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.

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