Dan Cermak's career stretches back to 1989, but currently he's Producer of Westwood's upcoming Renegade, the much anticipated first-person shooter set in the Command and Conquer universe. While he'd rather be fishing for marlin, he took some time out of his day to offer his thoughts on Renegade, potential XBox ports, Havoc making cameo's in other C&C games, and how Havoc could make Duke Nukem cry like a little girl. Thanks for your time, Dan!

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Dan Cermak (Renegade) Interview

Conducted by Omni

How true to the C&C world is Renegade? Do you expect many emails saying, "That’s not right!"

We’ve gone through great pains to make sure that Renegade is as true to the C&C world as possible. The game parallels the storyline of the original Command & Conquer RTS game, so players can expect to see buildings, weapons and units from that particular universe. Thus far, the C&C faithful has been very supportive of our efforts; our multiplayer beta testers have commented that this is what they expected if they were dropped into a C&C type battle.

What kind of computers was Renegade designed on?

We used Windows 2000 as the operating system. We found it to be more stable than earlier operating systems, and XP and Windows ME were still too new for us to use.

Just what would you be doing if you weren’t involved with Renegade? (All those months you could have been perfecting your telemarketing skills wasted!)

Oh, I don’t know; maybe fishing for marlin off the coast of Costa Rica perhaps…

I know you’ll probably say, "No plans at this time," but what about an X-Box port? Would a translation be difficult?

While we are investigating the possibility of porting to the X-Box, there aren’t any definite plans at this time (Sorry!).

A criticism of Westwood games of late is that they don’t do enough innovative things, being fairly derivative of previous games with only surface upgrades. What does Renegade do differently to separate itself from all the other action games? It’s in the C&C universe but there’s got to be something else to not only keep our attention, but also choose it over other games.

Taking an RTS game and faithfully recreating the experience from the ground level is a different take that I have not really seen before in games. Also, in the FPS genre, I believe that Renegade is unique in the equality it gives to vehicles. What other FPS allows you to jump into an Armored Personnel Carrier with 3 of your buddies and rush the enemy base, while a Mammoth Tank ensures that a Stealth Tank doesn’t ruin the party?

Will the protagonist from Renegade, Havoc, make appearances in other Westwood RTS games? Or a full-fledged sequel?

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We usually try and keep the various universes clear and distinct, so it’s unlikely that you’ll see Havoc in the Tiberium Sun or Red Alert universes. A sequel is always a possibility; if Renegade is a hit, the chance of a sequel becomes that much more likely…

Why won’t the "one man army" theme die when lately there’s been an increased emphasis on team tactics and "Massively Multiplayer" RPGs?

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My guess is that gamers still like the idea of being the one guy who goes into a situation and gets the job done. When we originally conceived Renegade, identifying a single character as a "conduit" for the game experience was the highest priority. Since the game would be based on the original RTS, it just made sense that Renegade focus around the Commando character. With his attitude and power, he was very popular with gamers and we were able to build on that and evolve the character into Nick "Havoc" Parker.

Who was the inspiration for Havoc?

The Havoc character was inspired by the Commando unit from the first C&C game. As I mentioned before, that unit became very popular with the team and with gamers, with his sarcastic wit and "take no prisoners" attitude. We figured that to deliver that "up close and personal" of a C&C game, he’d be the perfect avatar.

What kind of background history was written for Havoc? (Please, don’t tell us he has "a past clouded in mystery.")

No, nothing as cheesy as that. Havoc came to the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) from the Marine Corps, where his attitude and penchant for "unconventional" methods proved to be a bit much for them to swallow. His first GDI assignment was to lead a multinational commando squad known as the Dead Six. Despite becoming a legend within GDI lore, Havoc discovered that his ham-fisted but effective methods work best when he works alone. He’s the weapon of last resort, but you can bet that when he’s called in, the job gets done.

Let’s say that Duke Nukem and Havoc are trying to pick-up women in a bar, who has the better chance?

Wouldn’t catch Havoc in a bar, trawling for chicks. He likes the kind of woman that can field strip an M-60 in the dark while crawling under concertina wire. But if he did, he’d outclass that tank top wearin’ punk and not even break a sweat.

Thanks again, Dan!

Westwood's Official Site -- get the Renegade Demo!