New Halo Wars Screenshots

Posted by: 1/2/2008

GameTap talked to Graeme Devine, lead designer on Halo Wars, to ask him some questions, and see how Halo Wars is shaping up.
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GameTap: How did this project get started? Did you approach Bungie about the idea of a Halo real-time strategy game?

Graeme Devine: We actually started working on the controls for six months before we talked to anyone. Once we felt we had a control scheme that really worked, we showed Microsoft and they got us to show the folks over at Bungie, so we flew up and started to talk. Things went well from there.

GameTap: Is there any particular reason why you selected the pre-Halo first-person shooter timeline?

Graeme Devine: We wanted to tell our own story. The story of the war between the Covenant and Humanity is huge and being able to tell that story from a different perspective, earlier in the war, with different characters is just really cool.

GameTap: Will we see any notable locations from the other Halo games in Halo Wars?

Graeme Devine: You’ll see…oh wait, I can’t tell you yet.

GameTap: How much freedom do you have in terms of working with the story? Or are
you fairly restricted in what you can and can’t do?

Graeme Devine: We worked closely with Bungie on the story. There is nothing more important with the Halo canon than respecting it. We’re adding to an immensely detailed universe here, so it was really important to us all that any story we tell adds to the overall canon, timeline, and story.

GameTap: How much input does Bungie have in the process? Do they have final approval on story elements, new types of units, or things of that nature?

Graeme Devine: We’ve shown Bungie Halo Wars as we’ve progressed, but they have let Ensemble make the game as Ensemble wants to make the game. It’s been a good relationship and we’ve gotten great feedback and input from Bungie along the way, but they really have let us make the game we wanted to make.

GameTap: Obviously, the control scheme is always an important subject when discussing real-time strategy games on consoles, how do you go about striking a balance of offering the depth that RTS games are known for, but at the same time, keeping the controls simple enough as to not be overwhelming?

Graeme Devine: I think this is key. When we started work on Halo Wars we started from scratch, we threw the mouse and keyboard paradigm away and rethought what it meant to control a real-time strategy game. I really think that’s one of the big differentiators with Halo Wars because it allows us to bring the depth to the controller while, in our opinion, improving how controllable we can make the genre.

Halo’s UNSC engages the Covenant with a pair of scorpion tanks.

GameTap: What your stance on resource management for console RTSs? Some feel it’s necessary to keep it limited (or do away with it entirely) to allow for simpler controls while others think it’s a necessary element of the genre.

Graeme Devine: There’s more to resources than digging in the dirt. Time, unit count, buildings, and many of the in-game objects in a real-time strategy game are really resources in disguise. For example, if it takes me four minutes to research nuclear missiles, then I need to dedicate myself to making sure I have those four minutes. So I feel it’s a matter of coming at the resource/depth issue thinking of more than stone, gold, and wood. There are a lot of knobs in there that we can tune, some more visible than others, but there’s a lot of depth there.

GameTap: How is Halo Wars’ resource management going to be handled? Is it going to be similar to the dirt farm structure from the Age of Empires games, or will it be similar to the capture-and-hold style in Company of Heroes?

Graeme Devine: No digging in the dirt! We showed supply depots in the E3 video bringing supplies down from Spirit of Fire. But the key development model for Ensemble is to iterate, and while supplies are still in the game today, we’ve iterated hard on the resource model to find the right balance. I think we’re still working out the model to find that in the game.

GameTap: Is the single-player campaign linear with scripted missions, or would you say it has more in common with world conquest-style gameplay featured in games like Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Empire at War?

Graeme Devine: The campaign is a roller coaster ride. Like the other Halo games, we feel that story is integral to the experience and wanted to tell a new story from a new perspective. I’m really excited to see people’s reactions as they play through the campaign; I want to hear “But they can’t!” and “So that’s what that means!” as we unfold this new chapter.

GameTap: What sort of features are you going to implement to coax Halo fans that
loved the first-person shooter series, but may not be huge fans of the RTS genre?

Graeme Devine: I think the fans are a very intelligent bunch–just read the forums–and are looking for a new Halo experience. It would be easy to just add a warthog to the game and say, “Look, it’s Halo,” but that would suck. Our units, even the ones you’ve never seen before, have to integrate with this universe, we have to be part of this universe, and to do that we’ve worked hard on telling a new story, making the game accessible, focusing on the combat, and getting that magic “Halo” feeling. We’re fans too.

GameTap: It seems like the Covenant will be playable in some form or another. How much work goes into balancing the two factions and making them distinct from each other?

Graeme Devine: Right now we’ve been focusing on the campaign and making the Covenant scary. What does it feel like to be in a trench holding a MA5B with two clips left while a squad of Jackals has you pinned down? I’d imagine that feels pretty weird for your average marine, but I imagine you would be pretty happy when you hear some S2s taking out those Jackals and looking up in the hill two miles away to see a group of Spartans on your side. That’s what I think about a bunch right now when I think of the Covenant in the game.

GameTap: Why do you think Halo Wars will be one of the biggest games of 2008?

Graeme Devine: I think we’ve got magic in the disc. We’ve worked on the controls, gameplay, and story for this game being very much aware of what has gone before us. I was down in playtest yesterday and actually did not get to sit down and play because folks were spending their lunches playing the game. I know we’re doing well when that happens. More than that, I believe we will be huge not just because I believe, but because when we put the controller in your hands, you will believe too.
[via GameTap]

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