Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy Q&A

Ground Control was one of this year's most technically impressive PC games. Developed by the upstart Massive Entertainment out of Sweden, the game employed a beautiful 3D graphics engine that was capable of rendering gorgeous open terrain and highly-detailed units without sacrificing any performance. But Ground Control wasn't just a visual tour-de-force, as its real-time gameplay and tactical combat elements were both challenging and rewarding. It's no surprise that publisher Sierra Studios announced the development of an expansion pack, titled Dark Conspiracy, from the show floor of ECTS a few weeks ago. We sat down with Tom Smith, the lead designer at High Voltage Software, the company developing the expansion pack, to talk about Dark Conspiracy's new units and features.

GameSpot: How long has Dark Conspiracy been in development? Was it originally planned to be part of the original Ground Control?

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Tom Smith: It was always in the back of everyone's minds, but the actual plans for the expansion pack didn't start until just before Ground Control was released. Massive did a great job of building a flexible engine with a lot of possibilities, which allowed us to focus on design issues rather than reworking their code. Without tools like GenEd and the frequent assistance of Massive, there is no way we would have gotten so far so fast.

GS: Can you tell us about the new playable faction in Dark Conspiracy? How will it be different from the Crayven Corporation's conventional arsenal and the Order of the New Dawn's high-tech energy weapons?

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TS: Both the Crayven and the Order are very "clean" views of sci-fi. Their units are all built to exacting military precision. They're the sorts of armies that take their terradynes to the car wash every week. The new faction is a darker, dirtier view of the Ground Control universe. They don't have the immense resources of the megacorporations, so they have to scrape together what they can from spare parts and leftovers. They're also more willing to take gambles with highly experimental technologies.

GS: One of the most distinctive units in the recently released screenshots is a chaingun-equipped mech. Are all the units of the new faction based on a mech design?

TS: The mech does seem to be getting a lot of attention, but it's not an all-mech expansion. The mechs are a new type of unit that all factions will have access to, including three radically different schools of mech design. The chaingun mech is a Crayven unit. The new faction will have the regular assortment of tanks, infantry, and aircraft, all with their own unique design style. Some of the other screenshots show examples of these new vehicles.