Lite mer Flashpoint nyheter

[Jotte]

Bohemia's battleplans aren't simple. They're positively complicated. They're working on two Flashpoint sequals, for a start. The first pressing on the boundaries of the original, critically-acclaimed Operation Flashpoint. The second game, as the [magazine pages] hint, pressing on boundaries full stop.

Operation Flashpoint was a tactical shooter like no other. Set during a hypothetical Soviet invasion of the West, its vast scale made you feel like a small cog caught in the wheel of a very large war. The lulls between engagements felt genuinely melancholic and the action was a rare blend of excitement and fear. We've longed for a sequel ever since.

And now Armed Assault is due in autumn. Think of it as Flashpoint 1.5. It includes all the missions from the original, plus expansion pack Resistance, plus the technological advancements from the Xbox version and Bohemia's VBS1 military sim. It features a new campaign, a new boot-camp and their next-generation graphics engine.

Technologically, the game has improved hugely. While most complain about games hampered by Xbox co-development, Bohemia have discovered that optimising their code for Mr Gates' ageing console has caused them to craft a game that hits PC hardware like a depleted uranium shell. An obvious bonus is the increased draw distance. Flashpoint played across realistically huge single-world maps; so the further you can see, the better it is. 2km of viewable terrain is Bohemia's current aim, thought they're simply planning on pushing it as far as the system will go. Sitting at the top of a hill, able to see the military ants of the opposition inch around a village while you play your approach, is an example of how the new technology rejuvinates Flashpoint.


Similarly, old limitations have been removed. Flashpoint was famous for its horrific collision detection inside buildings; but no more. Forests were originally created as single map objects, meaning they were strictly limited in terms of how you could interact. Now, they're made out of individual trees, which can be knocked down when you get in a suitably armoured vehicle. The improved engine means that Bohemia can also increase the density of the foliage, resulting in some surprisingly thick forests. They can also be integrated with buildings, so that you can have a cottage in the middle of the woods. Inland lakes are another welcome addition to the world, and hills now cast shadows.


The new campaign, on an equally new island, has been created to showcase the improved features of the engine. It's much larger and more detailed than Everon and previous worlds. Codenamed Sara, it's going to feature dense woodlands and as big an urban environment as the game can take. Also, there's a whole new story to play through. While the game island is fictional, made of jig-sawed satellite images of Eastern Europe, it has a politically resonant background. The island's despotic North has been threatening the democratic South, which is under US protection. The US, believing the threat has passed, have started pulling out ...at which point an attack occurs.

While the defensive nature of the campaign distinguishes it from the norm, the most intriguing part is its unusual structure: the game is 'told' in flashback form after the war, as you are interrogated by your fellow officers. What happened? That's for us to discover as we play, with our actions helping decide whether this will be a court-martial or a commendation.


Armed Assault - especially as a mid-price release, which Bohemia are considering - is a genuinely welcome addition to the gaming calendar. Given the game that Bohemia have planned for 2006, however, it feels like merely a teaser for what's to come. The game that we can't call Flashpoint 2 is something of a monster. "Originally, we didn't want to do another old game at all," explains Bohemia's Managing Director Marek Spanel. "Just a new game, no sequals, that was our intention... We don't want to make a game that's a clone. We have a vision for a game we want to do, that is different... but we realised it woudl take us ten years to get there. And we'd like to do that, but just can't." So rather than do it all in one giant leap, they're heading there in small steps.

Their new, as yet untitled, game is the next step on from Flashpoint, toward creating this far-future dream - marching what was a straight soldier-sim into new, more obviously cross-genre terrain. "We don't necessarily have to stay with the same gameplay," explains Marek, "That's what Armed Assault is far: a new engine, but the old gameplay. [The new game] could easily have been a sequal as well, but we had a different style of gameplay in mind." And what's that? "Most of us are more roleplaying game fans," Marek grins. "We love first-person shooters... but we like roleplaying games much more."

An RPG? Previously, the only RPG that had anything to do with Flashpoint fired rocket-propelled grenades. "For a sequal, it'll be a surprise, but hopefully a good surprise," says Marek. "Our take on a roleplaying game is very different, unlike other games. But still, 'roleplaying game' is the only term we can use to describe it." They're talking about creating a game that reflects your actions.
You are a soldier, in a war zone. There are no seperate missions, or 'Level Complete' screens. The world continues around you - generating situations and objectives determined by your actions (and those of the AI) in previous encounters. The nearest game to what they're describing, according to Marek, is Morrowind - an open world where you're free to go and do as you please. [Map feature as part of magazine] is your first look at that war zone, targets marked for your elimination. "The gameplay is more continuous in nature," Marek expands, "You don't have short, isolated missions. Rather we have much larger level goals. What you might call a chapter will last for many hours of game, but still be in a persistent world.

Whatever happens goes forward to influence what happens next." On top of the size and continuity of this world, they're aiming to make it far more lively. "Wherever you go, any place in the map, there should be something there," Marek states, "not only men with guns!. While they're adding as much of an ecosystem as they can manage (during [PC Gamer's] visit, we found the team busily researching butterflies to add to the simulation), the biggest change to the platers will be the NPC civilians. Depending on your actions you will either alienate or befriend the population, the help they provide dependant on your social standing with them. For the first time a soldier game is about something more than just pulling the trigger: the very real business of soldiering in a difficult political situation, trying to win hearts and minds.


