"We're not trying to make our game more like other shooters out there" - 4A Interview

Luster · Nov 16, 2011

New interview by Rock Paper Shotgun.

4A’s sequel to Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, seems to have been slipping beneath our radar a bit. The post-apocalyptic original was so close to being proper good that it’s definitely worth keep an eye on what they’re up to next. With that in mind, we caught up with THQ’s Huw Beynon to find a bit more about what’s happening with the game, which is set for release in mid 2012.

RPS: Can you tell us a bit about what the plan is for Last Light? How does it follow on from the original game’s ending? (Or endings?)

Beynon: Last Light is a direct narrative sequel to the Metro 2033 the game – and we follow the canonical, essentially tragic ending of the book. We can see from Achievement data that the alternative, ‘enlightened’ ending was only achieved by 2 – 3 percent of players, so although it’s become common knowledge that 2033 had two endings, that ‘enlightened’ path remains elusive. As I think it should be!

But as the basis for an interesting narrative for Last Light, it made no sense to base a sequel on anything other than the book’s ending. The enlightened ending of Metro 2033 represents a fleeting glimpse at what could have been, nothing more.

RPS: How much is the world’s author, Dmitry Glukhovsky, involved in plotting this game? Does it deviate significantly from the books?

Beynon: Last Light is an original storyline that follows directly from the events in Metro 2033 the game. It bears no relation to Dimity’s pseudo-sequel – Metro 2034 – which, by his own admission, would not really lend itself to a video game adaptation in the same way that Metro 2033 did. So Dmitry conceived an original plotline for the game that follows Artyom’s story, and the studio have been building the narrative around this. He’s crafted some specific scenarios for us too. So Dmitry may not be involved to the same degree he was last time, but his influence and input is definitely still there.

If you’ve read Metro 2033 as well as played the game you’ll understand just how different book and game are – even when your source material is so strongly suited to adaptation. Dmitry really understood that a game does not have to follow the exact plot-line and pacing of the book to be a ‘faithful’ adaptation – instead we took the painstakingly imagined world, and the major plotlines, characters and themes, and built our gameplay goals around them.

RPS: How did the team react to feedback from the first game? Was it a case of being encouraged that they were doing the right thing? Or were there changes to be made?

Beynon: As always, a combination of both. We’re the first to recognise that there were flaws with Metro 2033, and I don’t think any of the negative comments came as any surprise to us. But what’s been so encouraging for the team is the sheer, unbridled positivity shown towards the first game from our ever expanding fanbase.

The broader picture we built from all the feedback, good and bad, was that we’d created something very special with Metro 2033 that a lot of people regarded as one of their favourite and certainly most memorable games of recent times. There’s a huge number of players who were able to overlook the flaws, and enjoy what we hope was a pretty memorable, unique experience.

For others, those flaws were too much of an obstacle to enjoyment. And we have to respect that viewpoint too.

How we interpret and act on that feedback is really critical to the development of Last Light – we believe, and this is something that THQ have thankfully been very supportive of, that we got the basic formula right. So when approaching Metro: Last Light, our first goal was really to capture and preserve the ‘soul’ of the Metro experience. We’re not trying to make our game more like other shooters out there – we’re trying to take, and perfect that Metro formula, because we felt we were close to creating a genuine classic last time around, and with Last Light we’re determined not to fall short.

We’ve paid a huge amount of close attention to the negative feedback, and made every effort to address those issues. We feel that without compromising the essential DNA of the game, we can answer our critics and make the game a lot more appealing to more people.

RPS: Has the combat been changed at all? I recall it was pretty brutal the first time around – should we expect a similar challenge?

Beynon: Our goal is to make the combat experience feel not just brutal, but deadly – fraught with danger. Artyom is not a super soldier meting out death and destruction to waves of faceless cannon fodder. We want to strike that balance between making the player feel powerful and skilled in offence, while still feeling vulnerable and threatened. With Metro 2033 I think we achieved the latter – where we aim to do better this time around is to make the combat experience more satisfying for the player.

We spent a long time analysing all the feedback we go from the combat in 2033, and the same things kept surfacing – the AI was inconsistent, the weapons felt underpowered, you couldn’t tell if you were hitting the target or not… Some of these criticisms were valid. Some stemmed from that fact that we hadn’t explained how our combat systems worked as well as we should. For example, most human enemies wear extensive body armour that ‘dirty rounds’ (the inferior post-apocalyptic ammo) have trouble penetrating – listen closely and you can hear the ping as bullets ricochet off metal, or the meaty crunch if they meet exposed flesh.

But we didn’t accentuate those effects as much as we needed to, we didn’t have appropriate visual effects to support, our animation system was a little basic at times and enemies seemingly did not respond to being shot at…

So for Last Light combat has probably seen the biggest focus for improvement. There are so many elements of an FPS that affect the overall combat experience, from control to AI, to animation, to visual and aural feedback… every part has gone back to the drawing board, and hopefully our E3 demo showed some of the progress we’re making here.

But in terms of the player experience – combat in Metro is meant to feel like a deadly risk at all times, not a shooting gallery. In that sense, you should expect another challenge of your wits and tactics as much as your skills, particularly on higher settings.

