Let's get the obvious out of the way — these games make serious dough.

"Business leaders have an opportunity to... reverse an alarming trend of not recognizing the sacrifices made by the men and women of our military service," CEO Robert Kotick tells Victor Godinez at the Dallas Morning News. Business leaders also have the opportunity to make a gajillion dollars on the backs of those sacrifices.

But, that's being jaded — perhaps too jaded. Video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare have not been critical of the military like many war films of this past decade have. What's more, war, for better or worse, is an ideal setting for a video game. There's conflict, shooting, objectives — the laundry list goes on and on.

As Godinez points out, video games are filling that gap left by Hollywood.

"The last Brothers in Arms video game," developer Randy Pitchford says, "if that was a movie shot in live action, could never exist because it would cost a billion dollars."

Video games take command of war epics as movies retreat from recent conflicts [Dallas Morning News]

In the more than 15 years since the introduction of the first-person shooter genre, and nearly 10 since tactical shooters came on the scene, the progressive immersion in one's environment has represented the cutting edge of these games.

Designers, artists and staff of three shooter developers - Guerrilla Games, which just put out Killzone 2; Gearbox Software, of the Brothers in Arms franchise, and Call of Duty's Infinity Ward - were gracious enough to speak with Kotaku about the increasingly complex set design and art direction of these kinds of combat-based first-person shooters. There's an art to war, after all, and this is theirs.

Setting the Table

Set design for a battlefield, whether for a film or a video game, presents a unique demand - the scene must make sense. It can't conflict with or present inconsistencies in the story at large. And in the case of a video game, it will need to advance the story. Building all that in to a combat scene is a tall order, because the environment is typically one that has seen action and destruction before the player's arrival.

"We did heavy research to bring the battles from the history books to the Brothers in Arms games," said Dorian Gorski, a level design director for Gearbox Software, which developed the Brothers in Arms tactical shooter franchise. War diaries and after action reports from World War II, along with period photographs, especially aerial shots if they were available, formed a basis for the designers' understanding of what had already taken place in the world they were depicting. Where they had missing information, modern photographs and first-hand visits to the battlefield helped fill in the gaps.

But "once you have completed the research, building the world presents its own set of challenges," says Gearbox's Erik Doescher, a level design producer. "Historical accuracy does not always translate into good gameplay. The scale and the scope of an area are often the first things that need to be changed. At this point, ‘research' transitions into ‘inspiration,' and we draw in this knowledge to enhance the game spaces, rather than the other way around.

But for a combat FPS not based in history, it requires a deeper understanding of times and events the developer already is making out of whole cloth. Being freed from historical constraints can help simplify a level's critical path - but it also requires a developer to build a foundation that makes sense.
"You have a lot more creative freedom to do whatever you want - as long as it fits," said Jan-Bart Van Beek, the art and animation director of Guerrilla Games, developer of Killzone and the just-released Killzone 2. "At the same time, nothing comes for free. We can't just go into a war book and pick out weapons."

For science-fiction combat FPSes, even placing "something as simple as a bucket of sand" in the corner of a room requires a designer to ask and answer - even if it's a simple answer - how and why the object got there, and why it looks the way it does. But, apply those questions to a weapon and the level of complexity is "enormous," Van Beek said.

"For each weapon in Killzone 2, it went through three or four iterations at the paper design stage," Van Beek said. "That's two months of work. Add in modeling and animation, and in total it's about four months per weapon." There are 60 "gun-based" weapons in Killzone 2, and all of them required this level of effort, Van Beek said.

Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward, which developed Call of Duty (and sequels 2 and Modern Warfare) agrees that building a combat FPS, even in a setting that isn't literally correct, is easier than inventing an entirely new landscape. Reference photos are plentiful and help lay a quick foundation.

However, futuristic FPSes have an advantage over historical ones: identifying the enemy. There's no disputing the look of the Helghast, for example.. Call of Duty, of course, features all-human combatants. that, if rendered with full historical accuracy, could be difficult to distinguish from friendlies, especially at longer ranges.

"We put a lot of focus on color and silhouettes of the characters' design, giving them very distinct weapon loadouts and gear that will change the way they appear," Bowling said. "For example, you can easily identify an enemy as a combatant when a rocket-propelled grenade is on their back, or is wearing a specific headgear." The design accounts for distinguishing characteristics that are identifiable from scale distances of 100 to 300 yards away.

