Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Interview

The open world video game genre may be ruled by a single, undisputed king, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t pretenders to the throne. One of those pretenders is Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, published by EA and developed by Pandemic Studios. At a recent hands-on event in London we sat down with Pandemic’s Cory Lewis to get the low down on the sequel to the best selling new IP of 2005 and find out why comparisons with, well, you know what, are absolutely fine.

VideoGamer.com: So where are you guys in development right now?

Cory Lewis: We’re pretty much at polish. Polish, bug fixing and making sure everything shines. Some of the online tuning like co-op are a big focus right now. Co-op is an amazing experience but it definitely adds an unknown element to the game. When you’ve got a second merc next to you who’s blowing up stuff that you’re trying to blow up and in helicopter grabbing your tank and throwing you around and it’s interesting how that affects the missions that you’ve already designed for single-player and now you’ve got to make sure they’re right for co-op. Obviously we want the game to be phenomenal when it comes out and something that Mercs fans can be proud of, so that’s a big focus.

VideoGamer.com: So pretty much finished then…

CL: Content is pretty much in there and now we’re just tuning and polishing.

VideoGamer.com: What were the flaws you identified in the first game that you’ve targeted this time?

CL Something that’s interesting that is a big focus now is the personal story. The first one was all about getting weapons and doing these jobs for the sake of money and that’s something that early on we still latched onto, but later we quickly realised the heart of the story isn’t so much the money it’s the fact that you got shot in the ass and you want to kill this guy, you want to nuke him. And that’s what’s so fun about it and that’s your motivation and really centring in on that personal story and of payback Mercenary style. The other half of what we’ve brought to it is taking the ridiculous knobs and twisting them up as high as we could and just making it as over the top as possible. Whether it’s the VO, the dialogue, the explosions or the type of weapons or vehicles… there’s a vehicle the team created called the tank bike, which is a cross between a tank and a motorcycle so it’s got a giant tank thread and you ride on it and it’s got two mini guns and you just haul ass on that thing. It’s like playing GI Joe as a kid. At some point GI Joe used to be really military and then they went off in this direction of a little bit of fantasy. We haven’t gone that far yet. So that’s where we’re taking it. That ridiculous military realm.

VideoGamer.com: I guess the delay has allowed you to do lots of things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

CL: In some ways it’s a catch 22. The main reason not to delay is for the profit of getting it out and selling it right away. But if you do it too soon that hurts. The IP Mercenaries, we created it back in the day and it was hugely successful at the time and generated a lot of fans. It’s a disservice to those guys to put out a product they lose interest in. We want Mercs fans to stay happy and be Mercs fans. We don’t want to put anything out that would deter them from liking the franchise in general. It’s an investment in our fans essentially to polish and make it perfect.

VideoGamer.com: There’s co-op play but no competitive play…

CL: The nice thing is technically speaking co-op play you can be competitive if you want. It’s not a structured mode. There’s several ways you could be competitive. First of all the co-op is entirely single-player story. So as you’re playing through your normal campaign or just the game I can just hop in any time so the mission you’re doing I can join. So then we can compete as we’re going through that mission to essentially have the best performance and then you get the most reward that way. So it’s competitive in that sense. Or you can just say screw the missions, we’re going to go over here and shoot it out and just have fun. Like the first person to do this or do that, whatever. You can kind of like create your own little scenarios and ways to compete. We didn’t build it in as a mode because it just doesn’t fit in with the Mercenaries universe to have Jen fighting Chris and that kind of thing. It doesn’t work as well. Honestly we wanted to keep the focus on making that single-player experience and the open world absolutely amazing and not distract with modes that would eventually be forgotten anyway. That’s the long winded answer.

VideoGamer.com: I hate to bring up GTA 4…

CL: No it’s fine. I bought it on day one.

VideoGamer.com: Oh cool, what did you think?

CL: I like it a lot actually. I actually didn’t play much of the series so it’s kind of an introductory point for me. I skipped over Vice City and San Andreas because I didn’t like the style of those universes as much, so this is kind of a reintroduction for me. It’s obviously a very rich experience in a lot of ways. If anything the perspective that everyone at Pandemic has is there’s a lot we can learn from just playing that game and looking at how they did things. It also opened up the fan base to a ton of fans who have maybe never tried an open world game. It’s a good entry point for them. And when they’re done with GTA later this summer and it’s August and they’re looking for another type of experience like that with a different twist where you can just go in the world and destroy everything you want to destroy, it’s the perfect opportunity to set up a new fan base for us. Honestly it’s healthy for the industry to have those sorts of things drawing in new players essentially. It’s great for us.

