Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell Wrap Report (Action)

In the minds of many gamers, horror and action form a natural pairing, one they'd like to see as the basis for more titles. Such individuals were undoubtedly pleased when, in April of this year, developer People Can Fly unleashed its debut release, a single- and multiplayer first-person shooter called Painkiller. Its protagonist is Daniel Garner, a pretty ordinary person, neither saint nor sinner, who has just perished in an awful traffic accident. Thrown into purgatory, he must discover why he has been denied entry into heaven. This task is not an easy one. An unholy war looms, and the time of ultimate judgment may be at hand. While seeking the purification that will enable him to leave this ungodly place, he must battle his way through more than 20 levels, all populated by seemingly endless hordes of demonic soldiers.

The game's success spawned Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell, an expansion pack that shipped a couple of weeks ago. It picks up the tale where the original left off. The evil Lucifer has been defeated, but Daniel is still surrounded by the minions of darkness. The chapter added to the storyline takes him through a further 10 levels where he must face and overcome a variety of daunting new enemies including bigger, badder and even more bloodthirsty bosses. Multiplayer aficionados gain supplementary modes and maps, while those who enjoy creating mods receive the map editing software development kit. Having seen quite a few favorable reactions to the earlier title as some positive initial ones to the add-on, we had the chance to learn about the project from publisher DreamCatcher's Executive Producer, Robert Stevenson, with input from Project Lead Adrian Chmielarz.

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The Project Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell is an expansion pack to People Can Fly's first-person shooter, Painkiller, published by DreamCatcher back in April. Painkiller began acquiring a strong following back in the preview and demo days, so the notion of an expansion pack was bandied around a bit between the two companies early on. Right after the launch of Painkiller, everyone was totally exhausted and the game plan was to take a good two week break, then focus immediately on the Xbox edition as well as a few maps, tools and updates for the online community. After seeing good reviews come in from the launch and strong PC sales as well as community support, we met with People Can Fly at E3 to discuss Xbox and the details of the then more probable expansion pack in greater detail. Shortly after the show, we decided the timing would be great going into Christmas with the expansion pack for the consumers and that we could do even more with the Xbox in 2005, both in development and marketing.

we wanted to play up Painkiller's strengths and give the fans of the game more of what they liked the first time around

The actual name for the expansion, Battle Out of Hell, came from the DreamCatcher marketing team, and it well suits the Painkiller storyline where the protagonist in the game, Daniel Garner, is in the bowels of hell, fighting demons after having dispatched Satan himself. This time, Alastor, one of the generals in the dark army starting the war with heaven has filled the power vacuum over the demon hordes, and is advancing his evil agenda at a terrifying pace.

The Team People Can Fly is located in Warsaw, Poland. DreamCatcher has been working closely with them for well over two years to create, produce and market Painkiller and Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell. About 15 core people from People Can Fly and four or so team members of DreamCatcher, outside of QA, were involved in the development and creation of the game. Most of the development team members have a history in games working on titles like Gorky 17 (Odium) and Project Earth. On the DreamCatcher side, most of the people closely involved in the project also have many years experience both developing and publishing games.

Outside of the core team, external contractors were used for audio, cinematics development and writing. Audio for effects and music was handled in Poland, while voiceovers were done in Los Angeles. Motion capture was split up between the Czech Republic and London. The biggest challenge was coordinating all of the players, both internal and external, to have their assets and parts done in a timely fashion for use by the next group in the production chain.

High-Level Goals From the start of the development for Battle Out of Hell, we wanted to play up Painkiller's strengths and give the fans of the game more of what they liked the first time around. The idea of keeping with a good variety of levels and wicked, new monsters was key, but also to keep tying in physics-based game play along the way. We also wanted the storyline keeping track of the basic premise behind the game and who / why you are playing - besides to have fun blowing stuff up! The challenge of course with an add-on is advancing and building on what was done previously in the original game, but not going too far and being so divergent that you sour the experience for the fans of the earlier product.

Secondly, we wanted to keep the Painkiller name fresh and out there for people this Christmas and well into next year, when we see the Xbox version taking the forefront of Painkiller line. To do this, we couldn't risk a so-so expansion pack. It had to be robust in terms of content and offer the appealing game play Painkiller is known for.