"This is just an evolution of character design," Bowling said. "Whereas Mario wore overalls to distinguish his body, legs, and arms from his head, and his mustache was used to distinguish his noce fro his face, we use these details to distinguish characters from their environments and from friendly AI."

But even one's own continuity can create artistic design problems. Killzone's original story had the Helghast - essentially mutated humans - fighting offworld, outside of the toxic environment to which they had adapted. That condition was ostensibly the reason for the fascist, mechanized look of their combat armor, which made them readily identifiable. The story said they wore the breathing apparatus to replicate their native atmosphere, poisonous though it was.

Flash forward to Killzone 2. The story calls for a human invasion of Helghan, their homeworld. And yet with the game so unmistakably marked by the Helghast's breathing masks and yellow eyes, Guerrilla had to figure out a way to make that look make sense in an environment where, according to the original, it would be unnecessary.

"They were the icon and the brand identity of this game," Van Beek said. "But, we never directly explained why they wear the masks, so as you go along, you have to change your own canon. The current universe lore is that the gas masks carry combat drugs, adrenaline boosters, that type of thing. It's more of a feeding mechanism."

Coloring it In

Each leap forward in technology and graphic and gameplay capabilities has delivered a new set of expectations - from both a game's players and in its designers. The result has been increasing complexity of design, increasing budgets, team size and development cycles and an increasing specialization in the artists and designers who render these environments.

"During the prototype phase we found that developers found different ways to make the best use of the new tools, extra memory and processor power (made available by the next generation of consoles," said Mike Wardwell, a director at Gearbox. "Almost naturally, people found their niche, and the result was heavier specialization. For the last generation one level designer could handle a map from start to finish - including art placement, lighting and scripting. Now there is more art to be made, the tools are more complex, and the quality bar is higher."

In other words, each succeeding generation is providing games with their closeup, and they had best be ready for it.

"A lot of the focus is on how we can use other elements, and not just high poly counts, to add detail and realism to the look of our characters and environments," said Infinity Ward's Bowling. "That's where a lot of focus on the lighting of your game comes into play - that's the quickest way from going to a good looking game to a photorealistic game."

That's lighting and contrast. The criticism of color in an FPS has lately almost become cliché, but it does have a point - that the depiction of devastation and depletion on a battlefield trends toward dead colors, earthtones, or desaturated, monochromatic themes.

"There is a certain amount of armchair observation there," said Guerrilla's Van Beek. "The color palette has to fit the game and the tone and the atmosphere you're trying to create. We wanted to go for a grimy and somber palette (in Killzone 2) because we felt it was a little more cinematic. But if you look at war movies, they also depict the world in a less saturated way. It's not necessarily about getting realism in there, it's really what sort of image you're trying to convey."

Jeramy Cooke, a director at Gearbox, thinks the monochromatic criticism is more a reaction to "design-by-copying" in a saturated FPS market. That said, bringing in an object of a vibrant primary color with an engine that doesn't represent it well is going to be a poor choice, because it'll be perceived as poor graphics. Conversely, a scene filled with shades of a similar color will make players less likely to perceive small flaws in the lighting. Whatever the case, "Simply 'doing what you saw in a movie' will always feel a bit empty," he said, "because it has no real purpose other than to copy."

Stil, in the end, the key to a game's art, and color, and design and direction is much like that of a film. It's sorting out the most important elements, without getting sucked into conceptualizing, justifying and then finally creating details that don't advance the story. "If you put enough time into these things you really can do anything," Van Beek said. "Ultimately you have to make choices about what you want. You have to pick your battles."

Control is via a 'fire' icon and a touchable movement circle, that at least looks like it might be a bit more analogue than a fake D-Pad and which changes according to whether you are on foot or in a vehicle. The accelerometer comes into play too as a natural way of lobbing grenades at your foes. (Be sure to hold on tight, lest you lose your precious phone)

During the 3 campaigns in Normandy, Ardennes & Tunisia you will use bazookas, machine guns sniper rifles and grenades, drive a Sherman Tank and a Jeep and die in a hail of bullets. A lot.

