Graeme Devine on Halo Wars
Halo Wars’ lead designer Graeme Devine talks to us about what to expect from Ensemble Studios’ final project, how Sergeant Forge fits in (or not) with a certain mode of Halo 3’s, and what he really thinks of Microsoft’s decision to shut down the thirteen year old studio.
D+PAD: In your presentation you stated that one of the things Halo meant to you was an epic story. Obviously in the FPS Halos you play predominantly through the eyes of a single character, which makes it easier to tell an involving story. With an RTS it’s a little bit different, and Ensemble seem to have put emphasis on CGI cutscenes in Halo Wars. Does the story play out purely through those?
Graeme Devine: There are CGI cutscenes throughout, but if the story was told purely through them it would kind of suck. Most of the writing and most of the story is in the gameplay itself. There’s many minutes of CGI but many more minutes of actual gameplay. The Halo FPS games are all about one person, Master Chief, so when we approached the story writing for Halo Wars, it’s all about the crew of the Spirit of Fire, it’s about multiple characters. The same way that you play as multiple characters on the ground, you have multiple characters which are in the story, with multiple abilities mirroring the RTS counterparts.
How difficult was it crafting a new Halo story?
Really difficult! You’re going into a story that’s very well known by the fans. We put out that X06 trailer and at the end we gave the Spartans Battle Rifles and we got nailed to the wall! We gave them Battle Rifles and they didn’t get given Battle Rifles until 2552, and oh my goodness this is 2526 and what the hell are you doing?! So the fans are very aware of the story and the IP and are extremely aware of all the events and how they play out. So adding in a new story set twenty years before [the events of Halo: Combat Evolved] meant we had enough space because it’s a very different time in the actual Halo universe. It’s good to be able to tell a story with a different set of characters at a different time in the conflict.
Can you talk about some of the challenges in getting an RTS to work on a console?
The first thing we did was spend the first year working on those controls. We took Age of Mythology and before there was any Halo IP involved or the thought of any IP at all, we started taking away all the interface and so forth that’s at the top and bottom of every RTS game simply because it must be there. We took all of that out and started thinking about what we wanted to do with a console RTS game, and then we started to think about the actions of what we wanted to do - I want to control a unit, I want to control an army and I want to move a unit and I want to move an army - instead of thinking about porting the PC experience. The only way to be successful with the controls was to do a complete reset. But thinking about the actions was very important and we always said that the finish line would be when it was more easily controlled on a console controller than on a keyboard and mouse.
Have you downloaded the latest issue of D+PAD yet? Check it out here!
Leave your response!