will be spectacular!

The player has a lot of ways to switch between units. Pressing the D-pad (or any configurable button on PC keyboard) switches from unit to unit or when the crosshair is over any other units, a simple click jumps to it. On the command map you can use a common point and click system to select units.

How big and diverse is the playarea and how much detail to historic fact and research has been undertaken by the team?

The playing area is up to 10x10 nautical miles, usually populated with one or more small islands. In a lot of missions these islands have a key role aside from making the scenes diverse. The 3D models and the game balance are very much historical. We have used a lot of original blueprints to model our ships and aircraft, and we have full bookshelves of relevant materials.

What games modes and mutliplayer will be on offer?

The main single-player campaign is a story and tells the tale of Henry Walker, a young shipâs officer, and his friend Donald Locklear, a cool fighter-pilot. Beside these 11 missions there are numerous independent challenge missions for ships, aircraft and submarines. In the multiplayer game up to eight players on PC and Xbox and four on PS2 can fight in two parties. Everyone controls not just one unit but a small flotilla or an airfield. When you lose a unit you might have another one to switch to. We have online modes on PC and Xbox Live! and PS2 Online is included on consoles; we are focusing on the multiplayer part as much as on the singleplayer.

Please expand on the kind of technology focus behind the game and indeed the 3D engine behind the game; what role does physics play within the game?

One of the most amazing things in the 3D engine is the incredible water effects. With the war being fought primarily over the ocean it has been really important to get the look of the water just right. The waves move across the ocean with the ships sitting on the surface, cutting an impressive wake through the water, and all this movement affects your aiming skills. The screenshots really do not do it justice and when you see the water moving we're really sure you'll be impressed.

The scale of the game area is also rather impressive; it is rare in console games to have such a large area where the camera can jump to any place instantly and see such a detailed model and action there. It was a very challenging task to make this possible, we had to use advanced LODing technologies.

In a game which is about aircraft and ships, you must have some physics. In the aerodynamics we have tried to find the best balance between realism and gameplay, so flying is not something like piloting a TIE Fighter and also does not require a pilot licence. It is nice arcade-like aerodynamics; easy to learn and use and really gives you the feeling of flying.

Aerodynamics is a common thing in all flying games but water dynamics is not something you see in these games very often.

With free control over a number of aspects how does the game progress and how are events driven? Are there a number of random factors, is there a sequence of commands and actions that have to be undertaken constantly, does the AI support the player and his commanding/overseeing of vehicles, etc?

The AI plays a large role in this game in three main ways: one is in controlling your enemies, the second is in controlling your allies and the third is in assisting you by controlling your own units whilst you are in charge of another.

The enemy AI is driven by objectives, calculations and scripts. It reacts to your actions and tries to fulfil its own scripted mission objectives. The main purpose behind the allied AI is to create a living environment around you, but one which never encroaches on you fulfilling your objectives.

The AI of your own units is a tricky one. It is something like a crew which is trying to fulfil the captainâs orders. You can control only one unit at a time (so you need help) and all of your other units are controlled by the assistant AI. It is sailing, flying, aimingâ¦ trying to complete your last order. When a unit has no command it is trying to defend itself. Your assistant AI is excellent in defence but not quite as good in attack and initiations â“ this is the mixture which gives you the best game and the most fun.

How important is precise bomb dropping, targeting, etc? Perhaps you can expand on this element of the game â“ it is not a sim so is it more to do with decision making than skill within a number of areas?

Not really; it is not a simulator but still an action game. You need skill in aiming. Even a new player doesnât have any difficulty in flying an airplane or dropping a bomb but an experienced player can do it so much better.

About decision making: yes you need to do that in the later game. You need to decide which unit you should use against which enemy unit; what type of aircraft to send; what weapons to use in a given situation; but most importantly, which role to play yourself. It is a very important decision for the player to select the best position and the best armament for himself in every combat situation. Because a skilled player is always doing it better then the AI.

TVG would like to thank Zsolt Nyulaszi for taking the time to answer our questions. Battlestations: Midway is slated for release during Q1 2006; weâll have further coverage on the title soonâ¦