In Vorbereitung darauf, mehr Leben in die größten Operationen der Fallschirmjäger zu bringen, gingen mehrere Entwickler von Medal of Honor Airborne™ auf eine Forschungsreise quer durch Europa. Sie wurden von Marty Morgan, dem historische Berater von EALA und Forschungsdirektor des National WWII Museum, quer durch verschiedene historische Schlachtfelder begleitet. In dem Video unten (121 MB) skizziert Marty die reale Operation Avalanche und du erhältst einen ersten Eindruck auf das Forschungsmaterial, welches für die Entwickler aufgenommen wurde.



- BlackHat

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Von Sander – Hi. Ich wundere mich ob es ein Training-Level in Medal of Honor Airborne™ geben wird?

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JPaq - Wir werden etwas Sprung-Training am Anfang des Spiels haben, weil es wichtig ist dass die Leute die Tatsache verstehen, das sie den Fallschirm steuern und überall landen können. Wir haben bis jetzt mehrere Fokusgruppen veranstaltet und jedes Mal gab es einen Spieler, welcher dachte der Sprung ist nur eine Zwischensequenz und er probierte nicht einmal, den Fallschirm auf dem Weg nach unten zu steuern. So weit wie das grundlegende Training in aktuellen First Person Shootern geht, machen wir etwas minimal anderes.

When we first started discussing how to train the player for our game, we found that people really appreciated the coolness of our gameplay when we sat on the couch next to them and said, “Now try this.” So we ended up asking ourselves, “How do we sit on the couch next to our players and teach them the ‘pro moves’ like cooking and air-bursting grenades?” Then we hit upon the idea of simply recording one of us playing through a level, while talking over it (wie ein DVD Kommentar). It allows beginners and advanced players alike to learn how to take advantage of some of the unique aspects of our controls (like analog peek and lean) and our gameplay (get to the roofs and drop grenades on your enemies from above!). Of course, the jump training will be short and the videos will be optional, so if you’re already a pro, you can jump right in and start playing.

In Airdrop #12, we gave you a preview of the audio team's research trip to Hondo, Texas. Now, you can experience the whole thing in the latest edition of The War Room, the Medal of Honor podcast.

To gather authentic audio assets for Medal of Honor Airborne, the audio team made a trip last fall to a small town in Texas. What was there? One of the most significant Airborne artifacts you could hope to find - a completely restored C-47 that actually flew in major US Airborne operations of WWII, including those featured in Medal of Honor Airborne.

Below are several photos from the excursion, and a link where you can download the latest War Room episode to hear the recording session of C-47 293096 for yourself!






- BlackHat

The EALA studio is working hard on the next evolution of the bestselling WWII franchise, Medal of Honor Airborne. This month we bring you an exclusive interview with Justin Thomas, Art Director on Medal of Honor Airborne.

Delivering on cinematic intensity, open world gameplay that looks as beautiful as it plays, and WWII realism doesn’t just require an exceptional development team, it also demands art direction from someone who knows exactly how a WWII first person shooter should look and feel. And nobody knows this better than Justin Thomas. Utilizing his wealth of experience with WWII games, Thomas’ goal is to craft a game that’s visual look matches the depth and scope of the authentic WWII airdrop experience.

Can you tell us a little bit about your role on Medal of Honor Airborne?

My job is to ensure that the various visual aspects of the game all communicate one cohesive message. In particular, I concentrate on making sure that we have a visual look that compliments the gameplay style. So, for instance, if you enter a heavy combat zone in the game, we want you to feel the action and intensity, so we add visual noise to make that area look a little more exciting.

How has your experience been working as Art Director thus far?

I’m really excited about how much thought has gone into the look of the game across all of our teams. It’s been a great collective effort between artists and designers to really think through—not only gameplay and how we’re going to create this large world—but how we’re going to present it visually. There’s been really great, tight communication between designers and artists and I think you’ll see that reflected in the game. It’s just going to deliver a better gameplay experience.

What’s one of the challenges you’ve faced in the art direction of Medal of Honor Airborne?

