Interview: Rumble in the jungle

2015, responsible for the thoroughly enjoyable PC FPS Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, is currently hard at work on new shooter Men of Valor: Vietnam. Set in the Vietnam War, the game plunges players into squad-based combat in some of the most intense battles from the conflict, involvement in search and destroy missions around Danang airbase, the Tet offensive and the counter-attack on Hue being just some of what's in store.

Men of Valor: Vietnam is still some way off, not due to arrive on PC and Xbox until 2004. But it's shaping up very nicely, hence our desire to grab hold of developer 2015 to find out a little bit more about what's coming. Answering questions is director of development John Whitmore.

Can you start by giving us a brief overview of Men of Valor: Vietnam, detailing the storyline, the main character and giving us an idea of what we'll be doing in the game?

Whitmore: Men of Valor: Vietnam is an historical first-person shooter that portrays infantry combat during the Vietnam War. The player takes the role of Dean Shephard, who enlists in the Marines at the start of the conflict. He arrives in country in 1965, just as US forces are being officially committed to combat roles.

He participates in some of the major actions of the war, and the player's heroism under fire brings Dean to the attention of his superiors, who assign him a variety of crucial and dangerous missions against the backdrop of the wider war.

The game climaxes in 1968, as the player fights to defend and retake Vietnam's cultural capital, Hue, at the height of the Tet Offensive.

Most missions involve Dean travelling with his squad as he fights Viet Cong and NVA forces across Vietnam's diverse battlefields. He will patrol dense jungle, slog through rice paddies, and seize VC controlled hamlets with his squadmates.

In other missions, he must defend dug-in positions from an NVA attack or infiltrate a command post to interrogate a political officer. The player will experience a good mix of gameplay types both within and between missions.

Why the Vietnam War? What appealed about that particular conflict?

Whitmore: After Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, 2015 wanted to try something different. We felt that World War II had been done to death, especially in the European Theatre. There was a real temptation to take the easy way out and just churn out another WWII game using the same engine, but we thought that gamers would appreciate something new.

After researching several settings to launch the Men of Valor franchise, we settled on Vietnam for two main reasons. The Vietnam War has incredible atmosphere that could be leveraged for a superior game experience.

The humid jungles, muddy hillsides, and exotic looking hamlets of Vietnam are instantly recognizable and make it easy to wrap the player within the context of the war.

The weapons, music, and slang of the period still resonate within American popular culture, and when we thought about the immersive scenes we could build, with helicopters flying overhead and an authentic period soundtrack playing, we were convinced that Vietnam was definitely worth a shot.

We were also drawn by the dramatic possibilities inherent in the War. We wanted Men of Valor to portray the relationships that develop among men in the brutal circumstances of combat, and the intimate, small scale nature of much of the war's combat operations were the best place to do that.

Jungle ambushes and search and destroy missions have a closer, more personal feel than the larger scale actions of World War II.

This makes the combat feel more dramatic and intense and makes it easier to develop attachments to your squad-mates, who are always with you in the thick of things.

Of course, that meant that we had to adjust a lot of our scripted events. We weren't able to just steal scenes from movies like Band of Brothers or Enemy at the Gates; we had to go though period accounts to find the kinds of dramatic events that happened to these small units and use them for inspiration. This approach has really added to the authentic feel of the game.

What significant differences are there between the PC and Xbox versions of the game, if any?

Whitmore: We have allocated a lot of time between the two releases to retune the game and make sure that the PC product plays like a great PC game and the Xbox plays like a great console game.

With first-person shooters in particular there are big differences in the ideal pacing, level of linearity, and gameplay difficulty between first class PC and console titles, and we wanted to be certain that we could readjust the player's experience for the PC.

Of course, that extra time also gives us the opportunity to redo some assets and add detail to the levels to take advantage of the much greater memory resources available on the PC.

Since the Xbox build shown at E3 has already been nominated for PC first-person shooter of the show by certain parties and made it into one PC gaming magazine's Top Twenty, the actual PC build should really blow people away.

It's been mentioned that we'll be involved in conflict in Danang airbase, play a role in the Tet offensive and the counter-attack on Hue. What other situations from the war are you portraying in the game?

Whitmore: The game will contain over fifteen missions, each one based on actual evens of the war. I don't want to give away every encounter, but here's an impressive one we're currently wrapping up. Early in the game, the player participates in Operation Starlite, the first large-scale combat action of the war.

The marines simultaneously attack the sandy coastal plains south of Chu Lai overland, by helicopter, and with landing craft. The player's LZ is unfortunately right on top of some prepared Viet Cong positions, and he has to keep VC recoilless teams from firing on transport helicopters so the marines can land and storm a nearby hill the VC have invested.

With choppers landing and kicking up dust and swarms of marines dismounting to engage the hill amid intense artillery bombardment, this mission really rocks the player. Later, when the player's unit begins its own assault up the hill, the sights and sounds of the surrounding battle really create an emotional impact. It's the first really big battle of the game, and you begin to find yourself worrying how you're going to make it out alive.

In single-player we're looking at squad-based combat, where players are accompanied by AI-controlled buddies. What lengths are you going to ensure that this AI acts in a believable manner? Could you give us an example of how this AI will operate?

Whitmore: The squad AI is a really important part of Men of Valor and we're spending a lot of time making them act like real-life soldiers and marines instead of videogame superheroes.

We watched news footage and combat reels shot during the war and we noticed that combat tended to look a lot less efficient than it does in your typical game. Troops spent a lot of time hiding behind cover, and would often fire blindly, even just lifting their weapons over their cover to shoot without exposing themselves.

Once shooting starts, people are most worried about getting shot, and their first priority is to find cover that will keep them safe. In Men of Valor, your squadmates are usually marines and are good fighters, but they won't just march through the level and gun down everything.

