So will the Third Echelon members be a bit like Sam Fishers?
de Plater: Stealth is a big part of the game. You've got stealth units, commandos and sniping and that's what Third Echelon brings to the battle.
How long has this concept taken to get off the drawing board?
de Plater: It's been in development for three years. Funnily enough the voice and control scheme would seem like the biggest challenges but because we genuinely approached it as a tactical action game/sports game, as well as designing it from the ground up, lots of conventions from the rule book were already there for us.
There's nothing original about the controller mapping. If you've ever played a third-person shooter... that's it! Once we decided to do the voice command stuff it was really easy. Ultimately taking an engine like Unreal Engine 3 and keeping that level of detail while putting thousands of guys on the battlefield, having a draw distance to the horizon, and making everything fully destructible are the technical achievements of our team in Shanghai.
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of our interview.
May 24, 2007
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