El juego se lleva con mucho secreto pero puede ser una de las sorpresas del año. Un interesante juego masivo de acción con ambiente de espionaje, para PlayStation 3 y PC.

Aquí aparece una primera parte de una entrevista. Se centra principalmente en aspectos como la personalización de los personajes, y lo más destacable del texto es que confirma que habrá más que combates y combates, hay mucho que hacer sin necesidad de explotar el lado shooter.

[00G] When picking between the different bodies, what effect does that have on gameplay? Or is it looks only? [HM] Right now, it’s just looks. What we’re going for is to give people the ability to create an action figure with the look they want that has all the same options as everyone else. Separating the basic look from the gameplay keeps it easier for us to balance gameplay while not punishing people for pursuing the look they want. [00G] Tying into that, we didn’t see any attributes when building the character. Does the game use them? [HM] We decided to go really thin on visible attributes. So currently there aren’t really attributes the player has to be worried about up front. The attributes that we have are nested on the things you gain as you advance; generate reputation, influence, your alignment, outfits, weapons, gadgets, etc. This reveals complexity naturally over time, rather than drowning players in it up front. So, up front, players are not going to need to worry about strength versus intelligence, etc. Additionally, we are thinking of having background attributes that are associated with agents. Like generating a back story that might affect some hidden attributes that we’ll use behind the scenes to weight the Operatives you are exposed to and more. [00G] Again, that leads right into the next question. We’ve heard that weapons, outfits, and your overall rank are all part of advancement. Can you please explain advancement? [HM] There are essentially three areas that players are advancing on, outside of operatives: Rank, Title, and Items (weapons, etc). The first is their overall rank within the agencies. What that means is that as I complete missions, I gain experience, and that experience helps out my overall rank regardless of what outfit or specialty I took out in the field with me. As I go up in overall rank, I now have access to higher rank outfits, weapons, items, gadgets, etc. That feeds into specialties you use to complete those missions, which are essentially the roles, like Spec Ops specialty under Stealth. If you play as a Spec Ops character and complete missions, the experience that you gain towards your rank, you’re also earning towards a new title for that specialty. These titles represent access to new skills, and also act as prerequisites for certain gadgets or gadget effectiveness or weapon effectiveness. So players will be able to perform missions, increasing their overall rank while adding experience to the current specialty that they’re using. They’ll have six specialties that they can choose to play at any point and advance over time. That’s the core mechanic for advancing your agent. Finally, you’ll be improving your ability with weapons by using them. As you use a gun to kill a guy you’re going to gain experience towards your weapon’s family. Weapons families include pistols, shotguns, battle rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, etc. So if I’m using a low rank weapon, as I gain experience with that weapon I’m unlocking essentially badges or proficiencies within that tier. And as I unlock those proficiencies or badges, I’m actually gaining access to new passive and active skills. The cool thing about this system is, and this may be a little tricky to explain, because I’m so caffeinated, is that we wanted to create a system in which lower ranked weapons weren’t completely devalued at higher ranks. Because players can actually switch specialties and advance their higher rank over time, we wanted to provide incentive for players to go back and use lower ranked weapons. The way that that works is, say I’m the highest ranked agent that has access to the highest ranked pistols. Even if I’ve never used pistols before, I could grab the highest ranked pistol and start using it and get some of the benefits, slightly increased damage, and faster firing rate. As I use it, I’ll add use based experience within that tier, the high tier. Now some of the skills within that tier, I’ll be able to unlock, but some might be dependent on skills in an earlier tier as well. So that means that players using that high rank pistol, they may be cool with that, but then they see a skill that they can’t get unless they go back and use a lower rank weapon. For the player all of this will be mostly transparent, all they’ll know is get dressed, go play and get better. If they use a weapon, ding, oh look I gained a new badge, did that unlock a new skill? Yes it did, oh wait, I can’t use the skill because I never completed the lower ranked skills, so I can go back and play with that lower ranked weapon and gain the experience needed to access this higher level skill. You’ll need to crawl a bit before sprinting. However, because our game is not a straight linear power progression, a lower ranked weapon can be as effective as higher ranked weapons when using them in the field. We’re providing all these ways for players to get rewarding “dings”. When you actually tally it all up, there are hundreds of dings that players are going to be shooting for. It may sound complex, but it’s actually transparent when playing