Real-time strategy games used to come in two flavors: the kind with elves, and the kind with tanks. Both kinds involved rushing to collect the most resources, construct the biggest base, and churn out the largest army. But recent real-time strategy games are attempting to break with tradition. For example, consider the upcoming Act of War: Direct Action from Atari and Eugen Systems, a game that will focus on a near-future "technothriller" conflict--the kind that involves international conspiracies, political intrigue, covert military operations, and motion-picture adaptations starring Sean Connery and/or Denzel Washington. In recent years, this kind of fiction has been popularized by authors like Tom Clancy and Dale Brown--and the latter is actually contributing to the game's development. We sat down with Atari senior producer Henrik Strandberg for more information. Be sure to watch the new trailer video as well.

Act of War will feature the same sort of story and technology you'd find in a near-future political thriller.

GameSpot: What's technothriller-author Dale Brown's involvement with Act of War? How'd he get involved with the project, and does the game have any ties to his novels?

Henrik Strandberg: We recognized early on that in order to realize our vision for the game, we'd need to collaborate with an established military expert, as well as someone who knows how to tell an entertaining technothriller story, so Dale turned out to be the perfect choice. Together, we worked out what a plausible near-future universe could look like, how someone could manipulate this future universe for his own interests, and how "the good guys" could respond to such a threat.

Our screenwriter, Susan O'Connor, then translated this "story kernel" into a 50-page screenplay and about 2,000 lines of in-game dialogue, and Alexis [Le Dressay] at Eugen used it to create his mission designs, while Dale went his way and fleshed it out into a 400-page novel (which is also due out next spring). So while the two stories coexist in the same universe, covering the same chain of events, we recognize these as two completely different media that need to be treated differently. So the book isn't based on the game or the other way around--it's all one big live entity.

In addition, Dale has been helping us get all technical details right, the dialogue authentic, the near-future technology believable, and so on.

GS: Tell us a bit about the single-player campaign. We understand that there are three factions that you can play. What are they? And how many missions are we looking at?

HS: In the single-player campaign, you control the task force Talon, a "direct action" team (the opposite of covert ops) reporting directly to the US president. These are the guys who have access to all the really cool high-tech stuff. In most scenarios, they're supported by the regular US Army, which uses a mix of weapons and equipment that's been around for a while and stuff that's kind of experimental.

The "bad guys" are a mix of terrorists, mercenaries, and locally recruited military units, and they use a wide variety of existing, mostly non-US hardware and experimental high-tech stuff. Of course, both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses so they're balanced in multiplayer.

There are 14 chapters in the single-player campaign, each with between one and four missions.

GS: We've seen the impressive Washington, DC, level, where your forces battle it out just blocks away from the Capitol building, but what other locales do you have in mind for the game?

HS: Act of War: Direct Action is a global technothriller, so the story takes you around the world, from North Africa to the UK (London) to the US (San Francisco) and back to Africa (Egypt), and then on to Russia before you return to the Washington, DC, level you're referring to.

GS: We know that Act of War will involve constructing bases and building units, much like a traditional real-time strategy game. Oil is one of the resources in the game, but are there any others?

The game will let you create oil fields and take prisoners of war.

HS: Oil is basically just used to get you started quickly and to provide a familiar setting to real-time strategy fans. What really makes the difference are what we call "human resources," such as prisoners of war and other noncombatants (downed pilots, stranded tank drivers, unarmed noncombat personnel operating the enemy bases, and so on). Capturing these, and ensuring the opponent doesn't capture yours, makes all the difference. For example, capturing one POW awards almost as much money as a full tanker truck, and a prison camp with 10 prisoners generates more money than an oil well, and is an infinite resource.

Secondly, your troops earn experience, which makes them considerably better in battle, and ensuring that you don't lose experienced troops to the enemy also makes a big difference.