STACK #160 Feb 2018

GAMES

FEATURE

Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Sonic and Knuckles Mass Effect 3: Citadel Fallout 4: Far Harbor Red Dead Redemption:

World ofWarcraft

Undead Nightmare

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Shivering Isles

closely match the voice and capture the spirit of the character.” You may well be wondering if there's a point during development that the devs decide there’s just too much for extra downloadable content, and decide to create a fully- fledged release? “In my opinion, the role of DLC is not to create a brand new game – it

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – Horse Armour TigerWoods PGATour 13: Golden Courses Asura’sWrath: The ‘Real’ Ending Street Fighter III: Colour Packs

Ghost Recon: Narco Road

is to propose something fresh in the main game’s broader setting,“ says Ubisoft’s Dumaz. “However, our approach for Ghost Recon Wildlands has been to try something new for both our DLCs, to explore the main game’s large possibilities. “With Narco Road we went into uncharted territory and used the main game’s systems and fantasy to build something around the fantasy of '90s action movies. We think that Narco Road works well as a standalone, and Fallen Ghosts is the perfect mirror to that. It is based on Ghost Recon’s traditional values of tactics, choice and constant danger. So even if we feel that both our DLCs work on their own, our plan has always been to build this triangle: the main game is the larger experience, with all its diversity, and both DLCs are focused experiences on the game’s very large spectrum of play styles.” The big question – when is it decided if this

directly creating new content for every update, we use patches as an opportunity to fix bugs across all departments and generally polish existing content as well.” Much in the same vein, feedback is equally important to Blizzard. Day specifically mentions the use of the PTR – public test realm – as a means of testing content and interpreting feedback. “Our team is quite large. We are not only passionate developers, but also gamers, so we get feedback both internally and externally that we take into consideration.” For games thick with lore that have been in existence for years, creating new content can occasionally mean bringing back old voice talent for new lines. Is that challenging to facilitate? “It certainly can be!” Day tells us there are many factors that can affect an actor’s ability to perform as their character. “Throughout the history of WoW, we’ve recorded thousands of characters in 11 different languages, so there is a lot of voice talent who have been involved with the project. Sometimes they’ve left the industry and moved to a remote location; sometimes their voice has changed as they’ve gotten older. There are also a variety of normal human factors that can impact their ability to reprise their roles. "In the event that it isn’t

will be free content (a la games like Overwatch ) or large drops of paid ‘expansions’ (the model for WoW)? Ubisoft reveals it's a complicated approach, and one the company does not tackle lightly. “The post-launch strategy can be very complex and is generally defined two years before the release of the game. It’s a production discussion with many people including artists, content specialists and business people.” When, though, do you decide enough is enough, and move on to the next project? “We have a variety of internal milestones to measure progress on content and features,“ offers Day. “When we reach those, our teams – or certain sub-teams – are generally considered ‘done’ with their work. That said, our iterative process and commitment to quality means that there are often additional tweaks, bug fixes and polishing happening right up until the day we go live.”

feasible to get an actor back to the booth, we go through every effort to recast the role with someone who can

Ghost Recon: Fallen Ghosts

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