Friday, 20 March 2009 13:01

Games Fusion talks with Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, about their forth coming World War II themed First Person Shooter title, Brothers in Arms.

Q. Can you tell us about the story you are trying to tell with the game and at what period of the war it is set in?

Randy Pitchford: Brothers in Arms is based on a true story.

It is the story of a paratrooper who never wanted to be squad leader, but is thrust into a position leadership during the largest amphibious invasion in the history of the world. His name is Sgt. Matt Baker and he�s leader of 3d Squad, 3d Platoon, Fox Company, 502 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne.

In Brothers in Arms you become Baker and you must learn to lead your men. Baker discovers the meaning of brotherhood between soldiers and he has to deal with decisions about putting his men in harm�s way in order to get the job done.

Q. Certain games, specifically games which have a story to tell, are increasingly starting to look like films. Whether it may be an animated feature or SCI-Fi film, such as Shrek or The Matrix, the gap between the gaming and film industry appears to be closing as computer technology improves. How long do you anticipate it will be before the distinguishing nature of the two media reaches a point where gamers are essentially playing in an interactive film? And do you feel this is a target many want to pursue?

Randy Pitchford: From a story and plot point of view, we are on the cusp of true interactive fiction. In the case of Brothers in Arms, it feels a lot more like interactive non-fiction.

Visual fidelity will likely continue to create trade-offs between pre-rendered, passive scenes and real time interactivity. But, with recent advances Gearbox has been making in simulated intelligence and character emotion and articulation, we�re getting very close to the point where the virtual people we spend time with in our interactive games are as real and potentially more dynamic than the people we often interact with in real life.

This convergence is exciting � it�s why Gearbox is investing so heavily in story telling and virtual character development. It�s why Gearbox is making a game that is as much about the most important military engagement of modern history as it is about a personal connection between people � the brotherhood between soldiers.

Q. Games featuring a historic era often put pressure on developers to produce an environment which realistically depicts what it was actually like. What sort of research have you had to do to achieve this and do you think you have managed to succeed in your ambitions?

Randy Pitchford: If there has been any pressure for action games set in historical settings to produce realistic and authentic environments, that pressure must have not have fallen on the developers of those games because there has only occasionally been a vague impression of the real places and the real battlefields in games prior to Brothers in Arms. Most of these games are simply corridor shooter games with lots of canned, scripted events and art that is thematically similar to the subject matter as remembered by movie goers or watchers of television.

That may sound like a cheap shot, but I agree that any title offering to let you simulate what it was like to be a soldier better actually provide that experience or it�s a half-empty promise. Sure, I love the shooter game play of one or two of the games that have already been set in WW2, but not for one minute have I ever believed that what was taking place in the game is what happened historically.

So, when creating Brothers in Arms, the team at Gearbox spent an absurd amount of time and money to study the material and learn about what actually happened, what everything looked like and how everything and everyone behaved.

The team has walked the battlefields in Normandy, France, surveying everything along the way.

The team has done extensive research at the US National Archives collecting thousands of US Army Signal Corps photos, Aerial Reconnaissance Images, Military Maps and After Action Reports. The images, maps and reports have allowed the team to authentically recreate the actual battlefields.

One veteran who was in Normandy and served in the very unit the game is about upon seeing Brothers in Arms said that it was like going back in time for him. Veteran�s stories and eyewitness accounts have helped the team get the feel of the place and the action as authentic as possible.

If I listed all of the physical resources that have been used to create the authentic experience including the people, places, photos, artefacts, military records and other materials that the Gearbox team has examined, explored, met, digitized or studied, I would be left with a novel sized document.

One of the greatest resources Gearbox has had was the help of Col. John Antal (US Army, Ret). Col. Antal is author of many books about combat tactics and leadership, his is an historian who has been featured on the history channel and he is a soldier, an Airborne Ranger, the real deal. Col. Antal spent his first year with us as a consultant, teaching the team in the classroom and in the field what being a soldier is all about. In the second year with us, Col. Antal joined Gearbox Software full time helping to ensure that Brothers in Arms is the most authentic, realistic and accurate portrayal of the subject ever presented in interactive form.

