id Software Interview - June 2009

We catch up with Steve Nix, Director of Business Development at id Software, on topics including iPhone development, Wolfenstein and idTech 5.

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Kikizo: So has John had any input into how idTech 4 has been brought up by Raven?

Nix: Not since really the early days of, you know, here's the direction of the technology and what we want to do. The team at Raven is so confident, and we've been working with them for so long, that of any developer on the planet they're not going to need a lot of hand holding when it comes to the technology.

Kikizo: Is there any update on timings for idTech 5 and Rage at the moment then?

Nix: Nah, typical id title - "when it's done" - we don't even have an idea yet!

Kikizo: OK, so back to Wolfenstein. There really is an incredible amount of noise out there with FPSes right now. What are the selling points with Wolfenstein?

Nix: Well Wolfenstein 3D created the first person shooter genre, so first and foremost it's important that it be a really excellent, fast action first person shooter. But we also need to modernise it; we can't keep making the same game over and over. So what we did is several things, but the primary thing is the Veil. The Nazis are trying to harness this power called the Black Sun, to allow them to create a weapon of unlimited power. In between the Black Sun and this world, is an alternate reality called the Veil. B.J. [Blazkowicz, the main character] has found these crystals in this town of Eisenstat, which is the only place they're at on earth, and that allows him to have four Veil powers, things like slowing down time, a shield which in its base form protects you from enemy bullet fire, and there's a kinetic enhancement that allows you to shoot through cover, and there's a mode that allows you to move slightly faster and see enemies in the dark, and ultimately when it's powered up you can see enemies through walls. Every Veil power also has upgrades to it that almost in some cases are like entirely new powers.

Not only do you have the Veil powers, but there's also... well, in the original Wolfenstein game and in the Return of Castle Wolfenstein, finding treasure and gold in the world was a lot of fun, but ultimately didn't mean a lot for the game. In this game, those things are very important, because there's an economic system, where you can actually find intelligence in the world which unlocks weapon upgrades, and then once you've unlocked weapon upgrades you can go to one of the factions in the game which is the black market, and you can purchase upgrades for weapons - so it gives the player a lot of choice in how they want to play the game. If you're the type who likes to be stealthy and slow, you can buy the sniperscope, you could buy a silencer, and you can go through the game picking off enemies from afar and being very sneaky. But if you're the run-and-gun type guy, you can just say right, I'm going to get my MP-43, I'm gonna get the Big Bore attachment, which does a lot more damage, get a giant clip, and run through rooms guns blazing and making a lot of noise. There's also upgrades available for all the sci-fi weapons as well, and you can upgrade your Veil powers as well. So it really is about choice, and all in an interrelated system with the treasure, the weapon upgrades and with the different factions and the way you interact with them during the game.

Kikizo: Interestingly, the multiplayer is being handled by a separate studio. Can you tell us about the decision behind that?

Nix: Yeah, the multiplayer is being done by Endrant Studios in the UK. You know, games these days are pretty involved and big, and we really wanted Raven to be able to focus on creating an incredible single-player experience. We had some experience with working with the team from Endrant from some of their prior jobs basically. They were familiar with the technology and it just made a lot of sense for them to pursue the multiplayer, so that we didn't feel like Raven were spread too thin on it.

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