I know some fans of the original game have seen our E3 demo and maybe felt concerned that we’re veering towards a run-and-gun approach to combat – that’s really not the case. That demo was there to showcase some moments of high spectacle, but you can be assured that attempting to run-and-gun in Metro gets you killed very fast.

RPS: What about environmental hazards and so forth? Any variation there?

Beynon: The world of Metro is a hostile place, full of environmental hazards and foes, both humans and mutant. The surface is the most hostile environment of all – it’s full of things actively trying to kill you, and that constant struggle for survival, the desperate need to preserve your lifelines of ammo, medical supplies, light and filters is something we feel is intrinsic to the Metro experience. One of the things we were proud of in Metro 2033 was the sheer amount of environmental variety we achieved for a ‘post-apocalyptic’ game. We used light in particular to give us a rich colour palette, and we’ve tried hard in Last Light to keep surprising the player with a scope and scale of the environments they’ll encounter. So yeah – plenty of variety. And most of it deadly.

RPS: We’ve seen quite a lot of “surface” shots so far, is that indicative that we’re going to spend more time above ground?

Beynon: We take the player back up to the surface multiple times in Metro: Last Light. I think on balance it will be a little more than it was in 2033.

RPS: Presumably the stations make a return? I think they were a favourite aspect of the game for a lot of people. Are they different at all this time around? Any more things to do in those areas?

Beynon: Yes, you’ll be visiting Stations along the way again. They really help us establish the world, break up the pacing of the game, let the player explore – they’re critical parts of the game. Their fundamental role hasn’t changed – they are areas to explore and soak up the game world, so don’t expect to be getting side-quests from NPCs, but we’re trying to make them less linear, and more interactive environments. We’ll have one ready to show next time we present the game, so you can judge for yourself.

RPS: One a scale of one-to-pretty the original game was about an eight, but people are saying Last Light will be a nine. Is that true? Any new visual tech being deployed? Or is it just a case of learning to use the existing tech more effectively?

Beynon: Obviously we are extremely proud of the visual quality we achieved with Metro 2033. On PC we gave owners of the latest generation of cards a glimpse of what their hardware was really capable of. The 4A engine continues to evolve, it’s eminently scale-able, and by the time we approach release we will no doubt will be making full use of the latest developments, as we did with 2033 when DX11 was still relatively new. We’ve made substantial enhancements to the tech across the board – hopefully we’ll be able to share this with you in more detail in the near future.

At the same time, we’re making the engine work more efficiently than it ever did before. The code we’ve been showing since E3 runs around 70 FPS in 1920 x 1080 with DX11, on a single NVidia 590. More people will be able to run Last Light on significantly higher settings than Metro 2033 on the same hardware.

RPS: And would you say that there is a significant advantage to be had from 4A using their own engine?

Beynon: Without question. It’s not just the technology itself that’s important, it’s the working practices and process of the studio, and how that technology is understood, shared and used. We are not limited by a ‘feature set’ as we might be with a 3rd part engine. We are free to create the feature set we want, as needed.

RPS: I understand we can expect some multiplayer, too. What can you tell us about plans for that?

Beynon: Not much right now! All I can say is, we’re aware of all the misgivings towards any game famed for its single player that adds a multiplayer component. We understand those concerns. But having had multiplayer prototypes up and running since early in the development of Metro 2033, the studio really wants to bring those ideas to fruition.

We know the single player experience is the main attraction for many, and our efforts with MP are not going to be to the detriment of the quality or quantity of the single player campaign.

RPS: Thanks for your time.
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[source]

Von Streff · Nov 17, 2011

Hmm, they keep giving us the same information, though, with little new content. But it sounds vaguely like they are planning to show more gameplay soon. Cheers for sharing this, Luster!

Spitfire · Nov 17, 2011

Yeah, thanks for the heads up Luster. Man, we are in an info drought right now.

majnu · Nov 17, 2011

I've liked the interviews and it looks like 4A have their heads screwed on and taking lots of feedback from the community.

Chrome · Nov 19, 2011

I really hope they let you customize the video options, unlike with Metro 2033 when everything was at a certain setting corresponding with "Low" "Medium" "High" "Ultra"

Von Streff · Nov 22, 2011

New Metro Coming!

The follow-up to the hit Metro 2033 is in the works. The developer spent some time talking tech with PC Games Hardware in Germany. Among the topics was 3D Vision support.

"As you probably know, 2033 shipped already supporting NVIDIA 3D Stereo. And it was the only game of that time which was designed with 3D in mind resulting in highest possible "3D Vision Ready" status. Last Light improved and tuned 3D perception to new levels. We believe that it will be in a class of its own (smile)."

Here is hopping Metro Last Light sets a new bar for 3D.

From an NVIDEA interview a few days ago.

lolinski · Nov 30, 2011

Chrome said: ↑

I really hope they let you customize the video options, unlike with Metro 2033 when everything was at a certain setting corresponding with "Low" "Medium" "High" "Ultra"
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I hope they keep both like having a check box that says "advanced options" which would open up the special customization options, since that old system is very user friendly.

