Battalion Wars 2 Interview

Although tactical shooter Battalion Wars II is out in the US already, us sorry Brits won’t be seeing the Wii title until next year. In part one of this interview series with Tancred Dyke-Wells, creative director of the game’s UK-based developer Kuju, VideoGamer.com chats lazy Wii developers, the power of Nintendo’s console and asks him exactly why we have to wait so long for his new game.

VideoGamer.com: Could you tell us a bit about your role with the game?

Tancred Dyke-Wells: Sure. For Battalion Wars 1 I was lead designer and art director. I was project creative director. That game came out of an original concept that we generated here at Kuju, that I had some key involvement in coming up with, which pre-dated Nintendo’s involvement. So it was really when Nintendo got involved, they saw the potential in this demo, this concept, for an action game in which you’ve got to command stuff, which was the essence of it, with the Advance Wars brand. So on the first one I was directing that project specifically.

My role on this one, I’m now studio creative director. I’m operating at a slightly higher, more superficial level, because I’m looking after other projects as well. But basically overseeing design, audio, scriptwriting, art direction and just the quality of the project generally.

VideoGamer.com: How long has it been in development?

TDW: That’s a painful question. I think it’s about two years.

VideoGamer.com: Why is it painful?

TDW: Because it’s slightly longer than we would have liked to be honest. The project has been extended. Nintendo have been quite rightly absolutely, what’s the word, stringent about quality. And we’ve spent a long period towards the end of the project just ironing out pretty much every issue that could be identified, and putting in those extra touches, like the ability to interrogate your speed, power and technique scores to get an impression of how you could do better. Adding little touches, little features here and there to just generally ensure the learning curve is smooth, that the user is brought into the game world in an appealing way and that it plays well basically.

VideoGamer.com: How does that happen?

TDW: Nintendo of Japan do come over and have made regular visits and sometimes they will stay for a week or so at a time and just play the game with us and go over the detail of it. We’ll work on areas of improvement basically.

VideoGamer.com: What’s that relationship like?

TDW: It’s very long standing. Long term relationships are really important with Japan. It is about building trust and it is about consistent performance over a long period. Since Battalion Wars 1 our relationship with Nintendo Japan goes back at least four years, if not five. We know each other pretty well. The group they’re from within Nintendo is focused on external development and working on foreign developers. So I think they’re used to a different way of doing things as well.

I think also there’s perhaps more cultural similarities between the Brits and the Japanese than people might realise. More so than the Japanese and the Americans. It’s a great relationship basically. And we have a couple of other things going on with Nintendo that I can’t really say much about. They’re not yet disclosed. But we do have other work in development with them. It’s an ongoing relationship.

VideoGamer.com: Why are UK gamers getting the game late?

TDW: That’s not something I can speak for Nintendo on. That’s not something that’s within our control. Obviously there’s a localisation process. Creating a PAL version, a further debug phase that’s involved in that, Europe will have even more stringent quality control than the US version. And getting the language support in there does take some time. But yeah, as for specifying the actual release dates, that’s not something Kuju has any control over.

VideoGamer.com: What are your feelings on the matter?

TDW: With this title it would have been nice to have a worldwide launch because we have an online mode where you can play Japan, you can play America and we’ve done that internally. I’m very confident about the experience that people are going to have doing that and the extent to which they’re going to enjoy it. So given that the online component is so important for it, it would have been nice to have a simultaneous launch across the globe. I guess it’s a sensitive area really.

VideoGamer.com: Is it frustrating to see the game handled outside your control?

TDW: Erm… (long pause). That’s a difficult question.

VideoGamer.com: I’m getting a sense that things weren’t handled as well as they could have been?

TDW: There are a couple of issues. With the US launch there were a couple of factors. There was some uncertainty over when the title would be completed owing to the extension of the project or the bug fixing and so on. That meant that perhaps, yeah… so the release in America, perhaps may have taken some consumers by surprise. But I think certainly in Europe it’s all good and hopefully there’s a great opportunity there for the game to reach as wide an audience as possible.

VideoGamer.com: What are some of the new features of the game you’re most proud of?

TDW: There were many things that we wanted to include in the first one that weren’t possible for reasons of time and scope. We also spent a lot of time trawling the forums, reading reviews and seeing what it was that people really wanted to see. Obviously one of the biggest things was the multiplayer. So we really tried to provide a comprehensive multiplayer mode this time around. You’ve got three modes of play, 16 different maps, just in multiplayer. Plus a single-player campaign which is about the same size as the original offering in Battalion Wars 1. So hopefully the value for money is really without question this time around. Also naval units, so extending the combat into three planes of war. So you’ve got interaction between land, sea and air.

You’ve got a more epic feel. You play across a greater period of history. You play as all these different armies instead of just playing as one army throughout. That was something we really wanted – let you see this conflict from all these different perspectives – players can play as the bad guys, the Iron Legion. And then the re-spawn facilities – the factories, the barracks the air bases, adding more depth to the strategic aspect to the game, particularly in multiplayer. I think those are the big ticket new features.

But there’s a host of graphical polish and little touches that we’ve managed to add in there. Everything from the detail on the map screen, the way the map behaves, to the communication system for co-op mode. Those are the big things.

VideoGamer.com: How satisfied are you with it? It’s your baby.

TDW: Yeah it is. An extended development period can be painful because it’s lots of late nights and it’s a lot of scrutiny applied to lots of very small issues. But ultimately if you get something that is very polished, feel very confident the consumer is really going to enjoy it and not find irritating flaws in it, then that’s all worth it.

I think we’ve got a Wii title with really high production values. You’ve got 15 minutes of pre-rendered cinematics. You’ve got a title that looks great but runs at a great frame rate, that runs lag-free online, that’s really fun. I’m actually really satisfied with it. Although it’s painful I’m really glad we had a chance to polish the heck out of it.

VideoGamer.com: It looks great for a Wii title. Is it pushing the Wii?

TDW: Yeah. We’re coming to this having been on GameCube, and rather than having to totally retool and go back to square one and try and figure out how to build characters, we’re basically taking technology we’ve got and enhancing it and optimising it still further. So, now all of our vehicles have got bump and specular mapping, we’ve got really nice water shaders, we’ve got light bloom, we’ve got distortion particles and heat haze on our explosions and so on, and we’ve got 60 little guys running around with explosions, tanks driving around kicking off all at the same time without the game slowing down. I think we are pushing the Wii. But the point of that hopefully is to provide a spectacular enjoyable game experience rather than just for the sake of it.

VideoGamer.com: Is it the most technically impressive game on the Wii?

TDW: I’ve just been playing Corruption and Galaxy so, I think that would be a bold claim. I think we’re up there, you know. But I don’t think that’s for me to make the assessment really. I think it’s for the consumer and you guys to make that assessment.

VideoGamer.com: Was it a deliberate effort?

TDW: Not for the sake of it. We didn’t want to make a technically impressive game, we wanted to make a great game. We wanted to make a game which had a great sense of spectacle and magnitude and an exciting place to be. In order to support the creation of that experience, sure you need strong technology. We do have some very senior, some very skilled guys who have been focused in particular on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo technology for a while now so hopefully we’ve been able to achieve that.

Check out part two of our interview with Tancred Dyke-Wells elsewhere on VideoGamer.com, where he talks about the power of the Wii and other developers.