Ultimately, though, the authenticity is for the team to feel as if it�s handled this matter properly. After you�ve met these men and you�ve heard their stories and you�ve considered what it must be like to die for the man next to you� Well, you couldn�t proceed without an immense amount of care to keep the true stories in tact.

Q. What research have you done to ensure the weapons are accurate to their real-life counterparts?

Randy Pitchford: Frankly, doing the weapons right is the easy part. You see, down here in Texas it�s not as hard as you may think it should be to get your hands on authentic fire arms and operate them. Even Col. Antal has several US and German rifles and pistols that were in use during the war.

Beyond dipping into the Col�s physical arsenal, several excursions have helped Gearbox increase its digital arsenal.

There are plenty of museums at military bases like Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Hood, Texas where one can climb all over real tanks and vehicles and do as much surveying and digital source gathering as one has the stamina for and when it comes to military equipment, the Gearbox team seems to have infinite stamina.

But perhaps the most valuable research trip for weapons was a visit to Aberdeen where Dr. Atwater, who is curator of the US. Ordnance Museum there, arranged for very complete access to all of the weapons in the theatre from all relevant armies in the D-Day invasion. We�ve got pictures of Stephen Bahl there carrying a Panzershrek in firing position, checking the sights. The Panzershrek is a very heavy bazooka like Anti Tank weapon designed for a team of two German soldiers to use against Allied armour. Stephen is a Gearbox artist who is responsible for creating most of the weapons in the game � he�s also an Army veteran.

Q. In the announcement of the game you said �Brothers in Arms will be the most realistic and authentic WWII shooter ever�. Just how will you be attempting to achieve this?

Randy Pitchford: Brothers in Arms is based on a true story.

Let me describe a moment in the story that helps illustrate how Brothers in Arms is the real deal.

In May, I demonstrated the game for thousands of people in a make-shift theatre built into the hollowed out shell of an airplane fuselage that a paratrooper would ride in before jumping into battle.

When the screen fades in, I am able to look around and see vast distances where battles are raging and the effects of warfare pervade the view in 360 degrees.

I happen to be in an area just a couple of kilometres North of a town known as Carentan and when I look to the South in the game, I can see the silhouettes of the buildings in the town. It�s not a picture painted onto a flat sky-like box as in other games, but an actual physical town � way out there in the distance. I can make out the distinctive church tower in the center of the town. If I were to look at a picture of Carentan, I would recognize where I am.

If you were to study the history of the D-Day invasion, you would learn that Carentan is the junction point between the Allied invasion beaches that were divided by the Douve river. You would learn that the invasion forces must be unified or be left too weak to defend against the German counter attack that is planning to drive the Allies back into the sea.

Carentan is probably the most valuable real estate in the world when what I am reliving took place almost exactly 60 years ago.

Nearby is a soldier studying a map. He bears a star on his helmet. His name is Lt. Col. Robert Cole. He is one of two soldiers in the entire 101st Airborne throughout all of WW2 who will be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He, as well as the other man to win the award, is in the unit that I, as Sgt. Baker, am in. These men are the best of the best, the heroes among heroes- and one of them is standing in front of me. He was a real soldier. Look him up.

If you were to study the history of Col. Cole, you would learn that just North of Carentan, he led a bayonet assault on the Germans entrenched around Carentan who know they must hold the town or lose the war.

If you were to study this history and look at the photos and maps, you�d soon realize that in the game you are standing right there � about to live history.

When I approach Lt. Col. Cole, he tells me about a tough job I have to do.

Nearby are my men. There are six of them, divided into two teams of three men. Each team has a role as a fire team or as an assault team. These men are under my command and I can use them to suppress and flank an enemy.

I order them to move up to a covered position behind some apple trees and apple barrels. The apple barrels are overturned and empty. It is June and the season is not right for ripe apples.

There is a stone wall in front of me that divides the orchard I am in from a dirt road. I hear someone from my team yell, �Contact!� and I see the tops of helmets duck behind cover as a few tracers from hastily fired rifles zip by overhead.

