Exclusive Field Ops Developer Diary #1

“The idea behind Field Ops came from the fact that we felt that players would really benefit from a tactical gameplay experience that would merge the best elements of both genres.”

Since the days of Command & Conquer, the real-time strategy genre has been one of the most interesting, one of the most imitated, and one of the most intimidating. First-person shooters have suffered a similar fate. When any given title achieves greatness, a zillion copycats follow.

As much as we hate cookie-cutter games, if that’s the price we must pay for groundbreaking titles, then so be it. If I must endure a thousand clones of Field Ops – a promising hybrid that merges real-time strategy with first-person shooting – I will do so happily. Because having to endure such an atrocity would mean that Freeze Interactive has achieved an unprecedented level of entertainment, creating a new and inspired sub-genre.

Our exclusive screenshots reveal how the game is progressing: 

Field Ops is described as a Real-Time Strategy Shooter. Gameplay and control functions are not limited by genre traditions. Both styles of play are fully accessible. Players can select the strategic, RTS gameplay, which lets you command your units as a team. At any point during the game you can dive into the first-person mode and control an individual unit. In addition to the cool factor and increased sense of freedom, players will be able to utilize both gameplay types to conquer the game in more ways than what would be possible in a standalone RTS or FPS. 

Diary #1 – Merging Genres

By Mourad Majeri, Senior Producer of Field Ops, Freeze Interactive

The team at Freeze Interactive have worked in the games industry for years and are big fans of both the RTS and FPS genres. Collectively the team has worked on dozens of strategy and action shooters including the Total Annihilation and Unreal franchises. The idea behind Field Ops came from the fact that we felt that players would really benefit from a tactical gameplay experience that would merge the best elements of both genres. In Field Ops we have created a new original genre – the real-time strategy shooter.

During the initial planning stage, we decided that we did not want to develop a game that would simply merge both the gameplay styles, simply because it had not been done before. Our intention was not to create a ‘gadget’ game, but to bring players a completely new and realistic experience of a modern day global conflict. For gamers, we felt that the best way to fully experience the intensity of modern day warfare was to be able to allow players to be both the commander and the soldier on the battlefield. To experience the intensity of warfare, the best way for players to be a commander and to set up tactics and strategies is to play in RTS mode and the best way to live the action on the field is to play from an FPS viewpoint. We felt that the only way to bring players the feeling of fully living the battle from every conceivable angle was to allow gamers to seamlessly switch between playing in an FPS or RTS mode.  

With this obsession in mind, we have now spent over two and a half years developing Field Ops, overcoming technical and design issues to create a product that is totally unique. We are very proud of what has been achieved so far, and are looking forward to the feedback of the community when it ships early next year.

The development of Field Ops has certainly not been an easy task and we have had to overcome many obstacles during the development process. We allow the player to decide when to switch viewpoints, so you play in RTS or FPS/TPS anytime. In all missions, you will need to switch perspectives to succeed!

The first mission is set in Afghanistan – the objective is to rescue a hostage from enemy forces that have taken position into the village. If you decide to use the default squad, you start the mission with a group of 12 soldiers and a Hummer. There are two ways to succeed and each requires specific tactics. For instance, if you decide to enter from the back of the map you will encounter an enemy tank and unit. You will then have to use a laser designator to call in an Air-strike. But if the player had selected a specific bazooka unit, he could sneak into FPS mode to a covered position and blow up the tank and units. It’s just one example of how you can execute different strategies in Field Ops.  

After creating the design document and building the engine, we created a lot of scenarios by building small maps using different units, vehicles and weapons. By changing different factors one-by-one and by creating thousands of scenarios to see how the gameplay works best, we have made sure that it will offer players a completely unique take on modern warfare. We’ve put a lot of effort into making both perspectives playable in real-time, both technology- and gameplay-wise.

I would say that one of the biggest issues we faced during the prototype phase was balancing. After testing we saw that the FPS players always play in FPS and RTS players use the RTS view. As this wasn’t our objective, the solution was to design multiple mini scenarios in each mission that are dedicated to one mode. Obviously the player can play in the mode he wants and still complete the mission, but he will be more efficient if he uses both. At the start, players go through a tutorial where they can learn the basic tactics of using both viewpoints effectively in battle. 

In terms of inspiration the team are big fans of military shooters including the Battlefield, Counter Strike and the Ghost Recon series. Our list of influential RTS titles include Age of Empires and Act of War. The biggest influence has to be the original Command & Conquer games, which showed that you can create classic games inspired from or close to what you see on the news, and that you don’t necessarily need to have wizards, dragons or spaceships in your game to attract players. This was a big encouragement for us, especially because we saw that modern-day conflict is an amazing setting to illustrate the strength of the Real-Time Strategy Shooter. Indeed, you can’t win a modern war if you can’t be a highly skilled tactical commander and at the same time have highly trained and efficient soldiers on the battlefield, ready for action. So the fact that Field Ops offers the chance to be both the commander and the soldier was a perfect fit for a modern military game.