Shadowrun Updated Q&A - Final Thoughts
FASA studio manager Mitch Gitelman looks back at the Shadowrun project and talks about the challenges encountered along the way.
It was almost a year ago that Microsoft and its internal FASA studio revealed Shadowrun, a multiplayer action shooter with the tantalizing promise of cross-platform gameplay. In Shadowrun, Xbox 360 and Windows Vista players can participate in online matches together. The world of Shadowrun blends magic and technology to create a wild and dynamic gameplay experience. In the game, players blast away at one another, teleport through solid objects, resurrect the dead, and more. Now with the game almost complete and set to ship later this spring, FASA studio manager Mitch Gitelman shares his thoughts on the project.
GameSpot: Shadowrun is finally nearing completion, so what's life been like at FASA the past few weeks? We imagine it's been pretty hectic to get the game out the door.
Mitch Gitelman: It's like birthing a baby in a way. A few weeks ago, we gave our last big, grunting push, and now we're cleaning her up before we let the rest of the family see her and take baby pictures.
It's no longer hectic. It's about carefully making sure the game is ready for the public and fixing issues without creating more. The tension is still there because you need good judgment to determine what should be fixed versus what could be fixed or what you want to have fixed.
GS: We're looking for some history on the project. What was the initial impetus for the game? How did it come to be? And how long has it been in development?
MG: A few years back, we developed a very polished prototype for a game we decided not to pursue. At that point, we stepped back and said, "What now?" We owned the Shadowrun license and many people in the studio were Shadowrun fans. We scrapped a Shadowrun game in 1998 when we were acquired by Microsoft, and some of us were itching for another shot at it.
We did some rapid prototyping, and the results were disturbingly fun. We had never prototyped a game that was that fun that quickly before. We thought that our judgment might be impaired in some way, so we had a full-studio play test, and it was clear that everyone was having fun with it--the Crimson Skies team, the MechAssault team--everyone. That was three years ago, and here we are today.
GS: What was the most difficult aspect of the game to make? Why was it the most difficult aspect? Was it the cross-platform gameplay? Was it trying to balance everything in the game? Or was it something else?
MG: Those things were challenges but not extremely difficult--just time consuming. The hardest part of making Shadowrun was the blend of gameplay, art, and performance. We develop our gameplay first since it's incredibly difficult to make a truly fun and highly replayable game. The unique gameplay and movement options in Shadowrun made map design an interesting challenge. With the ability to glide and teleport in combination, you can see large expanses of the gameplay environment at the same time. When you couple that with the ability to move instantly through walls, floors, and ceilings, you've just created a daunting challenge for artists and programmers. Next-generation art requires multiple texture passes. That's very expensive from a performance perspective. When you take away one of the little-understood tools that first-person hallway shooters have--the ability to only show you a small amount of the environment at any one time--you have set up a scenario where making the game look great and consistently run at 30 frames per second is more than a big challenge.
Add to all that the combination of 16 human and artificial intelligence players. Then add the ability to summon creatures and objects into the world, the ability to see enemies through walls, and art, programming, and design teams that would not allow their area of the game to be anything less than outstanding. It could have killed us, but it didn't. The game looks, plays, and runs great.
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- Release: May 29, 2007 »
- ESRB: Mature
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