the game. All players know is that they’re not just working towards one monolithic ding for level, they’re actually able to level up their weapons, their specialty title, and their overall rank and more based on what they feel like focusing on that day. [00G] You mentioned that there are six specialties, what are they? [HM] Names may vary. Essentially there are two specialties per Combat, Stealth, and Support. For combat we have a weapons specialist and a tactical specialist. Weapons specialist can use all the weapons and is the best at them. Tactical is the combat guy you want to have up front to breach doors, to provide good suppression fire, etc. For Stealth you have two specialties, we have Spec Ops and Psy Ops (formerly known as Assassin). Spec Ops is about infiltration, disabling security, etc. Whereas Psy Ops is about manipulating enemy AI, confusing them, distracting them etc. Both will be particularly deadly if they sneak up without alerting AI (or another player). And then in Support we have the Field Tech and the Field Medic. And those have nice distinguishing features between them. The Field Tech can lay down turrets, custom check points, rehab certain features on a character like armor repairs, etc. A Field Medic is about reviving, adding/clearing buffs, etc. Both support roles are very capable with short and medium range weapons. [00G] I like Assassin, but then I’m not very PC. How do you pick which specialty you’re going to play? [HM] All players start with starting outfits that represent each of the specialties. When they’re at an agency facility they can look at each of those outfits, they can load them out with items, and they can choose to activate one of those outfits. When they do, that’s the outfit that they take with them to field. This decision would be based on the mission or activity they’ve decided to go on. Maybe you’re soloing and want to brute force your way through a mission, then take a combat role with you. Maybe you’re joining a team and want to help out with support, so you then pick a support role. Each role varies in the number and types of weapon and gadgets you can equip and the skills and abilities they imbue. So, review the stuff you want to do, equip the right specialty outfit and go have fun! [00G] Great stuff. Now we move on to something that you’ve been talking about, but we don’t know much about, Aliases. You’ve said that alias outfits, credentials, and influence control access to different places, ie. biker bars and high class casino’s. Can you please go into more detail on how this will work? [HM] When getting ready for a mission you equip your specialty role outfit that you want to take with you out in the field. At the same time you also get to equip the alias that you want to take with you out in the field. Alias outfits include formal wear and casual wear, so tuxedo versus, jeans and t-shirts. And they’re also specialty wear like chef outfits, plumber, mascot chicken, that kind of stuff. {Ed: you won’t find a mascot chicken outfit in my closet…really} So when I leave my agency facility I essentially have 2 outfits with me. I’ve got my main role outfit and my alias, and I’ll have a skill that I can use in safe locations to swap between the two. An alias outfit is very similar to a role outfit, except instead of weapon and gadget slots, it has accessory and credential slots. It’s the same interface when you look at both. Accessories are things you add to that alias that increase the alias rating, which I’ll get back to in a minute. Say you need to get in a nightclub to get close to some Bones members. You collect a club kid outfit, which is good for the nightclub, and you then might find an actual Bones necklace or belt that will accessorize the outfit. If you equip that you’ll get a bonus to your overall alias rating. You alias rating represents the effectiveness of the alias. This comes into play a little later. Credentials are the keys and consumables that you’ll be able to use to get into the secret party, past the guards at the bank or museum, etc. It’s all the kind of lying elements that you have. Of course I’m an FBI agent! JonnyG’s the name, here’s my ID. {Ed: name replaced to protect the guilty} Both accessories and credentials feed your overall alias rating. This rating is the overall effectiveness of this alias. Think of it as a type of health bar. As I’m roaming through the world, enemies are examining me and as they do so, they damaging my alias rating over time. This is non-combat gameplay that reinforces our secret agent gameplay. Although you don’t carry a weapon while in alias, you may have a poison accessory while using the alias in order to get close enough to a target..So, I get dressed up in my kick ass alias outfit to go infiltrate an enemy nightclub to try to talk to a contact that is going to point me to a secret access area to the boss’ office. I get into the nightclub while in my alias, my alias rating is visible to me on the screen. All the goons are staring at me, and each one that stares at me causes my alias rating to tick down over time. So I saunter over to the bar and do a drink action which stops the decay temporarily as I’m acting “natural”. Say I run through the nightclub, the alias rating will decay even faster as the goons are like “who’s this guy running through the club? Let’s take a look at him”. In this way, alias game play becomes a bit of a puzzle game for players. Can I actually make it through this club, talk to this guy, gain access to the secret elevator, to get me into a combat