World in Conflict Interview - Part 2

The Cold War is generally regarded as having begun soon after the end of World War II. However, its roots can be traced to the latter part of the first global conflict. In October of 1917, the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia, and led by Vladimir Lenin, appeared ready to withdraw from the hostilities. This would have meant the collapse of the Eastern Front, so the United States, Britain, France and Japan intervened. Late 1922 saw the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but the US refused to recognize it for over a decade. The political and ideological gap grew increasingly wider during the regime of Joseph Stalin, who ruled from 1929 to 1953. The tensions continued under Nikita Khrushchev, whose actions included erecting the famed Berlin Wall in 1961 in order to prevent East Germans from defecting.

Shipping this week in North America, World in Conflict is the latest strategy title from celebrated developer Massive Entertainment. The Berlin Wall hasn't fallen, but the Soviet bloc is in decline. Fearing collapse, its leaders adopt an aggressive strategy, advancing into Europe. When the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization respond, they launch the second element of their strategy, an invasion of the American homeland. The ensuing gameplay eschews the traditional base building and resource gathering to focus on combat and tactical decisions involving the most powerful weapons of the time, including nuclear armaments, on destructible battlefields. Written by best-selling author Larry Bond, the story rates to be another interesting feature. In advance of the highly anticipated title's impending release, we were fortunate to receive the chance to improve our knowledge of it by questioning team spokesman David Polfeldt.

Includes three exclusive 1820x1024 screenshots

David Polfeldt: The three factions available are USA, USSR and NATO. All the factions have a setup of different roles - Air, Armor, Infantry and Support - and we've divided all the units between these four. Just like in most team-based FPS games, we've wanted to keep the factions' differences to a minimum, so they all play similarly.

We've decided to keep most of the unit stats invisible to the players, but the units get a boost in those stats when they rank up.

David Polfeldt: All the roles have their own strengths and weaknesses, some maybe more apparent than others. They will all come to good use at some point in the game, so no role is really better than any other. Armor is very good at attacking ground vehicles, but is very vulnerable to air attacks, and air is, of course, very vulnerable to anti-air attacks from other helicopters, the anti-air vehicles from the support role, or hidden infantry.

The key to success is to have a teammate give you sufficient support when you need it. Jonric: To what degree if any will the player be able to customize the units, both visually and statistically?

David Polfeldt: We've kept customization and upgrades down a bit, to benefit the accessibility of the game, but we've added the option for players to add their own logos on units in the game online, and for clans to have their own flags and clan logos for clan matches.

Jonric: How varied are the units across the infantry, armor, support and air roles, and also within each of them?

David Polfeldt: There's a lot of diversity between the four roles and their units, and most players are bound to find their own favorite. Armor and air are very straightforward roles with tanks and helicopters, while the infantry role consists of a number of different infantry units and transport vehicles, and the support role has many different vehicles that offer a varied play style. We've designed the roles to offer very different experiences, and we wanted all of the roles to feel distinct.

Since we've kept the unit count down a bit, we've worked out specific purposes for all the units within the roles. The air role, for instance, has medium attack helicopters for air combat, heavy attack helicopters for ground combat, transport helicopters for transport and scout helicopters for recon. All the roles have the same diversity among their units, so you really have to think of what you're using when playing a role. And you can also combine units from your role with some units from other roles, even though they're more expensive.

Jonric: Is there a maximum number of units the player can control at one time? Is it normal to reach this cap?

David Polfeldt: There's no definite unit cap - it all depends on how many you can afford in terms of Reinforcement Points. At most, using the cheapest units, it will probably be something like 20 units, but most often, the player controls no more than maybe five to 10.

The Few-Player Mode, however, increases the reinforcement points by 400 percent, so that gives you a lot of units.

Jonric: Have you implemented any kind of unit development system, and what degree of improvement is possible?

David Polfeldt: If you manage to keep your units alive for a long time, they will get a bit tougher. It's basically something to reward the skillful players a little bit. We've decided to keep most of the unit stats invisible to the players, but the units get a boost in those stats when they rank up.