I have a contact. In front of me is a kill zone, an open dirt road. To my right are a few farm houses, amongst them there could be more enemy now that contact has been confirmed, but from the houses would be a perfectly covered flank to the enemy I now have located. To my left is the rest of the orchard and an opening into a crossroads that would offer a great flank angle on the enemy.

I understand tactics by this point. I know I must fire and move. I must use one team to pin the enemy in place and another team to circle around and hit him from the side or the rear.

Stone walls lining the road protect my team and the enemy.

I have to make a tactical decision. Assault across the road? Probably suicide� Which flank, then? The houses? The orchard cross road? For how long will the stone walls provide me cover? When will the enemy begin to fire and move on my position?

To help with my decision I can use something in Brothers in Arms called �Situational Awareness View�. This option lets me view the battlefield from overhead, as if I�m looking at one of those black and white aerial reconnaissance images that were taken by the spy planes so that the allied soldiers could memorize them and know the terrain they were fighting in. Only it�s not a photo. It�s the real scene, frozen in time. There are tracers halted in the air. There are pieces of debris breaking off of the stone wall where impacts from my fire team suppress the enemy that is hiding behind the cover preparing to make their move.

I didn�t need to look at this view to make my decision. I already knew what it would look like.

I knew this because I�ve held in my hands and studied the actual Aerial Recon Images captured in 1944. These very images from the US. National Archives were used by the Gearbox designers to recreate the battlefields very accurately.

I�ve seen the farm houses in the photo. I�ve seen the cross roads and the orchard and the stone walls.

They look exactly the same � except in Brothers in Arms it�s vivid. It�s not black and white. It�s alive. It�s real.

Q. The War undoubtedly created images of a very gruesome and bloody story. In my mind the only way to show a realistic depiction of the War is to attempt to recreate the same effect. Will Brothers in Arms attempt to show this?

Randy Pitchford: War is not for kids and Brothers in Arms will not sugar coat the experience. The weapons of war are designed to destroy a human body. Some of these weapons can literally tear a person to bits.

As a father and as a person who respects, admires and is in awe of the men who did this work, I almost find it offensive to affect reality in order to be able to market the title to an audience that really has no business with it.

In Brothers in Arms, violence is not gratuitous. But, violence is part of war and sometimes horrific things happen.

Q. Can you tell us about the physics of the game? Will there be rag doll technology for example?

Randy Pitchford: In line with the goal of creating an authentic, realistic portrayal of war comes a desire to physically simulate the effects of the weapons of war. There are now a couple of titles available that can give us a sense of what happens to a lifeless human as it collapses in a complex world. This kind of physics simulation may be a bit disturbing to some, but it is present in Brothers in Arms. So far, though, it is only in Brothers in Arms that I�ve seen this kind of simulation on not just humans and inanimate objects, but on animals as well.

There is something both disgusting and amazing about seeing a cow being struck directly by the 16 inch shells of Naval gunfire. In the game once I have seen such an event. It�s gross. You see, cows are large creatures that are filled with an awful lot of blood and guts. But, seeing a mess of that stuff blast into the air every which way is one thing. Another thing is when the dust settles and you approach the mess � then you are seeing the lifeless front half of a cow who�s suddenly empty body cavity, spine and gnarled legs are all realistically simulating physics as the mass rolls into the depth of the newly formed crater and you�re thinking, �I don�t know whether to stand here in awe or whether I should go throw up.�

Q. How will the squad-based combat mechanism work to provide a realistic combat simulation?

Randy Pitchford: Squad based combat in Brothers in Arms is amazingly easy to command, but very robust. At the point in the game where you�ve finally gathered your scattered squad, you�ll be equipped with two teams. One team is an assault team and is designed for closing on and killing the enemy. The other team is a fire team and is trained to suppress and pin the enemy so that the assault team can do its work. These two teams are dependant upon each other and their power is under your control.

