Interviews// World In Conflict Developer: Martin Walfisz

SPOnG: Yeah, I mean anyone who came of age in the 1980s can fully empathise with that fear of the cold war ‘going nuclear’; that constant sense of anticipation that we were on the verge of World War 3. So, kind of what you’ve done here is follow that through.

Martin Walfisz: Yes, it’s a what-if scenario. Exactly. What would have happen if the Soviet Union hadn’t’ve collapsed as it did, and instead they had decided to strike, first into mainland Europe and then into the American heartland.


SPOnG: Do you have any real-life, historical characters in the game? Reagan perhaps?

Martin Walfisz: Well, we have various hints and references in the game to real historical characters, but we’re not building the story or the ‘story tools’ in the game around real, historical characters. It’s more fictional characters. We feel that the way to tell a story in such a way that people care is to tell a real story about real, believable characters down on the ground and fighting. And so you get to know your commanding officer and your colleagues and everything that is going on around them.


SPOnG: That struck me as a fairly unique idea in terms of a strategy game – that you have these four main characters…

Martin Walfisz: Yeah, there are the four characters you’ve seen today – including yourself, ‘Proctor’ plus there will be a few other characters that we aren’t talking about at the moment.


SPOnG: Is that something that Larry Bond (co-author of Red Storm Rising – among other works - with Tom Clancy) came up with?

Martin Walfisz: No not really, his involvement was more in terms of ‘the bigger picture’ of the political landscape at the time, in making the in-game scenarios as plausible as we possibly could. We wanted to make people think that this is not ‘merely’ a what-if type scenario they don’t really believe in, but instead to make them really feel ‘damn this could really have happened’ so that was his expertise.

And then we also used a very experienced Hollywood TV writer to help our own designers flesh out the dialogue and add real-depth to the characters. Like you mentioned earlier, in Hollywood, they are experts at creating emotions and so we’re tapping into that.


SPOnG: So, going back to the in-game environments. The first thing that strikes anyone who sees the game is the fact that you are in a very realistic version of late 1980s Europe/American suburbia, then very suddenly you are in the middle of World War 3! This seems pretty new, has it been done before?

Martin Walfisz: Well, Command and Conquer: Red Alert explored it a little, but in a more humorous and cheesy and not-so-serious way. We are aiming to create a much more plausible, true ‘what-if’ scenario. That’s something that invokes a lot more emotions in players.


SPOnG: Interesting that you mention Command and Conquer – would you say that the latest version, Tiberium Wars, is one of your main competitors, in terms of a major strategy title?

Martin Walfisz: Well, this year is going to be great for strategy gamers – myself included – what with Tiberium Wars, Supreme Commander and, of course, World in Conflict – but I do think that we have a very different offering. I’m hoping we’ll attract a much bigger audience than the typical RTS game, because I think we have something that RTS gamers are going to love, because it is a true RTS game, but it’s a breath of fresh air… so we have a chance of attracting new people who haven’t previously played RTS games, because it’s such an accessible, action-oriented, pick-up-and-play fun experience.


SPOnG: Just a quick word about the technology in the game – can you tell us much about the DX10 magic you are planning?

Martin Walfisz: The tech in the game is build on MassTech, which is our own proprietary engine – and right now our engineers back home are building Direct X 10 support into the game. So, it will be supported at launch, but we have decided not to reveal anything more about that right now – it’s still work-in-progress and we want to keep some things back to reveal nearer to launch.