I’d say the presentation of the game level from the air. During the airdrop, we want the level to look like an entire world around you, and yet still feel like a natural space to drop into. First person shooters are traditionally built around corridors, and are played, more or less, in a little stadium. Our game is one of the first times in a first person shooter where you are not really bound by corridors. You can go on the rooftops of structures, you can see all the way across the entire playable space, and you navigate around buildings just like you would in any town. Our goal is to deliver our high visual quality benchmark while presenting a lot more information on the screen that we’ve ever needed to, historically, in a first person shooter. But, in the end, I totally feel it is worth it. I feel like the airdrop, in itself, will bring a lot to the FPS genre.

We’ve heard you have quite a bit of history with Medal of Honor. Can you tell us a little about it?

Well, I worked on Allied Assault, Pacific Assault, and European Assault, and I worked on other WWII projects outside of EA.

It’s been a great opportunity for me to be able to carry on the legacy of Medal of Honor’s visual tradition and spirit in Medal of Honor Airborne. Our goal is to make Medal of Honor Airborne not just a great WWII experience, but just a great action game experience. We want people to really be awed by the airdrop and how large the open world environment looks.

Having worked on several iterations of Medal of Honor you must have very unique perspective on the world of WWII first person shooters.

Yes, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people along the way. I’ve certainly learned a lot about the time period and about how it changed the world. In itself, WWII is just a great action story. I think that is why the genre perseveres.

From a historical standpoint, it was quite a universal experience.

It was. I’ve said it in previous interviews, but it really is one of the last times where the lines between good and evil were clearly drawn. Everyone worldwide knew what was at stake and everyone—on all sides of the conflict—fought with every last ounce of strength that they had.

Have the technology advances with the next generation consoles affected the art direction in Medal of Honor Airborne at all?

They absolutely have. The new technology allows us to do on the console what we were once only capable of doing on the PC. That has been incredibly freeing in one way, but in another way it still requires a lot of the same old balances and trade-offs. In essence, we see how far we can push the visual components of the game, then once we’ve reached a certain boundary we concentrate on improving the things that we really want people to notice and to enjoy.

Speaking from a technical and visual standpoint, we’ve also benefited greatly from the Unreal engine. The Unreal engine is just so artist friendly. With the Unreal engine, the number of times we can do iterations on something has increased dramatically, and we’ve found that iteration is key. The more often you can make changes, the better chance you have at reaching your desired quality level in a shorter amount of time.

Having worked on so many versions of Medal of Honor, how do you see the progression of the franchise?

Allied Assault was a breakthrough. I think everyone was really excited about the prospect of playing one of their favorite scene’s from Saving Private Ryan as a game experience. I think we really brought that cinematic feel to Allied Assault—and carried it through with the other Medal of Honor games.

That said, one of the things that I’m really excited about with Airborne is that—while it still delivers on those cinematic experiences from the past—it has its own personality. It’s definitely got its own look, feel, and style of gameplay. In short, it just feels like a different movie. I think Airborne will really demonstrate the growth in the franchise. I’m really looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future.

Do you have a favorite Medal of Honor game?

My favorite Medal of Honor game is probably Frontline. I still play Frontline today. It really enjoyed it. We’ve taken a tract in WWII games where we’re trying to be almost like a history book. One of the interesting things about Frontline is we were delivering on more of the legendary aspects of WWII over the purely historical. We paid tribute to what these people did by making it larger than life and making a real experience out of it. That’s what I really enjoyed about Frontline; it had that essence of the struggle between good and evil, as well as the heavy machinery, the top secret German projects, and a certain freedom to it which was just very fun. The good news is I think we’re bringing back a lot of that style of gameplay again with Airborne. I’m very excited about that.

Finding a Visual Language - For Medal of Honor Airborne, developers are not only trying to bring new gameplay to the genre, but also to bring a new look to WWII and the Medal of Honor franchise. Artists on Airborne are once again establishing a strong visual identity within the WWII genre by reminding people of their favorite cinematic experiences, but also striving to keep players as visually excited by Airborne as the developers get by some of their favorite games in various genres.

