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Armed Assault

7-Oct-2006 Developer Bohemia Interactive briefs us on its successor to its ground-breaking military sim Operation Flashpoint

Armed Assault is Bohemia Interactive's successor to its title Operation Flashpoint, an innovative, hardcore military shooter/sim that proved a smash hit when it released on PC in 2001. The dev's new venture features the similar hardcore military sim and open-world/freeform aspect witnessed in its predecessor, but ramps up the ante in every regard. We recently sat down with Paul R. Statham, PR Community Manager at Bohemia, to find out more...

Can we kicks things off by getting an overview of Armed Assault - what is the game, what's the storyline, what can you tell us about the player character, and so on?

Paul: Armed Assault is our next game, and following in the footsteps of the 2-million selling Operation Flashpoint it will be a realistic military combat game fought over large areas with complete freedom as to how the gamer completes their objectives.

The storyline of Armed Assault is focussed on the island of Sahrani, which is split between a Communist dictatorship in the North of the island and a democratic Republic in the South. The premise is that with the South being US friendly and oil-rich there is a small contingent of American troops on the island to help train the Southern Sahrani forces in the spirit of friendship and cooperation.

North Sahrani and South Sahrani have had a number of conflicts over the years and even in modern times the peace is a very brittle one - as the training comes to an end and the US troops have almost all left the Northern Sahrani government chooses to invade which leaves a small pocket of American soldiers left with no choice but to fight alongside the forces of the South.

What particular challenges do you face making a military sim experience entertaining for the PC gamer, and how have these been resolved?

Paul: Most games these days tend to use fake methods to create a sense of excitement or shock or fear, events tend not to happen dynamically and they're all heavily scripted into the game. In Armed Assault the sense of excitement and intensity as well as the feeling of actually being one small part of a much greater war machine is created by the scale of the game, its engine and the simulation of war that it creates.

Elements such as simulated bullet ricochet and bullet penetration help to aid the immersive feeling because the environment and objects around you become heavily important to your overall survival - you can't just lay under a small bush, it's not going to protect you from bullets and even if the AI don't know exactly where you are once they know you're in the general area they will use indirect suppressive fire to keep you pinned down.

A feature we've built into the campaign which will help some gamers get to grips a little better with the functionality available to them is the option in certain missions and at certain points to switch characters during play. This makes it possible, for example, to switch from an infantry soldier to being a sniper hidden on top of a hill, or perhaps a gunner in a tank. This feature is fully down to player choice, it's there if they want to use it and if not it doesn't in any way impact on the campaign's progress or mission completion.

However, using the feature will certainly allow for an extra layer of entertainment in the game, as well as allowing for exploration of all of the many facets contained within the game.

Operation Flashpoint was an innovative game when it was released. How are you similarly trying to move the goal posts with Armed Assault?

Paul: For us Armed Assault is as much about retaining the spirit and style of gameplay as it is about moving forward the goalposts of technology. Obviously we're still introducing massive amounts of new features and improvements, but essentially we want people to feel a sense of familiarity when they're playing Armed Assault.

A lot of the elements that have gone into Armed Assault might perhaps seem a little insignificant or even strange when considered separately. I think especially the elements of ambient life when looked at away from their in-game context will throw a few people - why does the self proclaimed "most realistic military combat game on PC" have butterflies flitting around? (for one example). We believe that ambient life is an important part of creating a realistically designed world, having birds and insects flying around not only creates a tangible layer of living into the world they also even add their own part into the gameplay because in Armed Assault if you see something moving in the distance or in the undergrowth you can't assume it's an enemy and start shooting, you need to observe and think rather than see and react without thought.

The ambient life which includes such things as seagulls, hawks, butterflies, dragonflies, mosquitoes, rabbits has its own AI and its own programmed behaviour which is appropriate to its species. Flies for example will be attracted to dead bodies, hawks will be solitary birds with predatory instincts, sheep will tend to herd together but run away randomly when startled.

What key features have you taken from Operation Flashpoint for Armed Assault, and how are you developing/evolving these for the new game?