Controlling them is simple. One button toggles between the teams. This is a lot like switching weapons, but you�re switching teams. Another button issues a command. It�s just one button to issue a command. You look at something and you press the command button and it�s all taken care of with the context sensitive system. If you�re looking at the ground, the command is, �Move to that position!� If you�re looking at an enemy, the command is �Attack!� You can hold the button down to see a little indicator that tells you exactly where you�ll be issuing your command.

It�s really fun and it�s really easy to do and, amazingly, it�s super authentic. Col. Antal has been leading combat soldiers for 30 years. He�s written books used by the military academy at West Point to train the US Army�s future officers. He taught the Gearbox team all about fire and move tactics and all about chain of command and the Gearbox team figured out that you don�t need a super complex man-by-man noun-verb system of command trees and complex options.

Squad combat should be about the idea of how you want to approach the combat problem. Not about how you�re going to fight through the interface to find the right command.

Simply pick the fire team and use the command button while looking at an enemy and you�ll issue the command. Baker will say something like, �Corrion, put some fire on that position!� And Corrion, the fire team leader, will say something like, �You heard Baker � Give it to �em.� And while he�s yelling to his men, you�ll see Corrion give the authentic hand signal for �Attack� directed at the enemy and his men will get the courage to lean out from behind the cover and start putting fire on the enemy. If you�ve got it right, they�ll be able to suppress that enemy and you can start to safely position yourself or your assault team for a good flanking kill.

Q. Can you tell us about the A.I. of the game? How will the characters react to enemy gun fire, fallen team-mates and the environment within the game?

Randy Pitchford: The soldiers behave like trained soldiers. They have standard operating procedures and they trained battle drills that are designed to help soldiers respond to any situation. This is all engineered into the characters. You don�t need to tell them exactly what to do, where to look and what they should do when someone starts shooting at them. They know what to do. Your job as their leader is to use the squad to fire and move on the enemy.

It�s pretty neat when you see guys who know how to use cover and corners all over the place. If guys are caught out in a field or something, you�ll even see them straighten up behind a tree in order to try to get any cover available to protect them. Then they�ll lean around the tree and return fire on the threat.

These guys know how to climb over walls and fire over obstacles � they know how to use the terrain for combat advantage.

Another neat thing is just watching one of your teams on a firing line, trying to suppress an enemy. While one guy is laying on some fire, another is reloading. Then the first guy will say, �I�m empty!� and the second guy will lean around and start putting fire on the target while the first guy ducks down to reload.

It�s all very dynamic and very authentic � our simulated intelligence programmers started with the standard operating procedures, then added the human elements. The decisions and the mistakes that make people what they are.

Q. During the War many soldiers, often young soldiers, had to combat the problem of fear and other emotions. Will any of this show in the game? And will you often get team-mates who can�t carry out orders?

Randy Pitchford: Baker�s team is pretty tough, so it won�t be very often that they won�t do something you ask them too. However, there are times where it�s simply impossible to follow orders and the men will tell you so and make their own decisions about using nearby cover and picking smart targets if there are any around.

Some of the German units you�ll encounter, especially the conscripted units � the Ost Battallions � are not necessarily as battle hardened as the better trained enemy such as Panzer Grenadiers or Fallshirmjager (German Paratroopers). It won�t be uncommon to be able to route a group of conscripts. One of the lessons Col. Antal reminds us, though is that �The slaughter is in the pursuit.� I tend to be pretty ruthless once I see some Nazi�s on the run�

Q. The storyline of Brothers in Arms is apparently meant to show the bond between the soldiers and the effects of losing men during battle. Will the player be able to control the fate of the men throughout the course of the game or is this something which will be scripted into the storyline? Meaning if the player accidentally unloaded a clip into his entire team at the start of the game, would he have to continue throughout the duration of the game on his own?

Randy Pitchford: Brothers in Arms strives to build meaningful, important characters. The game will never put you in a situation where you may have made some less than ideal decisions early on that make it impossible to succeed later. Likewise, in most cases, the game will not require keeping soldiers in your team from getting hit a mission critical condition. You�ll lose men. Sometimes you�ll lose men because it�s the right time for that to happen in the plot. Other times you�ll see your men go down because of a poor decision or a risky move that ended badly.

