Front Mission Evolved Continued

11 Jun 2009 at 13:25:40 by Tim McDonald

So – being cynical for a moment – it's not just an action game that's designed to try and break Front Mission into a Western market. It's more than that, it's globe-spanning.

SAXS: Yeah. We think we have an IP that's been worked on for over 10 years and we want to have the broadest possible exposure to that. A strategy game was probably never going to get it broadly accepted in the US. There are a lot of hardcore fans of the Front Mission franchise, and in our studio alone we had between 10 and 20 people who were hardcore fans. They played every iteration that came out in the US, and attempted to play every one that only came out in Japan. The litmus test for us was “What do they feel about us taking that and expanding it into the action genre?” and all of them were really appreciative that the universe continues. That's what everybody wants to continue.

So why Front Mission now, in particular?

HASHIMOTO: Part of the idea to do this came from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which I love. When I saw that, I saw the way in which real-time action games can be cinematic and dramatic, and so I thought “that could really match Front Mission” and thought that an action game would work well for a Western audience. An RPG game wouldn't be as popular to a broader audience, and I didn't want to add a number to it. I wanted to reinvent the series and start fresh to make it accessible to another audience.

Call of Duty is extremely linear, with waypoints, mid-mission checkpoints, and the like. Is this more open? Do you have choices of what mission to do next?

LEE: It's a little bit of both, without revealing too much about it. We have a story with a lot of political intrigue and a really cinematic experience, and we want to tell that story. On the other hand, the way that you customise your character is really important, so you can experience missions in different ways depending on how you customise it.

Will missions tend to be viable regardless of what sort of Wanzer you're in?

LEE: You get a mission briefing and your squad will suggest ways in which you can design a Wanzer for that particular environment. We have Arctic environments, jungle environments... you traverse a lot of the globe. In some cases, well: spider-type legs may not be a good idea for a desert environment. In other areas the customisation is up to you.

Can you give us an idea as to how a typical mission would play out?

LEE: They're all a little different. You follow a storyline, and as the mission starts, you get a briefing, a 3D-map, a bit of story, with your squadmates joining you on this in some cases. Then you get objectives as you go because the storyline is driving you forward. At first it's a personal progression for the main character, Dylan, and you have objectives that you want to achieve in that mission.

SAXS: By and large, the story will be linear at the end of the day, but some of the experiences will be different.

Replayability, then.

LEE: That's why we're doing the multiplayer.

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