VideoGamer.com: 10 out of 10?

CL: Aaaahheeeeeeiiiiaaaaawwwww. I don’t know actually. I don’t know. Not to take anything away from the opinion of those folks that rated it that. Everybody has their own meter. For me I personally wouldn’t rate it a perfect score. I would save that for whatever that magical game is that earns it but it’s a great game. Whatever is a high enough score to say it’s good.

VideoGamer.com: The reason I asked originally was because they have competitive multiplayer. Does the lack of competitive multiplayer in Mercenaries 2 stand out more because of GTA 4?

CL: No. I know they have a lot of modes where you can get a lot of people in and do a lot of fun stuff and I actually haven’t gone online with it yet. I have been holding off on that until I have a moment to actually enjoy it. But their experience is very different online than co-op. As far as I understand it’s not like you’re playing through a single player story with somebody else. So that aspect of it is different. I feel like actually personally I would want to not have to bail out of a mode and start a new mode and just to have somebody drop in and run around and have fun with instantly. It’s not even like Crackdown where you have to back out of something and start it up again new. You just hop in. If I’m riding across a lake on my jet ski, boom you’re on the back of my jet ski and we’re cruising and on the way to my mission. So that sort of seamlessness, integrated true co-op to me is a huge plus. So it’s different. It’s not necessarily better or worse. They have a lot of modes and a lot of variety but I personally like the co-op nature of Mercs 2.

VideoGamer.com: The game is coming out on multiple platforms. Will the PS3 version have Home integration?

CL: I don’t know what our final plans are. I would say realistically that’s not going to be a focus for us just because we want to keep our focus on what the product is. I know we’re not putting a ton of emphasis on it right now. For future products we’ll get to a place where that’s obviously much better integrated. The online co-op is definitely our core focus as far as online goes and then we’ll also have other stuff to announce about future online stuff down the road. The short answer is we don’t know enough about it right now to really be deep in it but that’s not to say we won’t do anything either.

VideoGamer.com: That seems to us to be what a lot of developers are saying about Home.

CL: Yeah, exactly. It looks great. It looks like a cool way to extend the universe. We actually were looking at Home a while ago really in depth and then it seemed like their plans slowed down and we shifted our attention away from it toward just finishing the product.

VideoGamer.com: Apart from the 360, PS3 and PC versions there’s a PS2 version. Is that being developed by another company?

CL: Yes. It’s in a sense being ported almost to PS2. There is an outside studio that we’re partnering with to bring that code base to the PS2. Honestly it’s surprising to me as I’ve seen the PS2 version how much they’re able to do with that system. I honestly can’t even believe the vast majority of the game is in there. I can’t think of what’s not in there other than just the graphical fidelity. Content wise it’s going to be a very similar experience. It’s great because there’s so many PS2 owners out there who haven’t made the jump yet. It’s just amazing to see what you’re able to squeeze out of that system.

VideoGamer.com But no Wii version?

CL: No Wii yet unfortunately. I think the Wii would be a tough fit for that product. Not to say it won’t ever happen. But just porting it over to the Wii feels wrong. I know the guys, the senior leaders at Pandemic, like Josh (Resnick) and Greg (Borrud) and Andrew (Goldman), they’re very committed to when we come out with a Wii product it’s going to be created for the Wii. It’s going to really take advantage of what it offers, not just grabbing this and throwing it over there kind of thing.

VideoGamer.com: Final question. I read online the next one is going to be underwater…

CL: Underwater?! Well if by underwater you mean outer space… No I don’t know. That’s a good idea though. Hopefully they have concept art, harpoon guns and riding dolphins and stuff? That would be awesome!

VideoGamer.com: Can you give us any clues on what you’re thinking about the next one?

CL: No not yet. The guys are honestly right now neck deep in making this one shine and trying not to get distracted. I’m sure the director Cameron Brown is already sitting at home on the weekend taking long showers and brainstorming new ideas but nothing that’s too distracting at this point. There will definitely be more to talk about soon I’m sure, as we start to come up with ideas. We’re definitely looking to continue the franchise let’s say that. There are no plans obviously but it’s an IP that we’re really proud of and huge fans of ourselves. We just want to keep being in that universe. It’s inevitable.

VideoGamer.com: Thanks for your time Cory.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is due out for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and PC on 5 September 2008.