First Look Video at ‘Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes’ [Touch Arcade]

We've heard from multiple sources that Gearbox Software has laid off a number of its employees today, with lower than expected sales of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway being blamed for the cutbacks. Estimates for those affected range from as little as 15 to as many as 26 staffers, on top of the 15 to 20 let go earlier in the month. Another factor said to be contributing to staff reductions by one source was the alleged cancellation of Gearbox's Aliens project for Sega.

Aliens: Colonial Marines was announced in 2006 as one of two games using the Aliens license that would be published by Sega. The project has been relatively quiet since then, with Sega dropping details on the first-person shooter in February of 2008 and a teaser trailer sneaking out in the early Fall. The title was planned to ship at the end of 2008 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, but retailers are currently listing it for a mid-2009 release.

The second Aliens project, a role-playing game, is in development at Obsidian Entertainment.

According to an anonymous source, Sega has cut funding on the Colonial Marines project amid concerns that the project couldn't be delivered on time and on budget. Gearbox is said to have shifted its development focus to Borderlands, the open world sci-fi shooter it is working on for 2K Games.

We haven't confirmed any of this with Sega or Gearbox yet, but are actively attempting to do so. While it sounds suspicious that Sega would nix the game this late in development, it wouldn't be unheard of. Consider the updates on Aliens as well as Gearbox's staffing situation as rumor for now. We'll update when we hear more.

Update: Gearbox president Randy Pitchford provided the following statement:

In 2005, after having a lot of success with games from Half-Life: Opposing Force to Halo on the PC to our original Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, we embarked upon a strategy where opportunity in the industry and the ambition of key talent here was driving a lot of growth for us. The strategy has been amazingly transformative for us. We’ve been growing *very* fast – more than doubling in size between 2007 and 2008 and outpacing general industry growth in staff and revenue by an order of magnitude. This growth has catapulted us to become one of the most powerful independent studios in the world.

Our mission has always driven us to always want to strive to do better and better. Our experience has never been greater and we love applying our experience to the benefit of our games. Over the last six weeks, we’ve been adjusting our internal strategy to move from being about Opportunity, Ambition and Growth to a strategy that is oriented towards Quality, Focus and Performance. A number of recent tactical decisions here are a reflection of this new commitment and strategy. The timing of these tactical decisions relates more to natural maneuvering that all studios should only consider after they finish a big effort than anything else. I know there is a tendency in the press to get the maximum value out of a story, but unless we have a *lot* more fans that are *much* more rabid about what we are doing than I thought we did, I don’t imagine there to be much of an exciting story here after all.

But, since we do seem to be getting some attention this evening and I am flattered by that and I may as well use the attention. While our commitment to focus and quality may slow the speed of our growth in numbers, we are, in fact, currently hiring. We have exciting, exciting things going on that offer tremendous opportunity for us and our interest is for the best talent in the world to join us and be a part of it. Borderlands is shaping up to be astonishingly fresh and I am very excited to reveal more about that soon, Aliens: Colonial Marines is very exciting and I look forward to the right moment we can more fully unveil our efforts there and we have other incredible unannounced projects in development and a lot of opportunity for the future – a future I am increasingly excited about.

We attempted to clarify with Pitchford the status of the Aliens: Colonial Marines project. He told us that, yes, the game is still in production but couldn't provide an update on its ship date.

"But I will say that I am as eager as anyone for us to reach the point where we should reveal it with more detail," Pitchford added.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Suffers Delay, Limited Edition Revealed [Shacknews]

She and I talked about a post that would highlight new comics based on new games: stuff like Dead Space, Gears of War and Brothers in Arms. I figured she'd cover five or six of them. But Tracey's the kind of video game writer who makes a post considering the greatest cats in video game history and lists more than 50 felines.

Now she delivers a breakdown of 31 video game-based comics present and past, with pretty pictures, info and some jokes.

Funny thing is that I'm a big comic book reader and a serious gamer — but I never read any of these. You?

Our Giant Guide To Video Game Comics [My day-job blog]

There are some screens after the jump, too.

From the trailer we can see this game intends to impress upon us the bonds formed by soldiers, as well as the real confusion and blood-pumping terror that attends to live combat. There's a quality of suffering in the fighting scenes that is painstakingly detailed, down to a stray round dislocating someone's fingers. It sounds engrossing, and I love period pieces and historically accurate simulations. But could I feel good about myself telling someone I had a hell of a time playing this game? Dunno.