One of the most important aspects of WWII is that it was a legendary time, and there was something very reverential about the 1940’s. It takes us back to a time when the world really was about "Heroes versus Villains." Designers on Airborne explored the actual visual icons of the era through several mediums. What they’re crafting is a stylized realism. It’s not about achieving an absolute, 100% photorealism, but instead it’s about trying to create an iconic look out of what “photoreal” is. Artists are fashioning a legendary, epic feel out of the very natural environments. In Part 5 of our exploration of the cinematic look of Medal of Honor Airborne, Art Director Justin Thomas answers questions from Medal of Honor community members.

Community Questions
Featuring Art Director Justin Thomas

Q- The WWII era is such an iconic era, especially in the US. When you talk about cinematic themes for the whole game, were there any specific movies that influenced your ideas for color themes and such on Airborne?

A – Absolutely. Over the years I’ve collected many WWII movies, and there’s lots of things I refer back to all the time. There are a lot of great WWII movies that came out in the 70’s. There’s this whole iconic look that has emerged about WWII, but one of the things we were really looking at was all the old color photography from the 1940’s. One of the things you notice in them is that through the aging process, only the primary colors continue to stand out. It just felt really natural when you looked at them. There’s one piece of film I remember of some WWII color footage off of a documentary - it’s a bunch of people walking down a city street. The only things that pop out of it are a red bus, a red mail box, and a blue sign in the background. These are the colors that are surviving as the film ages. That sort of thing was a huge inspiration, absolutely. We pour over all kinds of WWII footage. I’ve got loads of documentaries that I look at on a regular basis – both color and black and white. The black and white ones, by the way, are where we get a lot of our shape language [See Part 3 - BH]. That’s where we’re inspired to get a lot of our contrast from. We want to play on all of the icons that people have that haven’t been fully explored yet, but we also want to put our own twist on it.

Q- How are you going to make Medal of Honor Airborne visually unique compared to the other WWII titles out there? Do you look at what other games are doing visually and think “Okay, we’re going to shift this?”

A – Absolutely. That’s one of the things I am focusing on. One of the things, for instance, that we’re staying away from is common in night missions. Night time in a lot of previous WWII games and films is just blue. It’s a day-for-night type of blue. Seeing that a lot of the other games have presented it that way, we’ve made a conscious effort to shift away from that. We’re going to tint it brown, or orange, or red, or green - something like that. We’re going to create our own visual identity all the way through the game.

Also, through some of the other franchises, there has been an effort to introduce color, since everyone’s become very conscious of WWII being very grey. Instead of introducing color across the board, though, we’re being very specific about where, how, and why we’re introducing it. It’s going to be very much about it being an informative element, rather than just a new element. We’re also, as I said, using a very wide variety of WWII reference material, but complimenting it with a lot of modern reference to help define our own unique look, to redefine the look of the Medal of Honor franchise. We’re very conscious about looking at other products, but not just WWII genre products. We’re looking all across the board for inspiration, at all kinds of products that everybody’s enjoying. We’re inspired by video games, just like other players are. We take in all of these things and make sure that we’re creating our own unique identity among everything, not just WWII.

Q- Once you establish a visual identity for Airborne, is this identity going to hold over into future Medal of Honor games?

A – Yes. That’s one of the things that we’ve definitely been doing with all of the Medal of Honor games. European Assault did a really good job of picking their own identity. That’s something that we’ve carried over into Airborne and taken up a notch. I would expect that the next game would take this look and raise the bar again. While we’re looking to make it unique, it’s a lot about growing the visual identity, not creating it from scratch each time. A lot of the concepts for our game were very inspired by some of the artistic directions of European Assault. It’s very much about creating a whole identity just for Medal of Honor.

Q- Are there weather effects in the game?

A – On this particular game, it’s mainly going to be about thick atmosphere – smoke, dust, haze, and fog. Right now we don’t have weather effects planned. That could potentially be on a follow-up project.

Thanks to Art Director Justin Thomas for his help in this five part series on the Cinematic Look of Airborne.

- BlackHat

Eine visuelle Sprache finden - Für Medal of Honor Airborne™ probieren die Entwickler nicht nur eine neue Art Spielgefühl in das Genre zu bringen sondern auch einen neues Aussehen für den Zweiten Weltkrieg und das Medal of Honor™ Franchise zu erschaffen. Die Künstler von Airborne™ etablieren erneut eine starke visuelle Identität im Zweiten Weltkrieg Genre, indem sie die Menschen an ihre beliebten Film-Erlebnisse erinnern. Sie wollen aber auch erreichen, das die Spieler von Airborne™ so begeistert werden wie die Entwickler bereits selbst von anderen Spielen verschiedener Genre fasziniert sind.

