Straight Shooter

Even without the song, it sounds like Battlefield: Bad Company is going to rock.
5/21/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Crispy Gamer: The game does have a multiplayer mode. How will that work?

Magnus: We have a brand-new mode called "Gold Rush," which actually has a thematic connection to the single-player story. In it, one side has to defend some crates full of gold, while the other side tries to take them, and if they take all of them, it expands the map, and there are more gold crates.

Crispy Gamer: Given that so many online gamers like the modes you find in most games -- "Deathmatch," "Team Deathmatch," "Capture the Flag," etc. -- why are you only doing "Gold Rush"?

Magnus: It's something we've always done, we've always just done the one multiplayer mode, though we always polish and tweak the hell out of it. We'd rather do that than just copy a bunch of other modes and stick them all together. But we've been doing an open beta of Bad Company lately, and one of the key messages we've been getting from our fans is that people are slightly pissed we didn't include "Conquest" [the "Capture the Flag"-esque mode from Battlefield 2], which actually surprised us. They like "Gold Rush," but they want "Conquest," as well. So what we're saying now is that we will deliver "Conquest" as a free download at some point after Bad Company comes out. We just don't know when it will be out yet because we're just starting to work on it.

Crispy Gamer: How many people can "Gold Rush" handle at a time?

Magnus: It's focused around 24 players.

Crispy Gamer: How many maps will there be at launch?

Magnus: We have eight maps.

Crispy Gamer: Will "Conquest" use the same maps, or will you have "Conquest"-specific maps?

Magnus: As I said, we haven't started working on "Conquest" yet, so we're not really sure how we're going to do it. We don't know if the same maps will work. We're also tossing around the idea of adapting some of the single-player maps.

Crispy Gamer: Well, you could also use maps from the "Conquest" mode from Battlefield 2, since a lot of people who'll be playing Bad Company won't have played Battlefield 2.

Magnus: Absolutely.

Crispy Gamer: I mentioned Frontlines earlier, but one of the first games to swipe the Battlefield idea was Star Wars: Battlefront. Is there anything that they ever did in those games that you guys wish you'd thought of? Aside from shooting Ewoks, of course.

Magnus: Yeah, that's always fun. I can't say that I've ever looked at those games and wished we'd come up with some feature in their game, but I love Star Wars, I grew up on Star Wars, so playing a game that has the basic Battlefield gameplay that we do, but with all the Star Wars stuff -- that was really, really cool. Walking around in one of those massive AT-ATs was great fun.

You know, actually, that's something they do really well, letting you pilot some massive vehicles.

Crispy Gamer: Well, you could do that, too. You'd just have to make a game set in the future.

Magnus: Right. Though we had aircraft carriers in Battlefield 1942 -- that was really cool. Maybe we should bring them back.

Crispy Gamer: There's still one thing I don't understand. Why didn't you guys get the song "Bad Company" for your game?