How do you update one of the best PC shooters of all time, take it to the stupid console audience and keep everybody happy? That's what we got to ask Rebellion's assistant producer, Eric Miller, and senior producer David Brickley at a recent event in London.
How have you maintained the winning formula of the '99 AvP game while modernising it for today's audience?
Brickley: Well I guess the original was predominantly a multiplayer game with a single-player component built around the same material. For the tech that was available at the time it was very innovative, but frankly things have moved on since then.
There was the Jaguar version of course but the PC version was the bigger seller and the one that most people remember I think. Now we're bringing it to a console audience ten years on so there's a bigger demand for story, which is not a problem when you've got material like Aliens and Predator to play with.
I suppose that was issue number one, to make sure that as a single-player component it brought all the best bits of this IP into one, but let players chose who they want to play and experience things from different angles.
Alien vs. Predator
Official trailer
1:60Two minutes of man-hunting mayhem
Alien vs. Predator
Official trailer
1:60Two minutes of man-hunting mayhem
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Brickley: Yes, it's always being played in the office along with the movies, books and comics and everything else.
One of more interesting game modes you've come up with for the new game is Predator Hunt. Can you run us through that?
Brickley: Basically you are the Predator against a team of marines. Someone will be chosen to play as the Predator and he has to keep killing to keep his honour up. Then you have a set time limit within which you have to find your weapons, find a good spot to kill from and then retreat without being killed yourself.
As a marine if you manage to kill the Predator, you become the Predator. You remember the bit in the movie when Dutch goes mental and basically starts firing everything into the undergrowth? You get these moments when the marines are just lurking through the trees looking for the Predator. It's like watching an ad-hoc version of the movie.
Miller: It's about staying alive as long as possible. You can only score points as the Predator... it's a pretty advanced game mode in a sense. You get the most out of it once you know what you're doing with the species.
How difficult has it been balancing those species?
Brickley: It's been the biggest challenge of all because you don't want any of them to be seen as the lesser. You can see the marine as the meat if you like, but he's got pretty powerful stuff at his disposal. But the great thing is that the guy who makes the kill in Predator Hunt becomes the Predator, and in Infestation your team mate is suddenly an alien. There's always this co-operative-horror switch going on.
Miller: It's also a tactical switch in a sense because you're on the same team as the marines in both game modes, but in some sense they're not your friends.
That guy who you're sticking with just killed the Predator - you didn't want that, you wanted to kill the Predator. So what do you do? Do you hit him in the back just as he's about to get killed by the Predator to help things along? Or do you try and work together and accept the consequences?
Have any of the three undergone any massive changes during balancing?
Brickley: Yep (laughs). It's just constant. The game is still months away from completion. From the marine's point of view, in the Aliens movie they were a squad before they were whittled all the way down to one marine. That was a big inspiration because it could've been a squad-based game. As an experience it just felt right to put you in there as a loner, as a survivor and really push the horror aspect.
A huge amount of balancing has gone in to making sure that there's always an answer. If you're a good, skilled player and put the time in to learn, there's always a chance that you can survive.
Gearbox is taking a squad-based approach with its own Aliens shooter. In that sense, do you think both games will offer a different experience?
Brickley: I really hope so because we're massively looking forward to that as well. There's no point in being direct competition in that sense. I'm gagging to play it.
Miller: We only know as much as you do in terms of press releases and information.
Brickley: There's been some high-level contact at trade shows, stuff like that. Gentle ribbing and the trading of drunken ideas but nothing co-operative in that sense.
Do you see them as competition?
Brickley: In a healthy sense yeah, I think so. I think if we all want to produce the best possible game at the end of the day you've got to use your own imagination but keep pace with what other people are doing.
Miller: I think we're quite distinct in the sense of what gameplay we're offering and what gameplay they're offering.
Brickley: It's an aspect of the game; there's also a Predator and there's also the aliens. Certainly that's a game that's focused very much on the USCN so for that reason alone we've taken it in all sorts of different directions.
There's been a lot of controversy this month surrounding Modern Warfare 2 and its ditching of PC dedicated servers. Historically AvP is obviously a big PC game. How are you making sure you support the PC version and keep your community happy?
Brickley: This is a title that we want to support for a long time to come. If it's not been announced yet then certainly the PC version will benefit from Direct X 11 features. That's one thing we can use to make sure that people who invest in the hardware will get the absolute best.
And it was originally a PC title so you can imagine the heritage and the need within Rebellion itself to make sure that people who still play and talk of that game are not left behind.
And are you guys going to have those dedicated servers the community so clearly expects?
Brickley: Well the one thing we can say is obviously running an operation like that is monumentally expensive. For the period the original was up, people who played that game got an incredible experience.