Einer der wichtigsten Aspekte des Zweiten Weltkrieges ist der Punkt das es eine legendäre Zeit war und es etwas ehrfürchtiges an den Jahren ab 1940 gibt. Es bringt uns zurück zu einer Zeit wo die Welt von dem Thema "Helden gegen Bösewichte" bestimmt war. Die Designer von Airborne™ erforschten die visuellen Zeichen dieser Ära durch verschiedene Medien. Was sie jetzt erschaffen ist ein stilisierter Realismus. Es geht nicht darum einen absoluten 100% Foto-Realismus zu erzeugen, aber stattdessen einen Versuch zu unternehmen die Merkmale der Zeit möglichst “realistisch” nachzuempfinden. Die Künstler erstellen ein legendäres, episches Gefühl aus den sehr natürlichen Umgebungen. Im vierten Teil unserer Untersuchung des filmische Aussehens von Medal of Honor Airborne™ erarbeitet Art Director Justin Thomas wie in Airborne™ Farben benutzt werden, um den Spieler und die Geschichte voranzutreiben.

Eine lebendige Palette
Präsentiert von Art Director Justin Thomas

Informative Farben – In Airborne™ arbeiten unsere Texturen und das Licht nach den Prinzipien der "informativen Farben." Grundlegend bedeutet diese Aussage das wir Farb-Beziehungen auf diversen Oberflächen haben. Egal ob wir Texturen oder Licht gestalten, wir arbeiten immer mit Farb-Verhältnissen. Jede Oberfläche muss einige Farb-Elemente mit der nächst gelegenen Oberfläche teilen. So erreichen wir eine generelle visuelle Konsistenz in Airborne™. Das bedeutet auch das die Vorgänge der Zeit in der natürlichen Welt nachgeahmt werden. In der realen Welt teilt alles die selbe Geschichte. Dreck vom Boden wird an die Wand geworfen, Rost eines Rohres sickert auf die Wand. Alles teilt eine Geschichte mit den Dingen um sich.

Wir benutzen eine einfache Farb-Palette mit primären Farb-Akzenten um die Farben im Spiel zu bestimmen. Wir sahen die typische Benutzung in Filmen mit blauen, grauen und gesättigten Tönen, oder jene in Sepia. Wir wollen den Spieler an diese Dinge erinnern und sie darauf vorbereiten, aber wir wollen auch wirklich Farbe in den Zweiten Weltkrieg einbringen. Wir wollen ein viszeralles Erlebnis erschaffen. Durch einfache Paletten benutzen wir viele gedämpfte Farben, aber dann benutzen wir informative primäre Farb-Akzente um den Umgebungen einen visuellen Kick zu geben. Vielleicht ist es nur ein rotes Verkehrsschild oder eine rote Telefonzelle an der Seite eines braunen Hauses. Wir sind sehr informativ sowie ein wenig pedantisch und solide in welcher Art und Weise wir unserer Wahl für Farben treffen.

Wir haben positive und negative Ladungen. Während der Spieler durch die Umgebungen geht sieht er thematisches Licht. When the player moves into a space of high tension, it’s all about the white and blue lights that will lead them through that area. When the player is in high combat, it’s all about being red and rusty and fire-lit. We’re really reinforcing these positive and negative charges throughout the environment to compliment the type of action that’s taking place.

Farben unterstützen das Level Thema – Throughout our entire game, you’ll see a color theme per level that actually grows as you approach the end of the game. It builds up on itself. At any given point, if you turn off that game and then come back later, there will be some sort of visual cue of where you’re at in the overall game, aside from just your immediate save point. We want you to feel a natural progression through this whole entire conflict, through this story.

Farb-Paletten – The color is very much meant to take you through conflict and insecurity during Husky, through the break of day at Neptune, all the way up to daytime at the end of the game. Consequently, the game starts out being really rocky and rough in Husky and Avalanche, and you end up seeing really rusty and metallic tones in the heart of Germany. We’re telling the progression of the story of the Airborne, from their rocky beginnings to the triumph over the German industrial might.

