Army of Two Interview

Added 03/06/2008 by Justin McBride

During the Burnout Paradise Community Day, we were treated to a special surprise in the form of a brief play session of the upcoming Army of Two. After spending some quality time playing the game with a partner, I nabbed an interview with assistant producer Matt Turner.

Talk Xbox: Co-op is obviously a big feature here, so what can you tell me about how it integrates into the gameplay?

Matt Turner: Well, we really built the game around co-op. You have to play with a partner, even if you’re playing single player you have a partner AI who behaves like a real person, so the game has lots of mechanics and functions that are really about the co-op. We really try to emphasize working together to solve problems and that’s why we put the aggro meter in there. It really helps add a replayability factor into it which adds different varieties to the game which is actually pretty cool.

Talk Xbox: As far as the multiplayer, what can you tell me about it beyond the “Warzone” mode we’ve played here?

Matt Turner: We wanted to get away from the typical deathmatch and capture the flag multiplayer modes because everyone does that. That’s not to say it’s not fun, but we wanted to do something different. So, we based it all around objectives. You do kill the other team so it’s almost like a deathmatch but you win by completing objectives. We also put NPCs in there, which also makes the environment a little more chaotic. There are situations in which you can work together with your enemy to take them out and then turn on each other so it adds a neat element to it.

We’ve also been working on some other multiplayer stuff that’s going to be coming out in a little while that we’re pretty excited about that I can’t really go into details about.

Talk Xbox: As far as the campaign mode, how exactly does the co-op factor into the storyline?

Matt Turner: The story follows the two main characters Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios who went through military training together, the game follows them as a team. They spent their careers together in the army before becoming Private Military Contractors. Army of Two follows their experiences as PMCs.

The co op factors heavily into the campaign. The two sort of play off of one another. One of them is more stoic and militaristic while the other guy is a lippy little ex-con who likes to get involved in a lot of crap. The voice acting throughout is actually really, really good.

Talk Xbox: The weapon depot in multiplayer is an interesting concept we don’t see too often. Beyond what we’ve seen in the multiplayer, is that used anywhere else in the game?

Matt Turner: Actually, the weapon depot is used only in multiplayer, during the campaign mode, there’s a mid-mission shopping interface in which you can buy new weapons or customize your current ones.

Talk Xbox: So it’s somewhat similar to Counterstrike?

Matt Turner: Yeah, but more so. You can upgrade the barrel, the cartridge and so on. These guys are mercenaries and they’re making cash the whole time, which can be spent on your gear. With, for example, the AK-47 you can buy a bigger clip, a better stock which will give you more accuracy, a better barrel which will give you more power and so on. All of the stuff you buy in the mid mission shopping directly translates to the gameplay and you see it in game.

There’s also another little thing we have in there called “Pimp My Gun”. You can pay $10,000 and it’ll gold-plate your gun and put diamonds on it and that’ll attract more agro so it’s not all cosmetic. It’ll boost your agro big time when you’re out there fighting the enemies with it, but the enemies will be a little more prone to shooting you with your golden gun as opposed to your buddy.

In the multiplayer we have these weapon kits so as you’re completing your objectives and making money, you can go to a weapons depot and buy a new kit or upgrade your kit but it’ll cost you and your team’s money total goes down. So you might end up losing the match because you bought the most expensive weapons and didn’t complete your objectives, so you really had to balance it out.

Talk Xbox: So, I noticed you had some interesting names for the weapon kits like Vanilla for a simple AK-47 kit and “Rock and Roll” for an M4 based loadout…

Matt Turner: [Laughs] Yeah, those are pretty cool.

Talk Xbox: Well I’ve been very interested in the game and it really looks like it’s coming together at the end here.

Matt Turner: We’re really happy with the time we got added on at the end there and we’ve really had time to go back and polish it and go in there and tweak some things that needed tweaking. We’re really happy with how things turned out.

Army of Two hits store shelves on March 4, 2008.