Interviews// Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2

SPOnG: One of the things you've done in H.A.W.X. 2 is improve the graphical fidelity of the ground and the detail of the scenery in general. Was that a challenge to pull off, considering the missions you engage in take place in such vast maps?

Edward Douglas: Like H.A.W.X. 1 we're still using the Geo-Eye satellite survey technology, trying to get even more detail and resolution out of the maps themselves – but of course there's a lot of content on the ground that we're creating ourselves, that we don't get strictly from the satellite imagery.

Using a mixture of the two, we can create levels that lead you through the best of both worlds. For example, bases are going to be fully rendered and in-depth. I'm probably the wrong person to ask exactly how much of a challenge it is, but the team did a phenomenal job fleshing out the grounds in so many worlds.


SPOnG: For those that don't know a lot about Geo-Eye, could you give us a rough description of your use of it in the H.A.W.X. series?

Edward Douglas: Geo-Eye is a satellite surveying company, so they have satellites that we work with them in getting imagery from. They do imagery for all sorts of other applications, but for H.A.W.X. we have been working very closely with Geo-Eye to try and figure out the best way to supply and use the assets, and sweep them out throughout the game. Those satellites are floating around somewhere up there, watching us right now (laughs).


SPOnG: Before this title, you said to me that you had worked on car racing games. Did you bring any of that experience into H.A.W.X. in terms of inspiration for narrative and design?

Edward Douglas: One thing that I really wanted to do with H.A.W.X. 2 visually, which H.A.W.X. 1 didn't have wass really make these planes feel as cool and powerful as they are. These are big, ferocious machines. Some people ask us if Top Gun is an influence, and I'd say 'of course,' it's part of the media influence of what air combat is, but really the visual influence for us is Top Gear.

The way Top Gear shows cars, that's how we want you to feel about the planes you control. So we'll see if we've succeeded when the game comes out. And when it comes to my past experience, sure, that's also helped influence the design in H.A.W.X. 2. Visually, it's no different, you're still presenting vehicles.

I came onto the project fairly late into development, as the narrative and creative director, and one of the things that was very important for me was to always make the player feel like he is part of the real world when playing this game. You're not just spawning up in the air, in a rolling start as it were, you understand where you are at all times. The mission briefings give you a grounding in the game world, and then you take off, you land.

You're a real person in this world, not just a floating machine. You're a man or a woman at a workstation controlling this unmanned aerial vehicle through a computer model. We always want the player to have that authentic pilot experience. And that's definitely something that came from racing.


SPOnG: The air combat genre has quite a few contenders, such as the Ace Combat series. What do you think it is about H.A.W.X. that makes your game stand out from the crowd?

Edward Douglas: H.A.W.X. 2 stands out from the crowd of action flying games in two big ways. Firstly, it's Tom Clancy. It's got the story, the atmosphere, the feel of something epic and it's part of this larger world of Tom Clancy games. And it's not just action-flying, it's all aspects of modern aerial warfare with the espionage, night raids, involvement with the carriers and gunships... It brings a lot more, variety-wise, than any other games that are in that same space.


SPOnG: Thanks a lot for your time.

Edward Douglas: Thank you.

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 will be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the 3rd September.