You’ll see the colors slowly shift from a green and red, into more of a blue. We’re pulling the colors from the modern expectations of conflict, the sorts of things players see now. The time we're depicting was a really tense time for the Airborne, when they were called in to prove themselves and save the day in Husky and Avalanche. Then, of course, we do hit on the expectations of previous WWII games, but with our own take on it.

Operation Overlord und Neptune have been presented so many times that we want to stay true to expectations and pull people back into it like before. We are exploring some color themes, but we want to constantly remind people of what they know in these operations. This is the old friend. This is the super-legendary, epic part of WWII. In taking that approach, we also segue into the next area seamlessly. We take some of the colors that were there before, and we move on to Operation Market Garden, where the missions move into full-on day time, with bright diffuse skies that we started to introduce back in Neptune.

Finally, the player ends up on Operation Varsity, where we’re pulling everything back around. We’re combining every theme that the player has encountered throughout the whole game, and slamming them with it all at once for the big finale. The whole concept is that at every point in the game, we’re not only telling the story of the Airborne, but we’re visualizing the entire progression of the war, from night time all the way through day time at the climax.

Im nächsten Airdrop beantwortet Justin Thomas Fragen der Community bezüglich der künstlerischen Gestaltung.

- BlackHat

Eine visuelle Sprache finden - Für Medal of Honor Airborne™ probieren die Entwickler nicht nur eine neue Art Spielgefühl in das Genre zu bringen sondern auch einen neues Aussehen für den Zweiten Weltkrieg und das Medal of Honor™ Franchise zu erschaffen. Die Künstler von Airborne etablieren erneut eine starke visuelle Identität im Zweiten Weltkrieg Genre, indem sie die Menschen an ihre beliebten Film-Erlebnisse erinnern. Sie wollen aber auch erreichen, das die Spieler von Airborne™ so begeistert werden wie die Entwickler bereits selbst von anderen Spielen verschiedener Genre fasziniert sind.

Einer der wichtigsten Aspekte des Zweiten Weltkrieges ist der Punkt das es eine legendäre Zeit war und es etwas ehrfürchtiges an den Jahren ab 1940 gibt. Es bringt uns zurück zu einer Zeit wo die Welt von dem Thema "Helden gegen Bösewichte" bestimmt war. Die Designer von Airborne™ erforschten die visuellen Zeichen dieser Ära durch verschiedene Medien. Was sie jetzt erschaffen ist ein stilisierter Realismus. Es geht nicht darum einen absoluten 100% Foto-Realismus zu erzeugen, aber stattdessen einen Versuch zu unternehmen die Merkmale der Zeit möglichst “realistisch” nachzuempfinden. Die Künstler erstellen ein legendäres, episches Gefühl aus den sehr natürlichen Umgebungen. Im dritten Teil unserer Untersuchung des filmische Aussehens von Medal of Honor Airborne™ erarbeitet Art Director Justin Thomas wie das Airborne™ Art Team visuelle Effekte erschafft, welche die Geschichte durch das Aussehen erzählen.

Visuals That Tell a Story
Präsentiert von Art Director Justin Thomas

Shape Language - Designers can really get away with less detail just by taking advantage of how their shadows fall. You can do a lot with silhouette. We’ve set out to take advantage of really good cinematic features, much of which has to do with solid shape language. We don’t necessarily want to completely rely on every last “next-gen” feature to do the job for us. Those are all very expensive. We want to balance the really cool new visuals with really cool classic visuals, and that’s where our shape language comes in.

Shape language supports the conflict evolution. If you’re in a really intense area, where there’s a lot of action going on, we want you to feel visually worn out. In an area where we need to tell the story of a lot of action and activity, you might see a lot of spikes and other sharp shapes. In an area with less activity, it’s quieter, and sometimes more claustrophobic. The whole direction is about complimenting the action that goes on in the game to deepen the player’s experience.

For example, because Market Garden was a mission that was much more dangerous than the US expected, the drop zone that you’re jumping into is full of spiky shapes. If you look at the real area, all of the rooftops really are spiky shapes, and big steeples, and things like that. It’s almost like you’re falling into a city of broken glass, which is just a really cool compliment to what the mission actually was.

