Tag Archives: Interview

Dreamfall Chapters, the just announced next entry in The Longest Journey saga, will be crowdfunded, according to developer Red Thread Games head Ragnar Tørnquist.

More »

Dishonored’s sometimes stabby protagonist, Corvo, wasn’t initially designed to be mute, according to the game’s co-creator.

More »

This year’s Eurogamer Expo allowed a glimpse at Crysis 3′s all-new Hunter mode and returning Crash Site. Head in for brand new gameplay video and words from Crytek UK.

More »

Black Ops 2 multiplayer throws out the rulebook by scrapping the series’s biggest features. VG247′s Dave Cook speaks with Treyarch’s Jay Puryear to find out if the studio’s gambling wisely.

More »

President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America Jack Tretton has said that he finds current sales figures for the PlayStation Vita “acceptable.”

More »

As the chasm between high-end PC tech and off-the-shelf consoles widens, Dave Cook asks Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli for opinion on what lies next in PlayStation and Xbox development.

More »

Minecraft creator, Markus “Notch” Persson took to Reddit last night to take part in an ‘Ask me anything’ Q&A session with fans, revealing the developers thoughts on the modding community and the prospect of future updates.

More »

A lot has been said recently about the impending doom facing the Japanese game industry. Now, Hideo Kojima has weighed in on the matter.

More »

Launched two weeks ago, City of Heroes’ Issue 20 update introduced ‘Incarnates’, adding new missions, powers and group options for up to 48 players.

Developer Paragon Studios spoke out on large scale raids and the response of the players.

More »

Between trying to take on Call of Duty and plugging an unfortunate leak, Crytek’s got a lot on its plate. Fortunately, senior producer Hasit Zala took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with little old us at GDC today.

More »

The funnest part of building a sandcastle? Knocking it down.

With World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard appears to be taking that philosophy to a whole new level. After letting players frolic about in its multi-million dollar sandcastle for nearly six years, the developer’s decided to shatter Azeroth into tiny little pieces and then put it back together again. The result? Suddenly, old is new, up is down, and Stranglethorn Vale doesn’t royally suck anymore. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time to be a WoW player.

Perhaps even more exciting, however, is being a WoW developer. To see years-upon-years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears finally manifest into a complete experience has to be immensely satisfying, and speaking with lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi during BlizzCon, that was more than evident. It was kind of amazing, if we’re being honest, to see a developer so fired up over his own game – a game that’s been around for more than half a decade, no less.

Click past the break to hear Afrasiabi’s thoughts on the future of WoW expansions, why Cataclysm doesn’t have its own Hero Class, why MMOs and consoles don’t mix, why Cryptic’s wrong to call MMO content “mediocre,” moving the MMO genre forward, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

More »

StarCraft II finally dropped into the hands of more than three million eager fans this summer, and Heart of the Swarm probably won’t see the light of day until long after we’ve locked horns with an actual race of hiveminded aliens. So, in the meantime, why even bring the game to BlizzCon? What’s left to talk about?

Tons, as it turns out. This year, Blizzard took the wraps off four brand new games it’s developing within StarCraft II – each of which look equal parts excellent and bizarre. Oh, and let’s not forget the “waves and waves” of free content that will continue to zerg rush the game until Heart of the Swarm finally comes out. Also, cheating! That’s always fun to deal with. And what about the fallout from the forum tweak that was heard around the world, Real ID?

We sat down with game director Kaeo Milker to discuss all of the above topics and more. Also puns, briefly. Read the full thing after the break!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

More »

BlizzCon has come to a close. We came, we saw, we conquered.

OK, no we didn’t. We actually spent the whole time playing Diablo III. But then, the game’s mix of hack ‘n’ slash demon-dicing and subtle strategy is already – near as we can tell – polished to perfection – even though Blizzard’s still keeping any sort of release schedule so tightly under wraps that we wouldn’t be surprised if there were exploding collars involved. And of course, let’s not forget the Demon Hunter and PVP arenas. Both made incredibly strong debuts at this year’s show, putting new and disturbingly addictive twists on the classic Diablo formula.

Put simply, Blizzard’s Diablo team’s still got it, so we took a couple of its members hostage and demanded a pre-release copy of the gam- er, we mean, we sat down for a nice, polite chat with senior designer Jason Bender and art director Christian Lichtner, and there was no duct tape involved. Read on for their thoughts on why Diablo III still has no release date, the origins of the Demon Hunter, what it’s like to balance a game where each class has 97 billion potential builds, female characters in games, why Diablo III isn’t on consoles, and more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

More »

Part two? Part two?! But what happened in part one?! Were there car chases? Explosions? Was an average Joe like you or me thrust into extraordinary circumstances and forced to shoot/box/interpretive dance his way out?

The suspense is probably killing you. You are probably walking toward the light as we speak, your pulse becoming ever fainter because you need your videogame interview fix right this very moment. But lo and behold! There it is, perched upon yon Internet!