Paul: The realistic, open style of play with tactical freedom of choice and the large numbers of different vehicles which could all be used were perhaps the two key features for gamers in Operation Flashpoint and part of what really sucked gamers into the Flashpoint world. Other factors were things like the large amounts of soldiers at any time in a mission. For example it was possible to have a mission which consisted of 384 soldiers versus 384 soldiers. This amount of firepower on one battlefield obviously created for an intense simulation of warfare which still is unsurpassed.

For the more creative people out there the fact that the engine was so open and moddable meant that they could put any military they wanted into the game, any vehicle, any weapon, even change almost all aspects of the game to make it look like a completely different and new game. Undoubtedly the modability factor is what has kept Flashpoint alive for so long when other supposed "Flashpoint beaters" have come and gone and are now used to keep coffee mugs from staining the computer desk.

In Armed Assault there will be all of the above and much, much more. The island of Sahrani is approximately 400km which makes it larger than all original Flashpoint islands combined, it will also be populated with many more objects, landmarks and features as well as much larger towns and cities. The 64-group limit for soldiers has been abolished, now it's possible to have thousands of soldiers in the same mission at the same time.

Even the extent to which the game can be modded has been improved, for example our extensive AI in both characters and ambient life uses an FSM system which can be modified meaning that it's possible for the community to modify or even create new artificial intelligence behaviours.

Multiplayer is another area than has seen significant development. No longer is it an at times unwieldy and thankless experience. New join in play technology combined with a strong 'net code infrastructure allowing for somewhere above and beyond 100 players means that any of the numerous multiplayer modes will be a whole new battlefield of intensity in themselves.

You recently released an impressive Armed Assault tech demo. What's exciting about the technology you're using for the game and in what major ways is it impacting gameplay?

Paul: Enhanced technology means that there are a number of ways that extra layers of immersion and gameplay can be built into Armed Assault. Things such as HDR lighting will simulate how your eyes naturally react to moving from being inside a building to going outside, or looking at an enemy that has the sun behind him will negatively affect your vision which means that you have to consider your position, the enemy's position as well as the sun's position when attacking. It's not just a case of parking your backside on some hillside and having a tactical advantage.

The enhanced sound engine allows us to simulate for example the way that the sound of an explosion which happens behind a building is muffled when you hear it.

The engine of Armed Assault utilises our revolutionary streaming technology which allows us to throw in much more content than the computer memory can contain without the need for loading pauses or anything like that. This helps to keep the world massive, the immersion immense and the distractions minimal.

Basically the technological advancements available today helped us to remove a lot of the annoyances and limitations that were forced into Flashpoint.

What kinds of weapons and vehicles can we expect to see?

Paul: Obviously Armed Assault is set during modern times so most of the weapons and vehicles in game are modern as well. Southern Sahrani forces use a mix of American technology whereas Northern Sahrani forces use some of the different Russian types of weaponry which spread to the various Communist nations.

Weapons will consist of a number of different small arms, heavy machine guns, anti armour and explosives so that will be things like: M16A2, M4, M24, M240, M249, Stinger & Javelin for the South and Makarov, AK74, AKS74U, SVD, PK, RPG and Strela for the North. There are around 30 different weapons in total.

Vehicles will be a mix of land, sea and air, some of the North's vehicular complement are: BMP2, BRDM2, UAZ, Ural, Mi-17 and T-72. The Southern forces get themselves a slightly more technologically advanced selection which balances the advantage that the North enjoys with their superior numbers, the South's garage is stocked with: M1A1, STRYKER, HMMWV, AH6, MH60 and Zodiac amongst others.

Both sides will have artillery pieces available to them at certain times during the campaign.

How realistic or believable is the AI, what can you tell us about your work in this area?

Paul: The intensity of the game is especially helped by the fact that all sides have a strong and tangible sense of artificial intelligence. We've worked really hard to give the AI many different believable and truly dynamic AI capabilities. For example, if a squad of soldiers is travelling across open terrain they will generally follow an easy route if they feel safe and sense no danger around them, they'll walk a well trodden path if available as it's quicker and easier to travel, however if they have a sense of danger or are attacked they will seek a more defensive and less open area of terrain.