You know what the internet's like. We're obviously used to getting things for free over the years. I guess on our side the thing we're focusing on is whatever your set-up at home, you get the best possible experience from it. We're just trying to use our time and resources wisely.
So is that a yes or a no on the dedicated servers?
Brickley: As I said the game is still quite a way from release so I guess there are other things to be determined during that time.
In fact make it mega awesome with a thick lashing of super sauce. Just the sound of the motion tracker pinging away makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
"How do you update one of the best PC shooters of all time, take it to the stupid console audience and keep everybody happy?"
Ha ha, love what you did there.
Strange thing is, as an upstanding member of the stupid console audience, I owned most PC gamers when playing against them in Unreal Tournament online, after playing the PS3 version using my keyboard and mouse, guess that makes them professional idiots.
Looking to do the same after AVP 3 lol
I hope they release AVP and AVP 2 on the consoles as a special edition though, that would be nice.
Thank you CVG for not letting him give some glib, politico answer to the Dedi Server question. You should do Paxos job on Newsnight.
He still didn't answer the question really but it probably made him sweat. I can bet he won't get that type of awkward question in other interviews from so-called *ahem* independant gaming mags/webbies.
Stupid console audience? Way to go Cvg. Alienate half your readers with a single narrow minded comment that I would expect to hear from an immature fanboy troll, not a leading videogame website read by thousands of the very people you just slated.
Stupid console audience? Way to go Cvg. Alienate half your readers with a single narrow minded comment that I would expect to hear from an immature fanboy troll, not a leading videogame website read by thousands of the very people you just slated.
Errrr, where in Satans left nut does it say that Sonic? Hmmm? I'm sorry if CVG happen to have the balls to stand up for the so-called minority of gamers out there.
Trust me Chuckles if there was an issue with console gamers being ripped off that they didn't agree with i'm sure they'd back you lot to the hilt as well.
Still no answer about dedicated servers though I see. Just to be clear, nobody is expecting them to provide dedicated servers to host the game on (cool though that would be) - just having a dedicated server program released so other people can provide the resources is cool.
Whether dedicated servers are needed really depends upon the game being played and the number of people playing it. You don't really need dedi servers for a 4-player co-op game, but you do for a 12 player (or more) PVP type game.
Just to confirm what I said below, Brickley says that "running an operation like that is monumentally expensive." What operation? Nobody is asking them to host all the dedicated servers and that is what comes across about his answer. We just want the code to allow third-parties to run the dedicated servers.
"How do you update one of the best PC shooters of all time, take it to the stupid console audience and keep everybody happy?"
Ha ha, love what you did there.
Strange thing is, as an upstanding member of the stupid console audience, I owned most PC gamers when playing against them in Unreal Tournament online, after playing the PS3 version using my keyboard and mouse, guess that makes them professional idiots.
Looking to do the same after AVP 3 lol
I hope they release AVP and AVP 2 on the consoles as a special edition though, that would be nice.
I see. So you are saying that you were able to beat the PC gamers you encountered using the PC methods of control - way to prove the point. I take it you then concede that PC controls for FPS games are in fact superior to control pads then?
Thank you CVG for not letting him give some glib, politico answer to the Dedi Server question. You should do Paxos job on Newsnight.
He still didn't answer the question really but it probably made him sweat. I can bet he won't get that type of awkward question in other interviews from so-called *ahem* independant gaming mags/webbies.
Just to confirm what I said below, Brickley says that "running an operation like that is monumentally expensive." What operation? Nobody is asking them to host all the dedicated servers and that is what comes across about his answer. We just want the code to allow third-parties to run the dedicated servers.
Precisely, and while creating the programming to allow third parties to do such, will cost some time and effort, I imagine it should amount to but a fraction of the overall development costs of the game itself and it would be a major selling point in the PC gaming market.
Stupid console audience? Way to go Cvg. Alienate half your readers with a single narrow minded comment that I would expect to hear from an immature fanboy troll, not a leading videogame website read by thousands of the very people you just slated.
Errrr, where in Satans left nut does it say that Sonic? Hmmm? I'm sorry if CVG happen to have the balls to stand up for the so-called minority of gamers out there.
Trust me Chuckles if there was an issue with console gamers being ripped off that they didn't agree with i'm sure they'd back you lot to the hilt as well.
Err, in the very first paragraph - please dont ask me to quote it as well, read the damm article...chuckles(?). As I already stated in my previous post I would have thought more of good ol impartial Cvg than to see such a comment in one of their articles.
Not sure where you get the idea console gamers are ripped off? They pay far less for their hardware and dont have to constantly update it to play the latest games properly. If Pc owners are happy to do that to play at the very highest level of detail possible thats up to them, just like console gamers are happy to play their games in the living room infront of the plamsa. Its called choice.
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