East Front Q&A

It seems there are more World War 2 games around than traffic wardens the very day you choose to park illegally. However, while East Front may share the same background with shooters like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Mortyr, developer Burut CT may just be trying to pull a Half-Life move on the genre. East Front is by no means just another shooter created on the good old Quake 3 engine.

East Front features goodies like an advanced physics engine, an emotion engine for the characters (named after a Norwegian singer) and decision moments where your choice settles how the plot is going to move forward. In the game you play as Karl Stolz, who was involved in Nazi experiments for creating the perfect soldier. However, he is also part of the German resistance and thus fights the Nazis. East Front is being developed by the Russian studio Burut CT and we talked to game designer Dmitry Glaznev about the game.

Boomtown: Please introduce yourself to us and the readers and tell us about your involvement with EastFront.

Dmitry Glaznev: My name is Dmitry Glaznev and I’m script writer and the game designer of this game. I’m also the official voice of the company that’s why you are speaking with me.

Boomtown: What is East Front about and what kind of gameplay do you offer that sets the game apart in the crowded FPS genre?

Dmitry Glaznev: To be short, we have innovative gameplay and a really nice alternate WWII settings. We can offer you the all things you like to see in the next-gen product including cinematic effects, nice technologies and intensive action. But we want to give new impressions and emotions to the gamers — something unusual and exiting. The players should feel themselves in the eye of storm, with screaming action and surprising events.

Boomtown: East Front takes place in an alternative World War 2. What have you kept realistic and where have you taken on a fictional course?

Dmitry Glaznev: You are playing in WWII world with some fictional themes, like hi-tech soldiers, psyonics, and advanced technologies. But the weapons are the real ones. In the game the historical SS expedition to Tibet in 1938 headed by Hauptsturmführer Dr. Ernst Schäfer (one of the leaders of the horrible Ahnenerbe institution, ed.) yields stunning results – unlike the real one - as he finds out how to resurrect humans. Five years later Schäfer manages to create the first functioning perfect soldier by reanimating the soldier Karl Stolz.

Boomtown: Apparently East Front is not linear, but will require the player to make decisions that carry the story on. How do these decision scenes work and please give us a concrete example of one of the early decisions if possible.

Dmitry Glaznev: An example? OK! (It will show how it works, anyway). Let’s imagine that during the assault of a German prison our companion rebel takes prisoner a Nazi mechanic, puts the gun to his head, and is about to pull the trigger. The mechanic starts pleading for mercy and the player will have a countdown on the screen. The player can prevent the death if he presses the "use" button in that time and pleads for the rebel, or he can do nothing and just see the rebel finish the mechanic off.

Boomtown: According to the information released so far, the physics engine is very advanced. Please explain how it works and what you can do with the environment.

Dmitry Glaznev: The virtual world that you can easily destroy brick by brick is the pain in designer’s ass. So we have some limitations here. As we don’t know what a player wants to destroy we tried to make almost all objects physical — from a cup on a table to a flying plane. Enemies, their weapons and ammunition (flasks, map-cases, clips, casks, and even glasses), med-kits, grenades, dead bodies — everything that obeys Newton’s laws has weight, friction, weight distribution and tons of other parameters. Actually, it won’t be far from truth if I say that only walls, ceilings and ladders are non-physical. We also got physical doors. You can blow up a locked door with dynamite or grenade. If you want you can even try to break it using you pistol but it’ll take too much time :)

Boomtown: Would you say that it’s more advanced than we’ve seen until now – better than for example Half-Life 2 and Far Cry?

Dmitry Glaznev: Let's be honest. Did you ever see any game in FPS genre with WWII atmosphere that have any good physic engine? I know none. So with East Front we are giving the new dimension and opportunities in WW II world, that breathing, screaming and tearing your mind apart. You could blow the things up, destroy the enemy covers, and use the environment for hiding and killing foes. Would it better than Half-Life 2? We are not using the gravity gun, but you wouldn't be disappointed. I promise.

Boomtown: Is it emotionally difficult for a Russian developer to create a game about World War 2 and the Nazi adversary? Are there any precautions that you need to take?

Dmitry Glaznev: Of course not. It's just a game. One shouldn't involve politics in entertainment. Some kind of people always find a pretext to brand a game politically incorrect claiming that a computer game, as one of the most interactive arts, enables a player to be in the shoes of a protagonist. This is nothing but a game!

Boomtown: The press release mentions an "original multiplayer mode". What is it?

Dmitry Glaznev: I can’t tell you the details, but it would be really cool. We’ll talk about it next time.

Boomtown: When will the game hit the shelves?

Dmitry Glaznev: We expect a release in the Spring.