Interview: Going tactical with SWAT 4

SWAT 4 - nothing to do with smearing fly guts across your living room window but everything to do with police squad tactics, upholding the law and caressing authentic, kick ass firepower. Developed by Irrational Games, the sequel to the well-received SWAT 3: CQB unsurprisingly finds players in command of a squad of highly trained police officers and dishing out justice - making high-risk arrests, rescuing hostages and thwarting terrorism - in a concrete jungle filled with armed felons and innocent bystanders.

Irrational Games recently agreed to enter the C&VG interrogation room and, under a really, really bright spotlight, answered questions on the game.

What are the main differences between SWAT 4 and previous games in the series especially SWAT 3?

Irrational: Overall it's completely different. The interface is new, obviously the missions are new... The goal was... SWAT 3 was a good game, but fell down on its interface and its player control and whilst its visuals were OK for the time they were still a little dated. The goal was to fix all of those things, the goal was to make a very intuitive, easy to use, well-defined user interface, which we actually did. It's context-sensitive, so it picks the most appropriate thing for the situation. But there may be times when you have to be more choosy.

For instance, when you come to a closed door you may actually want to bang and clear that door in case there are enemies on the other side or put an opti-wand under that door so you know the situation. Because as a default it'll just tell your guys to stack up and open that door. You're the team lead and you have to assess the risk or make sure you're not walking into an ambush.

It's a whole new engine, the visuals are different, the interface is different, the AI has been completely re-written.. Other than it's the SWAT franchise and it holds true to police tactical combat, everything is new from the ground up.

What type of player are you aiming SWAT 4 at - those into hardcore tactical videogames or gamers more into a terrorist/counter-terrorist experience with a heavy action-slant - like Counter-Strike, for example? Or somewhere in between?

Irrational: We're definitely going after the original SWAT players, the game is still core enough to please them. But I think at the same time, the last SWAT game was released in 1999... The Clancy tactical shooters... SWAT was really the only tactical shooter in the day. Tactical shooters are now a fully fleshed-out genre, with Counter-Strike, the Rainbow Six series, the Ghost Recon series. We're going after the player that's looking for... We're the only police simulation/game, so we're going after anyone that's after that game experience.

We're going after the original SWAT players and then again we're actually going after any players that actually enjoy the more tactical elements of shooters more than just the run and gun elements of shooters. Our core demographic is the tactical shooter players, whether that player's playing Counter-Strike or whether that player's playing Rainbow Six. That's our guy.

In your opinion, what are the major differences between your product and those Ubisoft franchises you've just mentioned?

Irrational: The biggest difference is compliance over killing. Because it's a police tactical shooter compliance to force the enemy to comply. Your goal is to arrest them, not to kill them, whereas in the Clancy games the goal is to kill them. So the biggest difference is compliance.

Have you worked closely with real-life tactical police teams and tried to mirror their tactics in the game?

Irrational: We actually have a consultant who's a 34 year veteran of LA SWAT. He actually flew to Boston, Massachusetts and actually put the [development] team through a mini tactical training exercise, showed them how to carry the weapons. You'll notice that when you play the game, when your weapon goes across one of your men you'll actually dip your weapon down. The tactics are as true as they can be while still remaining fun.

For example, the breeching shotgun, technically it would require two rounds to breech a door. It's not so much fun, you don't want to sit there and breech the door twice... The real shotgun you actually place against the door, you shoot once and you shoot again. Whereas in the game you get close enough and you shoot. But overall the tactics themselves... You are the team lead controlling your elements, all that is as true to SWAT as we could make it.

You're using the Unreal engine for SWAT 4. Now that Vivendi has ties with Half-Life 2, if you had the opportunity or if you could go back, would you have rather used the Half-Life 2 engine?

Irrational: We made a decision at the time to go with the Unreal engine. We did the same thing with Tribes. With Tribes we initially looked at the Counter-Strike engine. From a visual standpoint it accomplishes what it needs to do. From a physics standpoint, it accomplishes the physics we were after. I don't feel that it hurts it to not have gone with the Half-Life 2 engine. Nor do I know if we would go with the Half-Life 2 engine in the future.

The context-sensitive user interface - can you tell us more?

Irrational: It's context-sensitive in two ways. Wherever your mouse pointer is looking, it chooses the appropriate command. If you're looking at a door, it'll say 'open door', if you're looking at a suspect, 'handcuffs'. In the bottom right-hand corner it'll tell you that base command it's choosing, and if I press spacebar I'm going to do that command. Or if I press the middle mouse button I'm going to 'use' compliance.

Beyond that, the actual mouse cursor itself is context-sensitive. If it's hovering over a door and it's a locked door, when I come up to the door and if I'm carrying the breeching shotgun I'm going to get a little icon for the breeching shotgun, if I'm carrying the C2 I'll get an icon for the C2, or if I go down further to the door knob itself I'll get a multi-tool so I can pick the lock. I don't have to go find that item in my inventory, it's context-sensitive, I hover the mouse, I'll see the icon, I press the mouse button and I pull out that item.

How important do you think multiplayer is going to be to the success of SWAT 4?

Irrational: I think it's going to be one of the key components that keeps the game alive. SWAT 3 is still being played at this point because of multiplayer. Multiplayer is a huge piece of SWAT 4. Adding co-op multiplayer with up to five people is going to be a very big thing I think. Multiplayer I think both in the sense of combat and in co-op is really going to extend the life. Plus the quick mission maker allowing... Essentially, once you play through your 14 missions, the community's going to continue to make missions for other players, so it's got a lot of legs to it.

Can you expand on the co-op feature?

Irrational: All missions can be played co-operatively with up to five people, so four players plus yourself. And another big thing is that, while there's 14 missions, the 14 missions will never be the same twice because the enemy is placed randomly. So in one instance while there may be one guy in room 'x', that guy may not be in room 'x' the second time around - or there may be multiple suspects in that room. Even though you play through the 14 missions, you can still play it again and play a different game. And that's in co-op as well.

CVG Staff