Turok: Interview with Josh Holmes of Proganda Games - Interviews

In previous Features (Part I, Part II) Omni explored a few different aspects of the upcoming Turok title. Now, he recounts an interview he completed with Josh Holmes, VP and General Manager of Propaganda Games, wa-a-a-y back in November 2006. (Embargos are a bitch!) Topics covered: more on dynamic foliage, multiplayer, voice-acting, the challenges of re-launching the Turok franchise, Achievements, and Epic's support of the Unreal 3 engine.

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Turok

Interview with Josh Holmes of Propaganda Games

Omni: Since 2005, when you couldn’t say anything about Turok – at E3 I asked questions and you guys nodded, “Ask us that question next year” – you’ve seen games coming out like Gears of War, and you have another year to go working with the Unreal 3 engine, do you see what they’ve done as a challenge as to what you guys can pull off?

Josh Holmes: I think we’re definitely going to exceed some of the stuff you’re seeing but we’re exceeding it in slightly different ways. Looking at Gears of War, which just came out, a phenomenal game, but what they’ve chosen to do is create very tiny, tight boxes and they’ve a dressed them high resolution objects and put some paintings behind it and you go from one box to the next little box. It’s a very constrained experience – it’s great for what they’re trying to do. They’re doing one thing extremely, extremely well. What we’re doing with the engine is very different in that we’re creating vast, open, streaming levels that go from one place to another to another – and run the gambit of small constrained places to vast open areas. In that sense the graphics are going to be very different in terms of what our goals are.

You showed us a tech demo of the dynamic foliage – is it going to be limited to grass level or are we looking at extrapolating that to trees?

That system won’t support stuff like trees just because of the way that it works. We’re doing things like destructible trees and dinos bursting through those – we’re using a different system for that. We have a couple different foliage systems in the game. One is used to develop all the tree leanings and things like that. And

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the other one is that one we showed you today more for grass but we can also expand that to vines and willow-type trees to cover cave mouths. And we can ever do flat, broad plants to some degree. But trees are just completely different.

You also showed us the flame thrower. Would that affect the foliage? Is it going to burn?

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That’s the tricky part. The plan is to try to get everything in the world as dynamic and “affected” as possible but within the constraints of the technology and the system(s) and performance requirements. So, the flame thrower that you saw there is in very early development so as far as burning interactions with things in the environment is something we’re still working on.

How supportive is Epic of the Unreal 3 engine?

Epic’s focus has been Gears. They’ve done a really great job with that product – and it shows where they’re focus has been. They do have the UDN where you can post questions and try to get answers there but in a lot of cases… Number one, they’re busy so getting an answer on something isn’t always quickly answered. Number two, I think that some of the things we’re doing are so radically different from what they’re trying to do with the engine… that becomes something where you’re breaking new ground. In a lot of cases our technical staff figures it out by themselves.

With another year to go, do you think you’ll hit the ship target of Q4 2007? Are you confident that this time next year we’ll playing Turok?

That is absolutely our goal. But that said, we’re making the game, and the game’s going to be done when it’s done.

What kind of budget are you working with?

Not to talk to specifics about Turok, but it’s the in the range of what it costs for next-gen development… in the range of $20 million for a really great title. That’s sort of the industry standard.

There was some mention of multiplayer. What can you tell us?

Multiplayer is fully playable – we’re going through playtesting, getting feedback, etc. so we can polish it. The decision to roll out [information on multiplayer] will come later. Today we’re concentrating on single-player because that’s what we’re doing to re-launch the franchise.

Talking about re-launching the franchise, have members of the gaming press, PR/Marketing, suggested that the Turok franchise should have been left alone? Are you having problems overcoming their preconceived notions based on the previous Turok titles?

It’s definitely a significant challenge. The franchise – when you take it back to its roots, its core, where it started from – it’s one of the greatest franchises in gaming. It stands right up there with (for its day) GoldenEye. And I think there’s a loyal fanbase that remember that and how cool it was. For us as game developers, we look at that say, “Okay, next-gen technology and what would that experience be like?” That’s what really excited us. The decision, as far as should we just leave the franchise and find something new… I’m a big Turok fan and I think it’s going to be a great re-launch of the franchise.

As far as feedback from people, it has been very mixed. A lot of people were like, “Wow! Awesome, Turok’s back!” or “How dare they stray from the story of Turok?” or “Why would you make another Turok game?” It’s all over the map. It’s up to us to prove to people that the game is a great playing experience and just take it from there.

In terms of the voice acting – I know you said previously that it was finalized – but I’m positive I heard Ron Perlman and Lance Henriksen.

You might have got one of them. <Laughs> There is quite a cast of characters in the game so there are a number of voice actors that you’ll recognize and some very talented actors that you may not of heard about.

Will Turok use a checkpoint system for game saves?

A checkpoint system is what we’re implementing right now.

And my last question, because it’s coming out on Xbox 360 (as well as PS3), how is the allocation of Achievements being handled?

Achievements are definitely something we’re focusing on – we’re all big gamers on 360 and we’re all shocked at how much those Achievements mean to us. It used to be, “Achievements? Why would that matter?” It’s the completionist in all of us. We’ve got a lot of cool ideas for Achievements but I don’t want to talk about the specifics of those right now.

(January 22, 2007)


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