Former Rare Developers Wage a “War World” Against Gamers
By Louis Bedigian

“War World was created by people in the US, UK and Australia. It is a truly international team.”

The 16-bit console war got an unexpected surprise in 1994: Rare. Not a common development studio by any means, Rare was partially owned by and developed games exclusively for Nintendo, giving them the edge against Sega and their super-speedy Sonic franchise.

The game that turned the tide was Donkey Kong Country. The trilogy was a smash hit, but when Nintendo shifted gears and released the Nintendo 64, Rare's first major projects were a Mario 64-inspired platformer and a DKC spin-off: Banjo-Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing.

These games were heavily influenced by the development talents of Morten Brodersen and Johnni Christensen. They left Rare, combined their talents (along with Phillip Tavel, who designed and launched Magi-Nation) and formed Third Wave Games.

War World: Tactical Combat is the first game to come out of the new studio. The developers have a great idea of what it takes to make a fun title, which is why we couldn't wait to chat with them about their exciting works of the past and present.

When was Third Wave Games formed? How many programmers, artists, etc., does it employ?

Johnni Christensen: Third Wave Games officially started in June 04 but you could say that the seed was planted a long time ago when Morten and I first started talking about starting a business together. We have wanted to do it for many years so when the opportunity came last year to do it we went for it. 

Morten Brodersen: Third Wave Games is not a traditional developer where we have a big office, hire lots of people and fill rooms with PC’s. We work more like a film production house in the sense that we are two partners running the company and everybody else are contracted on a project-by-project basis. If the project is big then we will contract a big team to do it. If not then we won’t. We are also different in the sense that everything we do is global and done over the Internet. War World was created by people in the US, UK and Australia. It is a truly international team.

You helped Rare design the engine for one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games, Banjo-Kazooie. Talk about that experience. Were you involved with the creation of the game's inventive environments, such as the season changing world?

MB: Banjo Kazooie was the first game I ever worked on and it was a steep learning curve. It was the first 3D game for the whole team and everybody had to scramble to learn everything as quickly as possible. Until then, everything at Rare was programmed using Assembler so the programmers had to learn a new programming language (‘C’) before they could even begin. I was already experienced using ‘C’ and knew how to program 3D (OpenGL) so I ended up writing the engine for the game and part of the gameplay as well. It was an excellent learning experience and I will always think about the time as kind of magical even though it was also a hard and stressful experience. Everybody on the team contributed to the gameplay but it was the lead designer who took the different ideas and combined it into a working system.

I read that you also worked on Perfect Dark II, which was never released. What do you suppose happened there?

MB: I didn’t actually work on Perfect Dark II. I worked on a project code-named “Fear” and quit about one year into the project. I wanted to learn more about the management side of running a games company and Rare wasn’t the right place to do it. So I quit, did a bit of IT consulting to learn the basics of running a business, and then moved back into the games industry as Development Director and later Studio Director so that I could get the management and business experience I was looking for. At that point in time both Johnni and I felt (we were) ready to start a business. So we did.

A lot of developers thought Nintendo 64 was hard to work with. Was it really any harder than working with the PSone or Sega Saturn?

MB: I haven’t worked on PSone or Sega Saturn so I can’t compare but I found the N64 to be easy to work with. The documentation was excellent and the rendering pipeline was easy to optimize. I know one of the other teams at Rare had major problems but I think it had more to do with them deciding to store all graphics with the executable as one big file instead of demand loading graphics from the cartridge. That gave them a LOT of grief so maybe it is stuff like that people are talking about.

Now tell us about War World. How much of what was learned during past game projects has been brought to this game? Or has developing War World been an entirely new experience?

MB: The idea for War World started because Johnni and I loved playing Virtua On in the arcades. We had a lot of ideas on how to evolve a game like that into something unique and great fun. One key idea was to have lots of ways to customize each mech giving the player a lot if variation. Another key idea was to have four extremely powerful weapons at your fingertips ready to fire at any moment without having to switch between them. The feedback we get from people playing War World online is that the weapons make a huge difference and are really cool.

JC: Because everything at Third Wave Games is done over the Internet, making War World seems in many ways like a new experience to us. But at the same time, working for Rare really has taught us a lot about making games and how to focus on making a great gameplay experience.

Creative Director Phillip Tavel said that "Third Wave Games's mission is to create high quality downloadable videogames that provide players a console game-like experience on their PC, at an affordable price." What made Third Wave decide to go that route? Why not make PC-style games for the PC platform, and console-style games for the console market?

JC: Because we have worked on a lot of console games we can bring something different to PC games. But War World is, of course, very much a PC game and works perfectly with the mouse and keyboard combination.

MB: War World is definitely a PC game. What Phil was talking about is that we want the control system to be easy and fast to learn. Everybody should be able to pick up and play the game without having to learn a new control system first.

What year is the game set in? What brings forth this new war?