area where I can swap out into my role outfit to accomplish a mission? So that’s kind of the basics of aliases, if I want to gain access to locations and access to individuals, I’ll need to have the right alias, the right accessories, and the right credentials to make that happen. [00G] When the alias bar is going down, are there ways to raise it back up, or just to halt it’s decay? [HM] There are ways to bring it back up and to stop it. To stop it temporarily you can perform an alias action, based upon what alias you in, you can have a default action like writing on a clipboard. Another example was the drink action I mentioned earlier, you’re in the bar, guys are checking you out, you walk over to the bar and take a drink and it lowers how suspicious people are of you. It’s basically: How do you act natural in these environments? That’s how you slow down the decay. To make it go back up you have to get out of the AI’s perception area. So basically if you can avoid getting seen by an AI, say you duck into the bathroom, you might be able to wait there and have your alias recharge. Kind of like how health recharges when you don’t take damage. We’re playing with a couple different mechanics there. But that’s the basic idea behind it. What we wanted it to be was a direct analog to combat. If someone shoots at you, your health goes down, if you get out of range of the bullets, your health regenerates. If someone is staring at you, your alias rating goes down, if you get out of sight, it regenerates. [00G] Is the alias rating tied to specific people or is it more general? [HM] Right now we have it tied to enemy factions or AI’s that would not be happy to find out that you’re a UNITE agent sneaking into their establishment. We have some other ideas tied around players, but I cannot talk about that until it’s proven. [00G] You’ve mentioned an intel camera for taking pictures of handoff’s, liason’s, etc. How is this used in the game? What benefits does it give? [HM] So intel is a pretty big system. There will be visual intel, physical intel, and maybe another type which I’m not going to mention. You generate visual intel by bringing out your camera and taking pictures of events or objects that are going to highlighted when you look through the view finder. That means that A) I see a teddy bear with a gun sticking out of it’s stomach, “I bet that’s an intel object that I’ve never seen before”, I take a picture and get credit for it. B) I see a liason between two people, I bring up my camera, “Hey look that’s an intel object!”, take a picture of it and get credit. What does this mean? Well, the intel can include finding physical intel, packages, microfiche, etc. This intel can then be analyzed by operatives and converted into things like unlocking a new mission, a monetary reward, or it may turn into schematics that lead to crafting weapons, objects, gadgets, technology. So, the entire world becomes this explorable space where you’re taking pictures of stuff and then checking if that intel can be analyzed by operatives to turn into something special. At the top level, it’s an achievement mechanic, you walk around the world fishing for stuff that you’ve never seen before. But as you begin to explore it, it turns into one of the most vital elements for operatives, and for advancing or opening up side missions for players. As well as some other fun affects which we’ll go into another time.    Intel is one of the non-combat activities I’m really excited about. As opposed to having to build non-stop combat, combat, combat, which players would eat up in no time flat, there’s much more to do in the world. Another example are the follow activities we’re building. We have follow missions that we’re designing where, if you’re by yourself, you’ll be able to get a bronze on most of them. A simple example is tailing a guy as he’s performing drop offs, dead drops, or meeting with contacts. Taking pictures of him when he hits certain spots. But that guy may eventually get too far ahead of you, or to an area where you can’t conceal yourself properly. This is where joining up with friends helps. So, if you have a team of four, the four of you can split up into space, get set up where you know he’s going to be walking and score a gold rating by getting credit for tracking all of his stops. Once again it’s another non combat mechanic that’s essentially using a shooting mechanic and supports more than just one player. It’s pretty fun stuff. [00G] How do you get the best goods? Operatives only? Mission rewards? Agency R&D? [HM] The majority of the stuff that you’re going to get is based on completion of missions and the ratings that you get. So if you get a bronze on a mission, you’re going to get basic items, basic operatives, and enough experience to advance the story. If you get a gold, you’ll get rarer items, rarer operatives, and even more experience. As you advance, Operatives will then be able to craft even better objects for you. Or at least superior objects that the ones you get for just base mission completion. Agency R&D ties back into that, crafting is all couched within operatives. The resources that you’ll provide operatives are essentially intel and cash. And some other things were working on right now in regards to facilities, etc. So, if I want to get the best gun ever, odds are that I may not get that from a mission. I may have to track down the intel that unlocks the schematics, that unlocks the blue prints for the golden gun, that my operatives can now spend a few days working on for me.