Visual Rhythm Through Localized Detail – Again, this speaks to the concept of not just throwing props in for the sake of it. WWII saw a lot of damage and destruction. There were a lot of broken buildings, but we’ve seen that already so many times. It’s become really common. What we want to do is take it one step farther in creating an environment where a lot of those details and a lot of that damage is more than just set dressing – it’s actually informative to the player. You may not notice it consciously, but unconsciously these will create visual areas of interest that could guide you to things like cover points, or areas that might need further exploration. These things are meant to pull the viewer through the world.

Contextual History – Everything has to tell a story. It has to be a reaction. If there’s rubble on the ground, it’s because a bomb has hit the building, and you can see where it’s collapsed down the side of the structure and maybe crushed a car or something along those lines. We really want to make everything make sense. That’s a big part of how you make the world feel real and visceral.

Believable Characters – For a while it was basically thought that you could build a character who was essentially just a “tube guy,” and as long as you put really cool normal maps on him he’d look very “next-gen.” It made it suddenly look like he was high-poly. One of the things we’re doing with Medal of Honor Airborne is to really look at and understand the soldier’s uniforms, to understand how they wrinkle and flow. We want to really add weight to them. These guys have been fighting, they’re tired, they’re outfits are caked with dust and dirt – they feel heavy. We want to use descriptive wear, dirt, and surfaces to bring that weight across to the player to help you feel like one of those soldiers.

We also want to add an emotional presence. Our characters are not modeled with a completely neutral expression. All of our characters are modeled from real people in the studio, and we model them with a base expression of their natural personality. We want to get away from the “dead eye” look when you look at other characters in the game. We want them to really connect with the viewer, and that can be achieved through any number of expressions. Maybe it’s a slight grimace, or a slight growl, or something like that.

Im nächsten Airdrop gibt uns Justin Thomas einen Einblick auf die lebendige Farben-Palette von Medal of Honor Airborne™.

- BlackHat

Eine visuelle Sprache finden - Für Medal of Honor Airborne™ probieren die Entwickler nicht nur eine neue Art Spielgefühl in das Genre zu bringen sondern auch einen neues Aussehen für den Zweiten Weltkrieg und das Medal of Honor™ Franchise zu erschaffen. Die Künstler von Airborne™ etablieren erneut eine starke visuelle Identität im Zweiten Weltkrieg Genre, indem sie die Menschen an ihre beliebten Film-Erlebnisse erinnern. Sie wollen aber auch erreichen, das die Spieler von Airborne™ so begeistert werden wie die Entwickler bereits selbst von anderen Spielen verschiedener Genre fasziniert sind.

Einer der wichtigsten Aspekte des Zweiten Weltkrieges ist der Punkt das es eine legendäre Zeit war und es etwas ehrfürchtiges an den Jahren ab 1940 gibt. Es bringt uns zurück zu einer Zeit wo die Welt von dem Thema "Helden gegen Bösewichte" bestimmt war. Die Designer von Airborne™ erforschten die visuellen Zeichen dieser Ära durch verschiedene Medien. Was sie jetzt erschaffen ist ein stilisierter Realismus. Es geht nicht darum einen absoluten 100% Foto-Realismus zu erzeugen, aber stattdessen einen Versuch zu unternehmen die Merkmale der Zeit möglichst “realistisch” nachzuempfinden. Die Künstler erstellen ein legendäres, episches Gefühl aus den sehr natürlichen Umgebungen. Im ersten Teil unserer Untersuchung des filmische Aussehens von Medal of Honor Airborne™ erarbeitet Art Director Justin Thomas wie das Airborne™ Art Team Atmosphäre in einer virtuellen Welt erzeugt.