JC: The game takes place on the War World planet in what you may call a different universe from ours. War World is dedicated to the Art of War and has a long history of conflict. Mech Warriors are always fighting here for sport, for punishment and for conflict resolution. They also fight to showcase their skills as warriors and to master the art, strategies and tactics of Mech combat. The ultimate achievement is to become a War World Master.

Since War World is primarily an online game, we want to know about the online battles, the different play modes, etc.

JC: War World multiplayer is an all-out and very fast-paced gameplay experience. It feels quite unique compared to a lot of other multiplayer games. The weapons really play a big part in this. There are a vast amount of different battle tactics you can develop by combining the different weapons and Mech-types. As soon as you think you have developed a winning strategy, someone will beat you with a different mech-setup and this really makes the online battles great fun and keeps the game interesting. 

MB: We are launching with a Deathmatch-style multiplayer game mode and are planning to regularly update the game with additional modes. We have a number of ideas for what the additional modes could be but we really want to work with the War World community so that we can add the multiplayer modes people want the most.

What is the maximum number of players you're allowing in an online match?

JC: In many PC multiplayer games you need a lot of players to make the multiplayer fun. What is cool about War World is that multiplayer is great fun even if only two players are playing. We have decided to make eight players the maximum number at launch. Eight fully upgraded mechs blasting each other simultaneously is going to be total mayhem because of the power of the weapons. If it turns out that the War World community wants even more players then we will simply upgrade the game to handle it.

How do these battles differ from those designed for single-player play? What can players expect from the single-player experience?

JC: The single-player level game challenges you to become a War World Master which is very hard indeed. We think only a few people on the planet will ever achieve that rank on the “hardest” setting.

MB: The single-player custom game makes it possible for you to design your own battles. It is a really cool feature because you select exactly the challenge you want including the map, number of AI opponents etc.

Describe the single and multiplayer arenas/environments.

JC: The environments are designed to maximize gameplay and provoke different types of battle tactics. Some areas are perfect for close combat, others are stealthier and some are excellent for long-range weapons. Basically whatever environments we thought would work great gameplay-wise while at the same time looking visually stunning. Environments include everything from a jungle setting to a nuked city where you battle amongst the destroyed buildings and rubble.

How many arenas do you hope to have in the final game?

JC: To start with we will have seven environments, but we will keep adding to the game. We want to work closely with the players of War World via the War World community and listen to what they want and add the features/levels they would love to see next in the game. So the game will keep evolving and be constantly exciting for gamers.

MB: We also want to work closely with the modding community and are planning to add the tools necessary for modders to add levels, mech’s, weapons, etc. to the game. We have received e-mails from people in the modding community who would love to do just that and we want to support it.

Give us an overview of the control style and how much control players have over each mech (can they jump? Fly? Perform any special attacks? Etc.).

JC: The control method in War World is the same as a first-person shooter even though it is a third-person view. In other words, you use the mouse to aim and shoot and the keyboard for movement, additional weapons etc. Besides the normal abilities, you can enhance your mech’s movement and jump abilities with Thrusters upgrades. These can make you move at incredible speeds, great for surprising the enemy! There are also jump-thrusters and strafe jets, which are excellent for avoiding missiles and getting away from a situation fast.

 What about the weapons? What kind of weapons and defense features will War World offer? 

JC: The weapons in War World really are something quite special. When you first get your hands on a high-spec Mortar gun or a Xenotech-minigun, you won’t believe the power. I really haven’t seen such powerful weapons in any other game out there and it provides great fun for the player. There are also weapons like mine-launchers, missile-launchers and lasers – lasers are extremely good for precise sniping type of attacks. For defense there are shields like the K2 plasma armor. There are over 50 different types of weapons and other mech systems you can enhance your mech with.

Do you still plan to release expansion packs for War World? If so, can you give us an idea as to the content they'll include?

JC: We want to work closely with the War World community. That way we can listen to what the gamers would want to see next in War World and decide from that. Expansion pack or upgrades could include things like new multiplayer game modes, new environments, additional mechs and weapons, etc. We have also gotten a lot of requests for making War World moddable which is something we really want to do.

Is War World on schedule for its late July release?

JC: We are working hard at finalizing the last few things in the game, but we keep coming up with new cool ideas that we think would be great to add to the game. That being said a late July release is still our plan, so get your thumbs ready :)

MB: Absolutely. We are code, art and audio complete and will launch as soon as the final QA phase clears the game for release. We want to make 100% sure that the game is ready before launching it.

Is Third Wave currently developing for any platform besides the PC?

MB: We have signed a number of NDA’s with publishers and therefore can’t comment unfortunately. But we will announce things as soon as we can.

JC: I just wanted to say thanks to GameZone for arranging the interview. It is a great way for people to find out about the game and what we are planning to do with it. So check out www.warworld.net and see you online!

MB: Absolutely. I want to add that when people buy a game online such as War World then the money doesn’t go to a big corporate publisher. With War World the money goes directly to the team and gives us the opportunity to continue making great games for people to play. So check out the War World Web site (www.warworld.net)!

Thank you for your time.