Oxotnik · Dec 2, 2011

Great if Metro Last Light will not be like COD.

One more thing it would be awesome if there would be some part of gameplay when year is 2013 (like in REVELATIONS Altair's gameplay).

)

Anubis · Dec 11, 2011

yeah nothing is going on right now I need more information now !
I am confident in 4A games, because they work very close with Dmitry Glukhovsky and listen to the fans.

Von Streff · Dec 11, 2011

Anubis said: ↑

yeah nothing is going on right now I need more information now !
I am confident in 4A games, because they work very close with Dmitry Glukhovsky and listen to the fans.
Click to expand...

If only more companies did this. Of course, they have to surprise us too!

Spitfire · Dec 12, 2011

I have total faith in 4A, but they are doing this project without Dmitry. So It is impossible to predict where the game is going.

Von Streff · Dec 12, 2011

Spitfire said: ↑

I have total faith in 4A, but they are doing this project without Dmitry. So It is impossible to predict where the game is going.
Click to expand...

No, Dmitry Glukhovsky is definitely involved, he is helping with the story and plot. It's just not based on Metro 2034.

StrangeCase · Dec 13, 2011

I liked what they had to say. I really hope they manage to stay true to the identity 2033 established. It had its share of flaws and quirks and frustrating parts, but its atmosphere and feel was brilliant.

Pip314 · Dec 15, 2011

From the looks of the 13 minute gameplay demo, I've personally started to relate these two games to Alien and Aliens. Alien was based around atmosphere and horror, while Aliens was completely different and contained lots of gun-play and firefights. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the button-triggered knife worries me every time I watch the gameplay demo; and I'd never be able to sneak up on enemies in 2033 the way the player was in the beginning of Last Light. Here's to hoping Last Light will remain true to it's older brother.

Von Streff · Dec 15, 2011

Pip314 said: ↑

From the looks of the 13 minute gameplay demo, I've personally started to relate these two games to Alien and Aliens. Alien was based around atmosphere and horror, while Aliens was completely different and contained lots of gun-play and firefights. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the button-triggered knife worries me every time I watch the gameplay demo; and I'd never be able to sneak up on enemies in 2033 the way the player was in the beginning of Last Light. Here's to hoping Last Light will remain true to it's older brother.
Click to expand...

I like the idea of having quick access to the knife. And, as 4A has stated many times in response to comments such as "it's too actiony", this is purely a gun-play video showing off the new mechanics. They said showing lots of suspense and maybe one or two gunshots would make a very boring trailer. They keep stressing that it's all about staying true to 2033, and that there will be lots of traveling, story, and stealth in the final game.

I know 4A will do an awesome job!

TrollofWar · Jan 25, 2012

The quick-knife is atrocious. It's implausible and all round less immersive.

All that video does is make me think Last light will fail to live up to the original in quality. I hope I'm wrong.

Von Streff · Jan 25, 2012

TrollofWar said: ↑

The quick-knife is atrocious. It's implausible and all round less immersive.

All that video does is make me think Last light will fail to live up to the original in quality. I hope I'm wrong.
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I think a soldier, as Artyom basically is, would have the knife handy, and with enough practice be able to whip it out as the situation demands. As far as I remember, the only other melee attack was with the automatic shotgun. It would be nice if you could just whack 'em on the back of the head with the butt of your gun, but unfortunately there is no evidence of that yet. So quick knife is the answer...

TrollofWar · Jan 25, 2012

Von Streff said: ↑

I think a soldier, as Artyom basically is, would have the knife handy, and with enough practice be able to whip it out as the situation demands. As far as I remember, the only other melee attack was with the automatic shotgun. It would be nice if you could just whack 'em on the back of the head with the butt of your gun, but unfortunately there is no evidence of that yet. So quick knife is the answer...
Click to expand...

For him to be good enough to whip out the knife, use it and put it away in the time he does without stabbing himself, he'd have to practice so much that he'd be unable to practice anything else.

There shouldn't be a 'quick' melee at all imo, especially not a quick knife. To avoid the player looking ridiculous drawing and cutting and sheathing the knife multiple times, the quick knife has to be OHK; that instantly changes the gameplay as now knives kill quicker than anything else and have no penalty whatsoever, because you automatically switch back to your gun, without any animation, as there is in Metro 2033. That instantly changes the gameplay from survival shooter where planning and preparedness are key, to twitch shooter, where your survivability in bad situations just shot up.

Chrome · Jan 25, 2012

I agree will TrollofWar.

That, and it would be to close to CoD....and I hate CoD.

TrollofWar · Jan 25, 2012

Chrome said: ↑

I agree will TrollofWar.

That, and it would be to close to CoD....and I hate CoD.
Click to expand...

Well, the problem is I think that CoD isn't the only shooter doing this anymore, they pretty much all do now; even Battlefield moved to an intermediate system with a quick knife available. Modern shooters seem to think they need to fit in with the crowd of others doing the same thing, not appreciating that perhaps it is the differences which make them stand out.

Still, whatever they do it can't be worse than Killzone 3's 'brutal melee'; that thing had so much auto aim your enemy didn't even need to be on your screen to get the kill.

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