World in Conflict: Massive Interview

Find out why the Swedes at Massive Entertainment think this might just be the most successful console strategy game yet.

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"We were mimicking respawn in first-person shooters," says Walfisz. "When you die, you respawn at some other location and you have to run to the front line again. We're doing exactly the same thing but in a strategy setting." There's more to this approach than you might immediately surmise.

World in Conflict uses a drop-in tack for multiplayer. Essentially, you can join a game at any time and just start playing. No need to fall further behind waiting for units to be created and deployed. Simply spend your credits and you're good to go.

Balance is another key component in strategy games, and it's something Massive has thought out thoroughly. While there are minor differences between the two superpowers, essentially you'll be able to do the same things whether you're playing as the US or the USSR.

Gameplay is centred on command points that are strewn around the battlefield. Each command point has sections to command, and once you control them all you control the command point. "There's no hard thing to balance because it really comes naturally from the gameplay flow," says Walfisz.

There are three main roles in World in Conflict, allowing you to specialize in air, armoured, or support forces. In singleplayer, you merely play through the game - there's no choice involved. For multiplayer, you'll be able to pick whichever you prefer. There was talk of introducing selectable roles in the singleplayer, but the team felt too constrained by the barriers imposed.

Something else the team thought of was to introduce microtransactions that would directly affect the gameplay, looking to Asia for guidance. "On top of introducing a different game experience - accessible but still different - introducing a new payment system would be too much," reckons Walfisz. Nobody wants to chase customers away. "If the gamers don't like it, it doesn't matter what payment system we have, they're not going to buy it anyway," he says.

And besides, Massive clearly isn't only going for those with money to burn. Evidence of this approach is in the humble system requirements. The developer's Masstech engine scales well, so last year's gaming PC won't be this year's doorstop.

"Being a Swedish developer, we realize very well that there are a lot of countries in Europe and around the world that do not have as high-spec [PCs] as we do in Sweden or the US or the UK," says Walfisz. "This was one of the reasons we made sure the engine was very scalable."

It's also transferable. Massive has recently confirmed that World in Conflict is coming to the Xbox 360 too. The decision was made easier by the style of the gameplay.

"World in Conflict is much more action-oriented and much more arcadey, and in that sense it's closer to the console gameplay style than any other RTS genre," says Walfisz.

"It could very well be the one strategy game that works on consoles."

World in Conflict is coming to PC and Xbox 360 in September.

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