They'll identify cover, go prone and hide in the grass, or spread out to the flanks as soon as a firefight starts. From there, they'll start to implement tactics with the goal of staying alive.

Left to their own devices, they can usually hold off an equal force of enemy troops, but to really rise to the level of battlefield heroes, they need a good commander to motivate them. That's where the player comes in.

Will we be able to give orders to comrades?

Whitmore: The player has access to a simple set of commands he can use to modify his squad-mates' behaviours and adjust tactics to fit the evolving battlefield situation. If he finds they are too aggressive, he can order them to take cover; if he wants to shift their attention to the flanks or cause them to creep up stealthily on an objective, he can do that as well.

Laying down suppressive fire on a bunker or setting the squad in ambush so you can lure in a VC patrol are all possible with just one or two game pad presses.

Is enemy AI an equally important point of focus? What can we expect to see here?

Whitmore: The Communist forces the player will face were capable of great craftiness and tactical innovation. Many were veterans of decades of conflict, and all knew the terrain over which they were fighting and learned to take special advantage of it.

Simulating the special capabilities of the enemy for jungle warfare has been especially challenging, but the enemy AI now possesses the flexibility to really pose a threat to the player.

The VC were adept at ambushes and experts at fighting from prepared positions and the player will see this in several missions. Disciplined NVA regular units will also be faced and will pose a different kind of challenge with their mix of traditional tactics and wily jungle-craft.

The enemy is just as capable of using cover, suppressive fire, and quick manoeuvre as the player's squad-mates, and watching two AI forces fight it out by themselves is almost like watching a war movie.

Outside of infantry combat, what else are we going to experience? For example, will we be able to drive vehicles? Will we be able to call in airstrikes or mortar fire?

Whitmore: A Vietnam War game would seem incomplete without helicopter assaults, and the player will ride in Hueys and even man door guns in several missions. He will also man jeep-mounted machineguns and other vehicle weapons, and even participate in a motorcycle chase down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Air and artillery support were crucial parts of the American military effort and will be well represented in Men of Valor: Vietnam. In many missions the player will use his radio operator to call in air strikes, mortars, or artillery on unfriendly tree lines or hard-to-crack bunkers.

We have some very impressive looking napalm and artillery strike effects, and having jets swoop overhead to drop in bombs or helicopter gunships strafe enemies just meters from your position really makes you glad you are on the American side.

How realistic will combat be? Will it be two shots and you're dead, or are you aiming for enjoyment over realism?

Whitmore: Men of Valor is a game, and so of course it is aiming primarily for a fun and engaging player experience. Overall we have attempted to capture the intensity of combat during the war with as much authenticity we can, but sacrifices of realism need to be made if the game is to be enjoyable.

We have modelled the accuracy, fire rates, and other characteristics of the weapons in the game make them feel as authentic as possible, and the gameplay is designed to reward the player for using the kinds of tactics that led to success in the war.

However, there are some things in the game that aren't realistic, but make the game more fun. For example, the player will see a lot more action during the war than any real marine would have, and he will engage in some operations in which his original unit was not, historically, involved.


For multiplayer, you're including a co-op mode. Will this appear in both versions, and how many players will be able to play through the single-player campaign together?

Whitmore: Two players should be able to play the campaign game together on both the Xbox and PC. On PC, there is the possibility of increasing the number of co-op players, but we don't want to promise anything on this front yet. Playing the game co-operatively is a real blast, and having to watch the back of another human player, and trust him to do the same for you, really brings home what we want Men of Valor to be about.

What other modes are you planning to include for multiplayer? How many players will these modes support on Xbox Live and split-screen and PC online and LAN?

Whitmore: Our objective-based mode is the one we're most excited about. These games allow the US and Communist forces to face off in representations of some of the most intense battles of the actual conflict. Planning and executing strikes to accomplish historical objectives against real human opponents is quite a thrill.

We're working on multiplayer right now and don't have any hard numbers on the number of players we will be supporting on either platform.

In what ways will Men of Valor innovate the first-person shooter genre?

Whitmore: The most obvious innovation is in our environments. The natural environments we are building for the player to fight in, from fields of elephant grass in the Iron Triangle to the misty hillsides of Khe Sanh, are denser and more realistic than anything we've seen so far.

Tactical battles in natural environments feel a lot different than they do in the built up areas found in most shooters, and when there is as much cover and concealment as we can create in MOVV, a whole new set of techniques become necessary for survival.

The player will need to rethink his approach to combat in Men of Valor in almost the same way the American military had to rethink theirs in the actual war.

The combat system also contains a number of innovations, but we don't want to detail them yet. In short, the game is designed in every way to support the kinds of tactics that actually found success during the war.

Why are Xbox and PC owners going to enjoy playing Men of Valor: Vietnam?

Whitmore: Anyone who enjoys intense first-person gameplay with dramatic scripted events set in atmospheric environments during authentic military operations will love Men of Valor: Vietnam.

Anyone with a good home theatre will want to run out and get the Xbox version, as it supports wide screen 720P HDTV and full Dolby 5.1 surround sound. Anyone with a PC who enjoyed the thrilling cinematic gameplay of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault will want to pick up the PC version to see the future of historical shooters.

Finally, we presume that you've got other ideas for future Men of Valor games. Any hints on possible settings for a sequel to Vietnam?

Whitmore: We've kicked around ideas for every major conflict, from the Peloponnesian War to the War on Terror. If gamers really want another Vietnam-themed game after MOVV, we'll probably go there for the sequel, but if they are clamouring for something new, we've more than a few possibilities up our sleeves.

We seem to keep fighting wars, so its unlikely 2015 will ever run out of settings, sad though that may be.

Stuart Bishop