Interview on Underwater Wars
1. OPG: For those that might not know who Bi-Art Studios is, could you tell us a little about the studio and is Underwater Wars your first title game?
I great the readers! Let me introduce myself from the very beginning, my name is Arina Akhmatova, I am PR-manager of the Biart company. Our company was born in far 2002. At the moment Biart consists of two offices in the center of the Moscow and prepares to open one more office in the ‘Russian Silicone valley’. Our staff is young, amicable, active and arrogant. The most important priority of the Biart is to produce high-quality and original games. So, four years ago there was an idea about creation of a unusual and risky product – Underwater Wars game. During its activity our company produced the whole line of the underwater products, cause we defined at once that this theme is interesting for us. First because of lack of such games on the world market and in the second, because practically all of members of our command take a great interest in diving. This is real beauty and we can’t stop sharing it with the others. Really, U-Wars will become our first AAA Class product. By the way, the game will be issued on the 3 platforms simultaneously: Xbox360, PSP and PC.
2. OPG: Could you tell us a little about how Underwater Wars will separate themselves from the other shooters and do you think your unique direction of having the ability to go underwater gives you that advantage over other genres?
Underwater Wars is really unique product. The game allows to lead the combat in 3 environments simultaneousl – underwater, on the shore, on the sea and even in the air (owing to Jet Pack). By the way, Jet Pack is one of the main tidbits of the project. For example we can swim faster underwater with its help, also we are able to strafe, holding the enemies on the vantage. Also this device adds some spicy elements to the gameplay, for example we can fly from the water, suddenly attack our enemy and rapidly hide in the sea again.
It would be desirable to note, that each mission (and therewill be 12 of them) consists of two parts - underwater one and ground one. Locations are also various: from delightful underwater views, up to coastal cities, mountains, military bases (including underwater ones).
3. OPG: What can you tell us about the bi Engine?
Engine development was started in 2006, profile platforms originally were Xbox360 and PC. Today we are adding PSP platform support. The engine also supports DirectX 10. We also have PS3 support in our plans.
4. As your website indicates, the environment is very destructible what can we expect and on what level will the environment be destructible?
Yes, it’s true, there will be destructable objects in the game – practically all environment of the game world, underwater and on the shore as well. I wish to admit specially, that our players will be able to ‘blow up to particles’ the objects as in PC version, also in Xbox360 one. We diligently work with NVIDIA Ageia technologies.
5. Underwater Wars will be compatible with Windows Vista are you concerned when it comes to using Vista as a driving force on your game, if so why and are you concerned at all that Vista is on its way out by Microsoft and will this effect your plans?
Yes, we develop the separate render for DirectX 10. We suppose that to the end of 2009 (exactly the projected moment of the game release) most of the up-to-date computers will work on Windows Vista. There will be advisably to describe the differences between PC and Xbox360 game versions – PC version includes more physical and graphic effects. Probably we will keep DirectX 9 render support. More precisely it will be known after contract concluding with our world editor (after Leipzig exhibition).
6. OPG: We have noticed that you will have a playable female character, could you explain your decision for this as so many other studios have excluded a female character when there is a large untapped population of female players which have been ignored?
Underwater Wars – is squad shooter. From time to time player will be offered to solve the mission (or part of the mission) for one of the couples, one of commanders of which is female character. Once we started to speak about our characters, I’ll let myself talk a bit about this topic. There will be four characters, but the leadership will belong just to two of them – our main hero and the girl.
The name of the main character is John Goran – the young fighter of the elite troops of Navy Seals, he’s talanted, ambitious, sometimes even severe. The girl, Lisa Marico, is also Navy Seals officer, she’s dangerous, self-denying, she looks like the predatory panther. Why did we decide to enter the female character to the game? We consider that nowadays it is actual – more and more women become the soldiers, many of them reach impressing successes in military career. In addition I can say that woman differs from the man, and we give our players possibility to feel themselves in different appearances, since male and female characters will be different in their characteristics, tempers and skills.
7. OPG: Can you tell us a little about the factions within Underwater Wars?
There are several types of enemies in the game: people, animals, special technics (robots, pursuers etc.) Primarily we tried to reflect the real existing dangers. The human enemies are simple and clear, but specially trained animals will become unexpectable surprise for our players. For example on their water frontiers several countries use trained dolphins and seals. There also will be natural dangers – sharks and other predators, respondent to blood.
8. Will these factions have different categories/assets and will some of the factions be restricted from going underwater which would allow for traditional military squads with categories/assets such as Armor, Air, and Infantry?
As for human enemies there also will be some differences here. First, there are different armies in the game: airforce, underwater SEALS, regular ground forces, mixed troops (similar to our characters, e.g. they can conduct the combat underwater and on the shore as well), armored forces. The enemies will differ with their training level and equipment quality. Since different countries take part in the conflict, naturally player will be forced to combat with national armies (for example such countries as China, Iran, North Korea etc.)
I should admit that most of the foes will be equipped worse, than the main characters. But there are also elite enemy troops in the Underwater Wars, not inferior to Navy Seal fighters.
9. OPG: What can you tell us about these underwater environments and how will these unusual environments affect the game play? Will this restrict maps or will you be implementing something else?
There are several types of locations underwater, waiting for our players. Of course there will be beautiful underwater reefs among them: corals, rare fishes etc. There will be underwater bases, different military stations... In several missions gamer should play and conduct the combat in the gigantic sunken submarine, in other ones he should control the submarine himself.
There are also non-standard objects underwater. For example underwater security checkpoint. It is usually placed in front of cryptic entrance to the secret stations (or military bases) and it is carefully safeguarded. So, to achieve the goal, gamer should undergo the serious combat near the security checkpoint and after that be able to open leakproof gates.
10. OPG: What can you tell us about the objectives of the game, will there be some type of system that has control points; could you tell us how this might work?
The game uses checkpoint system. There are different types of the missions in U-Wars:
- To destroy an object (for example military base diversion with total destruction of the base afterwards and all enemies elimination)
- To blow up an object (different raids to underwater and ground bases, to submarines with the goal to destroy some specific objects, for example – missile launcher)
- To mine an object (to infiltrate an enemy military base, secret station and to mine strategical objects)
11. OPG: What would you like to tell those that don’t know anything about Underwater Wars, what should they know that they might not know?
During U-Wars development our main task is to create interesting, bright and believable underwater combat realization. This is really hard task – cause nobody ever risked to create similar things before and there are very few avaliable documentary materials. But we have the consultants and experts – underwater special forces representatives and some data (documents, video etc.), owing to which we are sure that we can manage this problem and we’ll create special shooter gameplay, as underwater so on the ground.
By the way, we obligatory will make Xbox Live support in Underwater Wars, special levels, interesting locations and 100% availability to use Jet Pack.
OutpostGamez Staff would like to thank Underwater Wars Staff for giving us the oppertunity of this interview. Visit our Under Water Wars Section
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