Atmosphäre erzeugen
Präsentiert von Art Director Justin Thomas

Dicke Luft – In Airborne™ wollen die Entwickler eine sehr viszerale und sandige Umgebung erzeugen. Ein Weg um das zu erreichen ist wirklich die Luft, die den Spieler umgibt, mit einer Textur zu versehen. Wir wollen Licht das durch die Luft bricht, ortsfesten Staub, Rauch, Nebel und vor allem ein fühlbares Ambiente. Was wir erzeugen sind Areale mit schweren Kämpfen, wo die Luft ein wenig düster ist, aber man trotzdem die Entfernung erkennen kann. Wenn der Spieler Gebäude betritt bricht Licht durch die Fenster. Man kann sich orientieren, aber alles ist etwas nebelig und diffus. Auf einmal ist dann alles klar zu erkennen. Es gibt dem Spieler einen wirklich dramatischen Effekt und der Spieler meint zu das Knirschen zwischen seinen Zähnen zu hören. Es fühlt sich an als ob die Schlacht um den Spieler den Staub in der Luft erzeugt. Wir wollen das die Atmosphäre wie ein immaterieller Charakter im Spiel wirkt.

Kontraste zwischen Außen und Innen - Wenn sich die Spieler im Außenbereich von Medal of Honor Airborne™ aufhalten fühlen sie sich ungeschützt – wir wollen das die Spieler den deutlichen Unterschied zwischen Außenbereich und Innenbereich bemerken. Wenn sich im Innenbereich befinden ist alles eng und erzeugt Klaustrophobie. Es gibt viele geschlossene Räume und die Spieler wissen nicht was nach der nächsten Ecke ist. Wenn sich im Außenbereich befinden, sollten sie beunruhigt darüber sein woher sie als nächstes beschossen werden und wo sie Deckung suchen können. Wir wollen das die Spieler die Möglichkeit erhält die Unterscheide zwischen den ausgeprägten Bereichen zu fühlen.

Vertikale Skala – Offensichtlich geht es in unserem Spiel um das Springen. Das erzeugt die großartige Möglichkeit nicht nur auf dem Boden zu spielen, sondern auch auf höhere Plätze zu gelangen und von oben den Gegner anzugreifen. Es geht aber auch darum dass die Spieler diese höheren Ebenen um sich zu erforschen. Was zusätzlich damit erzeugt wird ist ein wirklich starkes Gefühl der Vertikalität - dieses Gefühl, welches eintritt wenn die Spieler an der Kante von einem hohen Gebäude stehen und der Magen rebelliert. Wir wollen das die Spieler dieses Gefühl in Airborne™ bekommen. Wir integrieren das so oft wie möglich, um sicherzustellen das die Spieler emotional ins das Spiel eingebunden werden. Das ist eines der anspornenden Ziele welches wir erreichen wollen.

Flächen mit Auswirkungen – Flächen mit Auswirkungen sind eines der wirklich genialen “mehr-Prügel-für-deinen-Hintern” Next-Generation Features. Das ist der Punkt wo wir passive Aktivität in der Szene erleben. Es kann wirklich nichts auf dem Bildschirm der Spieler passieren, aber wenn sie auf eine nachdenkliche Szene stoßen, wenn es irgendeine Art von subtil wirkenden Gegenständen gibt – vielleicht Laub oder Kleidung auf einem Draht – das fügt eine Art Aktivität in die Umgebung ein und lässt das Auge der Spieler beobachten wenn sie ziellos umherlaufen. Es erhöht die Spannung und wenn die Aktivität erst richtig los geht, ist der Adrenalin-Pegel der Spieler bereits sehr hoch. Vordergrund, Mitte und Hintergrund – Eines der Dinge der wir uns wirklich bewusst sind ist nicht nur Gegenstände in die Gegend zu stellen, nur aus dem Grund das Gegenstände überhaupt vorhanden sind. Wir wollen Elemente hinzufügen die den Spielern helfen sich in der Szene zurechtzufinden, welche die Augen der Spieler förmlich anziehen und eine Art von Tiefe erzeugen. Wir geben den Spielern etwas zum konzentrieren im Vordergrund, die Mitte erzählt die Geschichte der aktuellen Aktivität und der Hintergrund hilft den Spielern die vertikale Skala zu ermitteln und die Größe der Welt festzustellen. Jeder Winkel welchem sich die Spieler nähern hat diesen Typ von visueller Hilfe und bereichert die Umgebung und das Spielgefühl.

Im nächsten Airdrop gibt uns Justin Thomas einen Einblick in die visuelle Effekte von Medal of Honor Airborne™.

- BlackHat