There are a number of realistic and intelligent behaviours programmed into the AI, this includes simple thing such as AI understand that switching from their main weapon to their sidearm is a slow process and they should avoid doing it as much as possible. They know that reloading out in the open isn't particularly smart so they will try to find some cover and move into that before reloading. The AI also take advantage vehicles and objects and terrain which offer some protection against enemy fire.

Another area that the AI use well is movement. If a group of AI soldiers are under fire they won't run headlong towards you in an aimless race to meet St. Peter. Instead they utilise a system of leapfrogging or bounding overwatch which means that their movement is coordinated into a process whereby a number will move a short distance forward and those left behind provide cover fire, then those in front will stop and provide cover fire for the soldiers behind to move forward. This system is repeated until the AI have reached their objective, or they're no longer in danger.

An important aspect to the AI is that even if they cannot see you clearly but know what area you are roughly in, they can try to keep you pinned down with suppressive, indirect fire whilst others on their side attempt to flank you in your blind spot.

As it's a game one of the areas that's important is that it's fair, you shouldn't be punished because you're the player. Therefore you can do everything the AI can do. Also, you won't be specifically targeted ahead of any AI that might be on your side, you will essentially be targeted in proportion to the amount of risk or threat you pose to the enemy, so if they're not firing at you it's quite possible that the enemy AI have decided that you're no great risk - how shameful!

Presumably at some stage in the game players will command other troops, so how does the squad control system work?

Paul: Obviously with the complex and intelligent AI as well as the large numbers of troops available it's important to be able to use them to their best by being able to command them in a complex yet simplistic manner. To that end we've developed a system whereby any number of soldiers can be ordered around simply by holding down the spacebar and utilising the mouse. One of the many advantages of this is that you're still able to move or look around and also react quickly if you need to stop commanding and start defending yourself from an imminent threat.

In Operation Flashpoint, the player increased in rank during the course of the game - how is this being handled in Armed Assault, if at all?

Paul: In Armed Assault the campaign consists of a large amount of intense events and situations over a relatively short space of time, as such it wouldn't be realistic to have soldier's increasing in rank in the midst of this.

What's your favourite Armed Assault mission to date, and why?

Paul: My favourite mission is any where I get to the end and have survived the spectacularly challenging AI we have implemented. It doesn't help my cause to be constantly distracted by the rather lush and beautiful terrain I see around me!

How far does Armed Assault actually go to addressing the bloody reality of war - we're assuming that it's 'sanitized', say, to a significant degree?

Paul: The most thought provoking and stimulating way to get across any implied reality is usually by means of suggestion rather than shoving it into someone's face, for example the way that modern over the top horror films tend to be far less scary than classics of the 50s and 60s which used implied or half shown acts. In Armed Assault's campaign we aim to tell a story that will be thought provoking in itself, that will give a sense and reality of the bloody and futile yet unavoidable act of war. If we tell the story well then we can create a far greater and far more lasting impression than any game which tries to tell the same story using gimmicky visual horrors.

What's in the pipeline for multiplayer in Armed Assault?

Paul: Armed Assault's multiplayer will be big and long and fully functional! Large numbers of player, up to 100 and possibly more, as well as additional AI. There's join in play so people can join into an existing mission which will help to keep the missions alive and active and eases some of the frustration of losing your connection due to ISP issues or having to leave temporarily to do something else.

The scale of Armed Assault will be utilised and matched by the scale of some of the gaming modes which will mean that certain modes of play such as CTI will take place across the whole island, with multiple objectives and battle lines resulting in an essentially perpetual online war.

Any news on a publisher yet, and when can we expect Armed Assault to be released? Any plans for a pre-release demo?

Paul: Negotiations for a UK publisher are ongoing and we anticipate an announcement shortly. We're also looking into the possibility of making Armed Assault available via an online pay and download system. An single-player demo and an multiplayer demo are planned and will most likely be released prior to the full game going on sale.

Stuart Bishop