How to make WWE 12 as crazy as the 'real' thing [Interview]

25 Nov 2011 at 08:00:00 by John Robertson

Wrestling games cannot be easy to make. The source material is more bizarre than Elton John's wardrobe, the wide range of match types makes a porn star's list of intimate partners seem small and you've somehow got to make men grunting in a confined space attractive.

We've already reviewed WWE '12 (released today in the UK), awarding it a 7/10 while praising it for its ambition but concluding that it doesn't quite pull it off. Our full review can be found here.

To supplement that, we sat down witht the game's lead designer, Bryan Williams, to talk new gameplay additions, the return of Brock Lesnar and what it's like to work alongside the WWE.

Enjoy!

IncGamers: You’ve said that gameplay is the main focus of WWE ’12, what needed improving about the last game/s?

Bryan Williams: Accessibility was a big thing that needed improving. Honestly, though, we needed to tighten up the nuts and bolts of the gameplay. Last year’s gameplay certainly wasn’t horrendous, but it did have its issues.

Reversing was inconsistent and somewhat broken in certain areas. The pacing wasn’t really there either; you’d spend an inordinate amount of time on the ground, that just wasn’t fun. I know there has to be some downtime in a wrestling game, but the way WWE ’11 was structured made that occur a little too much.

This year the pacing is so much more realistic and appropriate for what you’d see in an actual match and that’s really improved gameplay. Then you’ve got the additions like wake up taunts and comebacks which have solidified the foundations.

IG: Much of what happens in the WWE is outlandish and unpredictable, how do you begin to transfer that into a game?

BW: Yeah, they do some crazy things on programming. They set the bar pretty high. Everyone on the team is a WWE junkie, though, so we’re all aware of what they do and we try to top that. Those big moments that we’ve done will occur in the Road to Wrestlemania mode – there are lots of cool moments there.

I don’t want to give too much away there but there’s some big moments involving the Hell in a Cell and the Elimination Chamber. This year more than any other features some really big moments there.

IG: Is it you guys that come up with the story for Road to Wrestlemania, or does the WWE define that?

BW: The WWE help with that, but the ideas all come from us. Our Road to Wrestlemania designer Jonathan Durr wrote the scripts for the stories which then go to the WWE creative team who provide feedback and give the stamp of approval.

We travel with the WWE when they’re going through their event schedule and record lines of voiceover and do motion capturing – so they’re right on board with Road to Wrestlemania.

IG: The new tech you’re using has been dubbed ‘Predator Technology’, what does that allow you to do?

BW: It’s all to do with our animation system and it greatly helps improve our animation blending. One of the criticisms we would get every year was that our animations looked really clunky. Specifically about how the moves themselves would look beautiful, but linking into the next move wasn’t so fluid.

The new tech lets moves and animations blend and transition into one another much better. Basically we’ve filled in the gaps we used to have so that you don’t see any character popping/warping which makes it look much more natural.

IG: Does Randy Orton know that you’ve called it The Predator technology?

BW: [Laughs] He does! He gave it the stamp of approval.

IG: There are a lot of different things that you could potentially do in each situation. Do you worry that things are getting too complex?

BW: There’s always that to think about. Every time we introduce a new gameplay feature we always worry about whether we’re adding too many controls on top of what we’ve already got. We did our best to reduce that as much as possible with our control changes this year, because we don’t want the game to become so complicated that it loses its appeal.

We’ve refined the controls so that, whatever situation you’re in, the ‘A’ button on 360 (‘X’ on PS3) will grapple and ‘X’ on 360 (square on PS3) will always produce strikes. As long as the players know that then it gives them a better sense of what they can do in a given moment.

IG: How much fan feedback do you take into account during the design phase?

BW: A ton. Every year we bring in members of the community to do ‘post-mortems’ on the game we just released. We did that for Smackdown vs. RAW 2011 and they told us what they liked and didn’t like. During the build up to the release of WWE 12 we brought in some of the hardcore guys to tell us what they thought about it.

Those guys are very vocal, they don’t bite their tongue at all – if they don’t like something they let us know. But that’s exactly why we bring them in; we want to know what they like and what they don’t like. We held three of those sessions for WWE 12 and we made some changes based on those, so it was definitely productive. Our goal is to give them the game that they want. The last thing you want is an angry community on your hands.

IG: You’ve managed to get Brock Lesnar into the game this year, a guy that left the WWE for a UFC career a few years ago. How important was it to get Brock and was it made easier given the fact that THQ also do the UFC games?

BW: There’s no doubt that it was made easier because of that association. Us guys on the game development side were very keen to have Brock in the game, but the work had to be done by the marketing team to reach out and see if he had any interest in being in the game.

Once we reached out to him he said he wanted to do it. He’s gone on record saying that he holds no ill-will at all against the WWE and hasn’t ruled out a return one day. Until then you can play as him in WWE 12. He’s one of the coolest unlocks we’ve had in quite some time. Last year we had Rob van Dam as an unlockable character (which was cool because he was in TNA at that time) but having Brock is incredible. I don’t think the fans saw that one coming at all.    

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