There's a huge list of rumored and confirmed features on the game's Wiki. And here are 5 more screens.

"Thing I love about Kotaku is that you just don't care," says Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford. (Not sure if we don't care per se, but rather, that we care a little too much.) It's a few days before Christmas, and he is showing me around Gearbox's Texas HQ that occupies the top four floors of a suburban Dallas high-rise. Pitchford is open and upfront. Want to take a picture of a wall with concept art? Sure. The dev opened up its doors and showed us pretty much everything it could. Gearbox, best known for the Brothers in Arms series and the Halo: Combat Evolved PC port, is poised for a breakout year in 2008 when the company brings Dreamcast title Samba de Amigo to the Wi, puts out original FPS Borderlands and a new entry into the Brothers in Arms tactical shooter series. With its pedigree Borderlands makes perfect sense. But Samba?

"We're huge Samba fans. Huge Dreamcast fans," Pitchford tells me. "We totally told SEGA they had to let us do it. People want a Samba Wii game." SEGA consented, and Gearbox dove in trying to squeeze the max potential out of the Wii-mote. Sure, Nintendo is making tons of money with the Wii. Third party devs haven't been as rewarded for Wii innovation. Case in point: Capcom's Zack and Wiki, which posted embarrassingly poor sales figures. Pitchford does point out that SEGA has hit with Mario and Sonic at the Olympics — though, that game *does* feature Mario. Still, Pitchford is optimistic.

"Third parties are doing alright with the Wii if they spend the right amount of money and time," he says. "People bought the Wii for the promise of the Wii Remote."

While, the Dreamcast version of Samba de Amigo has specially designed maraca peripherals, Gearbox has the challenge of turning the Wii-mote into, well, maraca peripherals. Here's the challenge: The Wii-mote itself is high tech, while the Nunchuk Wii peripheral is not. Sure, it does have a three-axis accelerometer, but still isn't the same level of technology that's in the Wii Remote. What's more, the Wii-mote doesn't always know where it is in space. It knows it's been moved, but positioning it can be tricky. So getting the Wii-mote and the Nunchuk to input the same? Or what about making it so players can use two Wii-motes instead of a Wii Remote and a Nunchuk? Not easy! "It's possible," Pitchford explains. "You just need a lot of smart people who can do a lot of math." Attitudes like that (and only attitudes like that) will keep the Wii out of the third party hobo gutter.

Not exactly what you'd expect from a company that cut its teeth on WWII tactical shooters. "Steven Spielberg told me he really thought the Brothers in Arms series had beautiful graphics," Pitchford says. The upcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is more accessible than previous its titles and better looking. "If I had to guess, it's 15-20 percent more high def than Gears of War," he says. Don't expect a Portal type add-on game bundled with Hell's Highway, but the concept of that added content is appealing to Gearbox. "It's added value," Pitchford says. "Like at the beginning of Pixar movies. They have those little shorts, which give them an opportunity to experiment and try out different things. I don't know if we'll have time to do something like that before Brother in Arms: Hell's Highway ships, but definitely before the generation is over."

Gearbox points to historical and military accuracy as to what separates Brothers in Arms from other shooters. The market is clogged, choked with WII shooters — so much so that dev Infinity Ward took the World War II out of World War II shooter Call of Duty in the latest installment in the series. "The Call of Duty guys makes great shooters, but they're just Quake dressed up in World War II. There are no characters in it I remember. There isn't deep historical accuracy. It's just a really fun shooter." Going as far as to employee a military officer for consulting and use WWII aerial surveillance maps for creating in-game maps, Gearbox isn't pussyfooting around.

While Gearbox ponders ways to keep WWII real for gamers, it's taking a major step with original IP Borderlands. The FPS took inspiration from movies like Mad Max and Raiders of the Lost Ark and even TV shows like Firefly and Deadwood. It's set in the future on a large planet that rotates so slowly that it takes something like one hundred hours to turn once. The season is spring and things are coming out of hibernation. Characters are class based with a solider, a hunter and a magician. Players can level up their characters and go on side quests. Sound like a RPG? "In the beginning of Halo, Master Chief is the same as he is at the end," says Pitchford. "Sure, the story has changed, but the character hasn't." Leveling up the characters in Borderlands does change them. "The coolest thing about games like World of Warcraft is leveling up your character and then going to up to band of weaker players and totally destroying them," he says. The game allows for up to four player co-op that allows new players to enter and leave on the fly. Also, it's possible to play with characters of different levels in co-op and even level-up your own characters in co-op. Not only will this sort of leveling up change the playing field in Borderlands, but guns. Lots and lots of guns.