In all cases, if you accomplish a mission, you can be sure you�ll be able to accomplish the next.

But, if you lose men, such as the witty duo Allen and Garnett, they will not be with you to say what they may have said about a specific situation had they lived. There are some real trade offs there.

Q. From the early screenshots the game appears to offer some pretty lush environments. What graphics technologies have you taken advantage of to produce realistic environments within the game?

Randy Pitchford: The Gearbox team has invented several new technologies to render the battlefields with the kind of look that Art Director Brian Martel felt the game needed. I think it�s amazing what they�ve done and I think the results are stunning. Perhaps after the game comes out we�ll spend more time talking about how things were accomplished. For now it feels kind of like revealing the secret to a magic trick before you�ve had the opportunity to be entertained by ut.

Q. Can you tell us about the multiplayer aspect of the game? What game modes and Co-op features will be available to the player?

Randy Pitchford: The multiplayer game is super exciting to us. We�ll be talking a lot about multiplayer soon, so don�t be coy about asking about it again in a little while. For now let me just say that an exciting thing about multiplayer is that every human in the game has a squad of computer controlled allies under his command. The on-line game is about doing clever things with your squad. You can use your team to set up an ambush and when the enemy walks into it, you can jump out and nail them from the side. Of course, the enemy may have been purposely keeping his team in reserve so once you reveal yourself he issues an attack command on you and his entire team comes bearing down to kill you.

The on-line game in Brothers in Arms is as much a game of wits as it is a game of skill.

Soon I�m going to ask the multiplayer designer to do more public discussion about what to expect with the multiplayer game.

Q. How will music and audio effects play a part in producing an immersive environment within the game?

Randy Pitchford: All audio is full 6 channel surround sound. The effects are super authentic, using foley from real sources in most cases, but also having plenty of studio time to do some magic with these sounds to help the weapons and things seem to have personality. The goal has been realism, but at times we�ll toy with realism in some super subtle ways in order to evoke a response along the lines of how many veterans remember what they felt about these things.

The music is amazing. It�s a full orchestral score � the whole bit. I don�t think we�ve ever spent one tenth the budget and time on audio as Gearbox has spent on Brothers in Arms.

Q. Some may find a similarity between Brothers in Arms and Band of Brothers, a TV drama by Steven Spielberg�s and Tom Hanks which followed a very similar storyline. Would you say this is because the game also follows a very accurate portrayal of what went on or is there some connection?

Randy Pitchford: Ambrose�s book is a really great one. It tells the story of another group of paratroopers � E/506th. These guys are memorable because not only did they participate in each of the main engagements of the 101st Airborne in World War 2, but they also happened to be the first to reach Hitler�s eagles nest in Austria.

I thought Spielberg�s work on the HBO series was phenomenal. Sometimes I wonder if, had the book and/or the series come out *before* we started heading down the path of making this game if we wouldn�t have chosen to do the interactive version of this unit.

But, we studied the history and we paid particular attention to the actual After Action Reports written by Col. S.L.A. Marshall who was a US Army Historian and was there to document what took place during the D-Day invasion. Col. Marshall made it very clear which unit Brothers in Arms should be all about � the 502nd PIR.

Col. Marhsall wrote that an examination of the record and accomplishment of 502nd PIR, �weighed critically against all others in the American Army, warrants the estimate that on D Day, in point of fighting effectiveness and tactical scope, this was probably the outstanding [unit] of the Normandy operation.�

Reading the full accounts confirm this. If you are interested in not just the paratrooper unit, but the unit in the whole of the US Army that kicked the most ass on D-Day, then you are interested in the 502nd PIR.

It�s nearly universally agreed by countless historians that D-Day was not only the most important military battle in modern history, but it�s likely the most important single day, in war or peace, in shaping today�s modern world. We�re talking about the unit that the official History Section of the US Army ETO (Eastern Theater of Operations) concluded was the most outstanding unit in Normandy.

Brothers in Arms is based on their true story.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview with us we wish you the best of success for the games release.