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FEATURE GAMES
Whether it is the heavy throb of an M60, the roar of an exploding Stinger, or the rapid
crack of a an AK47, the weapon audio in the Battlefield franchise has always eclipsed
its competitors. Battlefield Hardline heads to the JB shelves this month, and we spoke
with lead multiplayer designer Thad Sasser about capturing the bang.
How many guns will feature in Battlefield
Hardline ?
Battlefield Hardline has over 50 firearms
featured at release. This includes a number
of awesome new additions that match the
cops and robbers flavor of Hardline.
What's the selection criteria in terms
of weapons for a game like Battlefield
Hardline ? How do you determine what
guns will be used in the game?
That’s a good question! One thing we look at
is – does this weapon fit the setting? Things like
super-rare and hard-to-come-by fully automatic
Chinese weapons are not likely to be used by
US police forces, for example. Another factor
is the job of the weapon – we don’t want a lot
of weapons that all do the same thing. We also
consider appearance: does this weapon look
exactly like the other weapons we have in the
game? If so, its value is somewhat lower; most
players don’t want 20 variants of the AR-15 in
the game, even if it’s realistic. A final factor is
the fan popularity of weapons – if the players
love weapon X, Y, or Z, and it fits the other
criteria, it becomes much more important to put
in the game.
What considerations are taken in terms of
weapon balance? Do you use a specific
formula?
We start with a general philosophy that
guides us in our decision making – it’s
important to have constraints that players
can understand. For example, this class
of weapons is the best at THIS specific
job, that class of weapons does a different
job, etc. This is easy to understand when
you compare extreme roles like sniper vs.
shotgun, for example – but it’s more granular,
and you get into weapon roles like SMG vs.
carbine, where the differences are smaller but
still noticeable.
A good way to start thinking about initial
balance is that there is an “archetype” for each
weapon class. We develop that archetype first,
and then all weapons of that class diverge
from that baseline. This allows us to tune more
quickly and easily than having everything all
Lethal
weapons
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MARCH 2015 JB Hi-Fi