Battle Rage

[MarketTantrik]

BATTLE RAGE

[MarketTantrik]

Play Magazine interviews Destan Entertainment, devs of Battle Rage

 

From Play Magazine

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Everybody loves arena robot combat, and Polish developer Destan Entertainment is among the amorous. Their next title, produced of behalf of Teyon Games, is the rather generically-named Battle Rage, a third-person shooter for Xbox 360 and PC. In Battle Rage, up to four players can blast each other’s giant robots using custom melee and ranged attacks in brutal skirmishes across reactive arenas. While the game is still quite early, a few members of the team pitched-in to answer our Q&A, addressing all the pertinent details you need to know about Battle Rage. Thanks to Katarzyna at Teyon for reaching the sheltered Destan team.

 

 

play: Giant robots in the future! What time period is Battle Rage set in?

 

Destan staff: The story is set in the end of the 21st century when colonization of other planets fails because of repeated mistakes from the past by humans. The remains of this colonization era are ruins of splendid space cities and giant robots, called Shells, used for the heaviest work.

 

The only entertainment for a failing and bored society is the TV broadcast called Battle Rage, where convicts armored with Shells fight each other in order to achieve money, freedom and respect—not necessarily in that order.

 

play: How will you present the story and background of these convincts to players throughout the game?

 

Each of the competitors has his or her own reasons for entering the tournament. A player will get to know all the stories and characters’ motivations within the progress of the game, mostly from the dialogues that transpire between the colorful cast of convicts. To reveal all the dark secrets of Battle Rage’s participants, a player has to finish the game as every one of them.

 

play: Presuming a lot of the action takes place in locations on Earth, what is the condition of the planet and combat environments in Battle Rage’s far flung future?

 

We’re talking about Earth wounded by many wars. Earth suffering from an enormous crime rate. Earth that has lost hope for a better future. Many cities are completely destroyed; only a few remain, but in very bad condition, partially leveled to the ground. The ruins swarm with various gangs and criminal factions, while better kept parts are populated with wealthy debauched dwellers who don’t care about the situation and don’t want to rebuild the old world. The battle arenas are mainly located in demolished and unused areas which were isolated and adopted to the tournament conditions.

 

play: Tell us about the game’s 3D engine and how it helps your gameplay design. You probably support all the big shader buzzwords, but what you are doing with your engine to enhance expression in the world and characters?

 

Of course all modern shader effects are supported by our Destan engine. To create a more flexible and interactive environment, we use a really advanced physics system. Thanks to it, some elements on the maps can be totally demolished, while destroying the Shells looks realistic, part by part, thanks to our new type of ragdoll system for robots.

 

play: We’re curious about the beat ‘em up elements in Battle Rage. How agile are the Shells? Are you aiming for satisfying twitch controls like Virtual On-style games, but with fighting moves like combos, blocks and special attacks?

 

The game descends from arcade roots, so our robots move very swiftly, are agile in combat--they don’t step deliberately, majestically like those in Mechwarrior. The gameplay is aimed at using ranged weapons with melee weapons as a support, so we won’t have sophisticated melee battle mechanics, for example, like a Virtua Fighter game. If an opponent gets too close to a player or recklessly comes to the edge of the arena, for example, the best way to hurt him is to use a few short combinations of your Shell’s best punches. Hits can be blocked with an energy shield. As for special attacks, a robot will have a Rage-meter gauge which fills with every successful attack and also damage taken. When it reaches the maximum level, a player can perform one extraordinarily powerful attack with his or her melee weapon. It’s called Rage. And of course we have the possibility of controlling a robot with a gamepad.

 

play: How much focus is being applied to tactical shooting elements? Will players be able to tweak their Shell’s load-out, a la Armored Core?

 

As mentioned, the ranged weapon combat system is the main element of Battle Rage’s gameplay, so it is natural that we focus on this part. A complex system of customizing the robots’ parameters allows users to adjust weapon statistics to their preferred battle style. This part will look more like elements from RPG games. The player will have a limited amount of points that could be spent on upgrading the robots’ abilities and efficiency of weapons. For example, if the player chooses to play a well armored and slow, but more powerful robot, or the faster and quicker shooting one, he can set the parameters to do so. The same possibility will appear in the multiplayer mode. The player can tweak parameters for his own playing style which means that even identical robots won’t behave the same in the battle.

 

play: Do you have any creative weapons planned, and what sort of unique fire fights should players expect?

 

We will have lots of cool weapons for the players to choose from. Two unique types of weapons are assigned to each robot at a time: ranged and melee. Ranged weapons have finite ammo that can be resupplied by ammo clips found on the map. Additionally, there are some very powerful weapon pick-ups like the guided missile launcher, a screaming hot minigun or a heavy laser. The player can only find them on the map and they are common for all robots. They have enormous fire power, but the amount of ammo is limited and cannot be replenished. When the player releases his last bullet, that weapon disappears. There will be three triggers, one for each weapon type, to spare the player valuable seconds wasted on switching weapons.

 

play: Will the mechs be able to use the environment (walls, barriers, etc.) for cover fire gameplay?

 

Our arenas will have elements that provide a cover for robots, sure, but face-to-face combat is always preferred to simply hanging back. With the tempo of our battles, a better tactic is using the energy shield to deflect bullets or doing strafe jumps to dodge them.

 

play: How many different playable robots are you planning?

 

We will start you off with 8 diversified robots and an additional 16 to unlock in the story mode. Obviously all our robots will differ in weapons and statistics.

 

play: Is Battle Rage going to be more of a single-player campaign, or a multiplayer fragfest? As it offers both, which one will have the most development time dedicated to it?

 

The single player and the multiplayer modes have the same meaning to us, so we’re spending almost equal amounts of time developing them. Actually, the multiplayer mode is nearly finished, so now we really focus on a complete single player story mode for Battle Rage.

 

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