And once you’re all caught up, part two’s waiting for you after the break. Early reviews have declared it even better than part one, and when have early reviews ever been wrong? Click onward to read THQ Core boss Danny Bilson’s thoughts on Guillermo del Toro, the future of game demos, selling cut-scenes, how we should treat talent in the gaming industry, licensed games, and tons more!

More »

OnLive’s been going through some growing pains, but awkward teenager or not, it’s still available for all to try. Its main competitor Gaikai, however, has definitely subscribed to the mantra of “slow and steady wins the race.” When, though, will it finally cross the finish line?

Speaking with VG247 during an interview at GDC Online in Austin, David Perry said that the cloud gaming service is on track to go live in mid-December.

More »

When you hear “THQ,” what springs to mind? Wrestling games? Ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-Nickelodeon? Well then, you might want to crawl out from under that rock you’ve spent the last few years living underneath.

Where’s Tim Schafer these days? THQ. How about Ninja Gaiden/Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki? Same. And what’s this about Guillermo del Toro? The bottom line: THQ’s come a long, long way – but it’s far from done.

Leading the way has been THQ Core boss Danny Bilson, who was kind enough to take some time out from his busy schedule of  interacting with some of the most interesting people in the industry to chat with little ol’ us. So we basically projectile vomited questions in his face, which he was surprisingly ok with.

Click past the break to hear Bilson’s thoughts on core Move/Kinect games, the need for creativity in the gaming industry, how we should handle touchy subjects like the recent Medal of Honor controversy, 3D, Tim Schafer, and plenty more!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

More »

Chatting with Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood is always a treat – even if it comes shortly after the disappointing news that Brink won’t see the light of day in 2010.

We sat down with the lord of all things multiplayer and shooty during last week’s QuakeCon, where we talked shop about why Brink held down its S.M.A.R.T. button and sprinted out of 2010, what form the game’s DLC might take, the difficulties of multiplatform development, putting the color back in shooters, how a truly cross-platform multiplayer game might work, and tons more. Seriously, if you crawled out of bed this morning and thought to yourself, “Gee, I sure want to hear Paul Wedgwood talk about everything ever today,” then you came to the right place.

Read the full interview after the break!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

More »

RAGE is id’s first – and apparently only – new IP in quite some time, and the developer’s doing it up in style. Yeah, the post-apocalyptic shooter/driver/toy car driver’s got it all – even its own release date. No more teasing, no more “when it’s done,” no more fooling us into staring into Todd Hollenshead’s dreamy blue eyes until we forget what we were talking about. With RAGE, we’re witnessing the emergence of a new id Software, one that’s not afraid to hunker down and commit.

And we can see why. When you’re able to demo your game on three night-and-day different platforms side-by-side, you’re clearly doing something right. With more than a year to go before launch, though, there’s still plenty more to discuss. Is the release date really set in stone? How about multiplayer? Are dedicated servers in or out? What happens if John Carmack goes into space and explodes? We asked RAGE creative director Tim Willits all those questions and more, and he tolerated our shenanigans to the point that we’re pretty sure he wasn’t lying to us!

Check out the interview after the break!

More »

Some videogames pontificate on the deeper themes of love, loss, and control – ultimately causing players to see the world in a new light once they’ve dabbed the tears from their eyes. Other videogames grab a giant hammer – that, in some cases, is an ostrich that somehow migrated to Mars – and gleefully lay waste to everything in sight.

Red Faction: Guerrilla was most certainly the latter.

A surprise hit, Guerrilla sneaked under gamers’ radars and smacked them with all the subtlety of the animal it’s not named after. Thanks to Volition’s Geo-Mod destruction engine, sending buildings tumbling down had never been more satisfying. Sure, the game didn’t reinvent any wheels, but it definitely made them explode real nice.

This, however, raises a question: if your game isn’t broken (well, minus the billions of space dollars in property damages), how do you fix it? Our magic videogame eight ball tells us “Make it bigger! Duh.” But that’s not quite the approach Volition’s taking. Instead, Armageddon’s ditching its colossal open-world for a more constrained underground setting. So long, freedom. Hello, linearity. How are the kids?

Frightened? Curious? We sure were. So we quizzed lead designer David Abzug on everything from the whys and hows of Armageddon’s switch to a more linear format, to new additions to the Geo-Mod engine, to potential Kinect/Move support in a Red Faction game.

Read all about it after the break.

Interview by Nathan Grayson.

More »

For years, Deus Ex fans clamored for a sequel. And then they got one, and they didn’t like it all that much. So, what do you put in your pamphlet to re-hook those who renounced their faith and left the Church of Denton? Simple: a whole heaping helping of what they want to hear.

Based on what we’ve seen of Human Revolution so far, that’s definitely not a bad thing. The game’s shaping up to be the sequel fans have pined for ever since they were introduced to the first game’s mix of equal parts technology, intrigue, and trenchcoats.

But there’s still plenty more digging to be done, so we sat down with producer David Anfossi and quizzed him about how much pressure the team’s under to live up to Deus Ex’s legacy, the relationship between the game’s shooter and RPG sides, faithful series reboots versus those that stray off the beaten path, and plenty more. See it all after the break.

More »