And to communicate with civilians, you need a conversation system. The game will feature an elaborate version of a conversation tree system, where you choose the line of interrogation. While some topics will be pre-determined, many options will be contextual, and generated on the fly. If you interrogate anyone about the locale, for example, they may know something about the movement of nearby troops and tell you (the information is actually taken from the AI's knowledge of the world's changing events). Friends, captured enemies, the local baker - anyone can be talked to. How the world dynamically changes is crucial to Bohemia's plan. Games which try to create a large continuous environment usually just treat that environment as a static place to explore.

More elaborate games such as Vice City introduce simple reputation systems, so the inhabitants of a region change their behaviour towards you as you progress. Bohemia's shooter will go further, actually making inhabitants move about the map accordingly to their desires and orders. While the technology is currently being tested on seagull colonies and how they spread across the map (look closely in Armed Assault, and you may see them), its eventual use will be modelling the behaviour of thousands of soldiers. The distribution of troops will change constantly, depending on the offensives, manoeuvres and retreats - with your soldier often stuck in the middle.


And more than just 'stuck'. That implies the situation is passive. In fact, you'll be given missions that are generated by the circumstances you find yourself in. If the movement of troops means a group has been ambushed in your locale, your commanders may order you to take a look. Incredibly, even this technology isn't centred on you, but simply on following the logic of the situation. You're the nearest soldier? You go and see. A computer-controlled patrol is nearer? They get the order.

This dynamic war feature, previously only seen in combat flight sims, was supposed to be a cornerstone of the original Flashpoint. It was hopelessly ambitious at the time. "The idea was never wrong," Marek insists, "it was that we started the dynamic campaign before we even had a game. We're not looking at something that drastic now. We still want to do some storytelling. The [unused] original campaign was fully dynamic."

This being a realistic game, the US-based blue army will eventually win the confluct through sheer force of arms. The question is, what does this mean for your lone soldier, hunting a general across the map? The mix of scripted missions (following a main story arc), and those spontaneously generated by the war, should convey the feeling of being an individual with a purpose, and also being a big part in a huge war machine. Wars have been used as a backdrop for sweeping fiction for years, and that's the effect this project aims to achieve.

Bohemia's technology enables some other flourishes. There are fully destructible vehicles, each capable of being reduced to their component elements. Yet due to the continuous, persistant nature of the world, anything you destroy stays destroyed. Prevously destructible scenery has mainly been used for the visceral thrill of seeing something blown apart. Here, it could be married to an emotional impact. You'll only see the explosion once, but the rubble will remain as a reminder of your failure forever.

It's an ambitoous remit, and one that would overwhelm most developers. Bohemia do have advantages, however. Constructing the game directly on top of their pre-existing technology means that certain huge technical challenges, like the sprawling environments covered with huge armies, are already possible. They have the experience, and are now free to push in these brave new directions.
Very few games have conveyed the intermittent horror and quiet tension of modern combat. Flashpoint was unique in its realism, but was still only about the actual fighting. The game-previously-known-as-Flashpoint 2 may offer us a chance to not just be a fighter - but to live as a soldier. As they say, how can this be considered anything other than as an RPG? That makes it different. And very exciting.

[Control87th]

Blir säkert coolt...

(Fast jag måste bara få köra mitt vanliga gnäll ;) ) Varför kan inte fler köra som BF2, ingenting, ingenting, ingenting... sen ett demo, reklam på stan och två veckor senare är det tillgängligt.

Det blir bara patetiskt när exempelvis OIR kommer med en löljig pressrelease om vad som komma skall, dagen efter Falcon AF släppts...

Om jag får bestämma ;) så skiter vi i OPF tills det här släpps och koncentrerar oss 100% på BF2 tills dess :)

[KeyCat]

Låter ju nästan som om Armed Assualt kommer att bli mer än jag förväntat men bäst att fortsätta ha låga/lagom förhoppningar och på så sätt undvika besvikelse :p

Vad det gäller "OFP 2" verkar det bli ett lika stort lyft som F4 dynamiska kampan fast för FPS och vi vet ju redan att grafiken kommer att vara grym!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[KeyCat]

Originally posted by Control87th
Om jag får bestämma ;) så skiter vi i OPF tills det här släpps och koncentrerar oss 100% på BF2 tills dess :)

Håller med dig om att det inte lönar sig att bara sitta och längta efter nästa stora grej utan lira det vi har idag. Eftersom jag inte kan köra BF2 (och även om jag kunde) skiter jag definitivt inte i OFP:R men som sagts förr så behövs bra mission för att det skall vara intressant att lira LAN/on-line för min del och väldigt få verkar ha tid/intresse att göra dem...

Jobbar så sakteliga på mina script etc. som förhoppningvis kommer att leda till ett eller annat mission. Speciellt fort går det inte men det är OK för jag har skoj under tiden ;)

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[Jotte]

Varför kan inte fler köra som BF2, ingenting, ingenting, ingenting... sen ett demo, reklam på stan och två veckor senare är det tillgängligt.

Ehhh, snälla rara ctrl, det var nog ett av de sämre exemplen på "ketchupmetodiken" :p  BF2 har varit annonserat ganska länge och mycket :p ;)
Men jag håller med dig om principen, det är bättre med glad överraskings typen av spel än överhypade spel.

[Control87th]

Hm, kanske jag som varit blind (det har i vilket fall inste snackats om det på NOSIG, och vi är väl hela den viktiga världen :p )

[Jotte]

[Dubble0zero]

Japp, det ser ut att bli bra...
Hoppas att Armed Assault drar igång lirandet igen, jag har inte spelat på hur länge som hellst (varken OFP eller nått annat), och det konstiga är att jag har inte kännt att jag har velat heller, men om det blir lite nytändning så kanske det blir kul igen... :)