Borderlands features an in-house Gearbox created weapons sequencer that can produce up to a half a million different weapons — all with different names, appearance, properties. "Imagine any cool weapon you've ever wanted in a game," Pitchford says. "Borderlands has it." The sequencing means that players will most likely never see the same weapon twice. Ever. Gearbox doesn't seem concerned about the possibility of there being one single weapon that is more powerful than anything else in the game. "If there's a gun that can break the game, why would we limit that?" he says. Do you think there is a gun that can break the game? "I don't know," he says. "I guess we'll find out." Gearbox doesn't care either way. Or maybe, it just cares too much.

President Gearbox Randy Pitchford stated, "Almost every developer can point to comic books as an influence and inspiration in making games. To say we're delighted to be working with Dynamite Entertainment would be an understatement...I expect that the Brothers in Arms comic series will be an extremely high quality book."

Details of the writers and artists are secret as of right now, but seeing some of the talent Dynamite has drawn in (mmm, Frank Cho) I expect it to be a top-notch book that hearkens back to the golden days of war comics. Then again I am just a big old comic geek so what do I know? I'll just wait for the details. Michael Fahey

Dynamite Entertainment to Produce Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Comic Series

June 14, 2007 Runnemede, NJ - Gearbox Software, Inc. and Dynamite Entertainment are proud to announce the signing of an agreement that will allow for Dynamite to create a new comic book series based on the characters and story of the upcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway video game! The agreement allows Dynamite to draw upon any and all previous Brothers in Arms franchise video games' story lines to develop story lines for the comic series.

Brothers In Arms is based on the true story of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the famed 101st Airborne Division who were dropped behind German Lines on D-day. Players assume the role of Sergeant Matt Baker, a paratrooper (based on Harrison C. Summers and various other people), and the leader of an airborne squad from Fox Company. The Brothers In Arms games are a tactically accurate, "first-person shooter" style of game that combine meticulously researched and historically accurate weapons, weather, and environments with the excitement of first-person, "squad level" command in the European Theater during World War II. The missions range from dropping into France on June 6th to the final defense of Hill 30 eight days later.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series of video games. Once again players can reprise the heroic role of Sergeant Matt Baker, a soldier of the 101st Airborne Division, during Operation Market Garden in the late stages of World War II. The game has many new features, including the ability to command a further squad, from a selection of new specialized units (Bazooka Teams, Machine Gun teams, Mortar Teams, as well as Radio Teams with which to call in artillery support).

Although exact details of the comic book series are in development now with creative and cover artists being kept a closely guarded secret, Dynamite plans for the series to incorporate all the intensity and accuracy of the Brothers in Arms video games. Information on the creative team and scheduling for the series will be released in the coming weeks.

Dynamite stated, "Brothers in Arms is one of the most popular video games in the market today. This should open up new doors for Dynamite, as well as for comic and gaming retailers. We're going to launch this with a unique initiative! This should lead to existing comic fans who have not played the game to sample it, and fans who do play the game can come in to purchase the original comic at the same time. This is a whole new adventure for us on so many levels, and we're really excited to have this opportunity to add another genre to our list of growing titles. Creative details are still in the preliminary stages, but based on the overwhelming response and praise we've had regarding our titles to date, we're positive that comics fans, fans of the game, as well as military enthusiast and action seekers will be blown away by this new addition to our 'dynamite' line up! We're showcasing images from the game to let fans know we're going after the cannon of the game, but with the 'dynamite' ability to execute Dynamite has shown!"

President Gearbox Randy Pitchford stated, "Almost every developer can point to comic books as an influence and inspiration in making games. To say we're delighted to be working with Dynamite Entertainment would be an understatement. I'm excited by Dynamite's dedication to quality comics through art, story telling, and collaboration with the game makers here at Gearbox Software. I expect that the Brothers in Arms comic series will be an extremely high quality book."

###