We recently had the rare opportunity to fire off some questions to Studio Manager Mitch Gitelman at FASA Studios. After some hands-on time with ShadowrunTM, the upcoming cross-platform first-person-shooter for Xbox 360TM and Games for Windows, we were suitably impressed.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Xbox.com: Can you talk about the first moment you knew that Shadowrun was going to evolve into something really special? What was it that triggered that response?
Mitch Gitelman (MG): The first time I teleported through a wall to escape a firefight, I knew we were on to something. Then we completed our initial prototype. When we called "Game On!" and the team literally ran to the lab to beat each other for a spot, I knew we had something special.
Xbox.com: What, if anything about Shadowrun has exceeded your initial expectations of the project?
We hired a team of testers who were members
of Halo and Counterstrike leagues and had them
play each other-a lot. When the complaining
stopped, we knew we had it.
MG: I never expected to love playing the game as much as I do years after beginning it. Usually by the end of a project, you're sick to death of the art, the music-everything. But not this time. Because improvisation is so key to the gameplay, you never know what's going to happen from moment to moment. I usually laugh my ass off once per game.
Xbox.com: You talked a lot about how important it was to you to bring people onboard that are opinionated and really willing to stand up for themselves. Can you point to a moment or two during the game's development where someone's commitment to their own beliefs helped escalate the game to a new level?
MG: We got the gameplay early in the process and kept it pretty locked down for the rest of the project. That made our art department reactive to our design department. When I hired Evan Hirsch as our Art Director, he came in with a lot of ideas that the team thought were insane, impossible or a combination of both. But he wouldn't back off-at least not without a fight. The result is a game that plays great, runs great over the Internet, and looks next-generation. A lot of people had to work extremely hard to get the pieces to come together.
Now would be a good time to run.
Xbox.com: Do you plan on providing downloadable content for Shadowrun, and if so, can you give us a hint of what we can expect?
MG: We aren't announcing anything about that yet.
Xbox.com: You mentioned the team wanted to eliminate a lot of their pet peeves in multiplayer first person shooters with Shadowrun. What are some of the genre frustrations that you're particularly happy about fixing?
MG: It's easy to get lost when you start playing a new map and in Shadowrun, coordinating teamwork is vital. We do a few things to help you out. For example, each area of the map is labeled so that when you walk into it, its name appears on the lower left of your screen. Now you can communicate locations with a common language. In addition to that, when you grab the artifact, we put up a HUD pointer to guide you to the drop-off point. If you're defending, a similar pointer guides you to the location you need to defend.
There's a lot more than that, like the inability to fire your sniper rifle without using the scope, etc.
Xbox.com: What is your own favorite combination of race, magic, and technology when playing Shadowrun?
MG: I can't say I have a favorite because the game is so situation-based. I choose my race and loadout based on what map I'm playing, and who I'm playing with.
When I play on the Temple Grounds map, I like to play as an elf. I take teleport, glider and enhanced vision to find the enemy and choose how and where I'll engage him. I use the katana and the sniper rifle, gliding above the action and either sneaking up behind someone or finding a sniper perch.
When I play on Dig Site on defense, I play as a dwarf. I'll take tree of life, strangle, minion, smartlink and a minigun. I can make a heavily defensible position this way.
Shooting down gliders.
Xbox.com: Can you talk a little about how intent you were on nailing the balance with cross-platform play? What kinds of players and testers did you bring in to help lock down this feature?
MG: The minute I brought up cross-platform play, our Lead Designer, John Howard, started thinking about control balance and how do to it. He immediately rallied the design team to work through the issues. We hired a team of testers who were members of Halo and Counter-Strike leagues and had them play each other-a lot. When the complaining stopped, we knew we had it.
Xbox.com: The decision to eliminate leaderboards entirely is rather significant. Why was this so important to you and the team, and what are the tangible benefits gamers will see because of this?
MG: Our friends at Bungie found out the hard way that leaderboards encourage cheating. It's their incentive and their reward. When you eliminate the feedback, you eliminate much of their motivation. Think of playing Shadowrun as playing a great pickup game of basketball. We choose teams and play as hard as we can until one team wins. Then we shuffle the teams and play again. When we have to go home, everyone says, "Good game, man. Catch you next time." That's what we want people to experience in Shadowrun.
Xbox.com: Thanks so much Mitch, for taking the time out to answer our questions.