News-Info-Alerts

Re: POW Experience Becomes A Game

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 19, 2003

"XBox > Features >

Pilot Down Feature

We put the creators of 'Prisoner of War' under the spotlight, to gain information on their new PS2/Xbox/PC release...

Developed across three formats, Pilot Down is based on authentic historical facts, emulating the adventures of an allied airman shot down over Germany during WWII. Fact is that 180,000 allied airmen were shot down over enemy territory during WWII. 5,000 landed safely and tried to reach the free world. Only 300 of them succeeded in reaching Switzerland. TVG got the opportunity to speak with Carl Jones at Wide Games and get a deeper insight into the creation of this title.

Pilot Down focuses around Bill Foster, a US Airman, who was shot down in Germany in the winter of 1944 and about to embark on the most daring journey of World War II. Bill must survive against the elements in an epic adventure behind enemy lines. Reaching the Swiss border is his objective but a manhunt, pursued by the most elite German forces will be on his tail. Incapable of speaking without giving himself away, all he can rely on is his survival kit, weaponry and wits. Bill will cross the harsh environments of central Europe during winter, avoiding the enemy patrols that inhabit the towns, villages and forests of Germany and France on the way to the Swiss border. The player must use stealth, resourcefulness and combat to guarantee survival while Captain Killinger, a notorious Luftwaffe pilot, hunts him down and develops into a dangerous enemy within the game.

Adding to the plausibility and depth within a game is always helped by the knowledge that the more salient details and actions on offer have been inspired and researched from fact as Carl elaborated on:

"The original inspiration for Pilot Down came from Wanadoo’s - Edouard Lussan, Publishing and Marketing Director. It was in discussing interesting stories of WWII soldiers who were not put into POW camps, but instead had to travel behind enemy lines, desperately seeking the safety of neutral territories in Europe helped to formulate some good ideas and concepts. We agreed that these stories would make for excellent gameplay, with some unique twists for the player. Our interest was engaged by the fact that in reality, these 'evaders would not be Rambo type superheroes, but were in the main surviving against insurmountable odds using only their wits and courage. We'd already done a lot of research on WWII for Prisoner of War (Codemaster title), but now we extended our research beyond the POW camps of WWII, as our game would take place all across occupied Western Europe. Edouard also had noticed a lack of RPG gameplay in WWII games, and we agreed that this story would fit an RPG/Adventure (The gameplay is original and mixes several genres, close to: 50% stealth, 25% combat and 25% character management-RPG.) game very nicely.”

Coming on three formats, each with their own set of gamers - with their own wish list and needs could be a very important factor. Pilot Down offers a mixture of action, stealth, RPG and survival, which should satisfy a huge pool of gamers.

Pilot Down is played from the 3rd person view, with the player constantly under threat from enemy soldiers, civilian witnesses and, the environment. The player also has to consider that he must survive against the elements, with cold and hunger potentially scuppering the player's journey across Europe in the winter of 1943/44. As you can imagine, life is tough and there is never a time to rest of your laurels:

“ Wherever the player goes, they are in enemy territory, which means that everyone they see is an enemy! With the environment another constant enemy, the player will often find themselves in situations where they desperately need food or warmth. The player will have to, often against their best judgement, attempt to make it into the middle of the campsite - either by out and out combat, diversion and deception or stealth to gain food or warmth."
There are 7 large chapters as the settings within the game, which include many diverse environments (German town, forest, train station...). The journey is from Western Germany to Switzerland, via France is a long one and as such, the locations vary from major Nazi bases to small French towns, with a great deal of wilderness in between. Items that are helpful are clearly indicated in game and the player doesn't have time to hang around trying to interact with all the objects in the world without freezing to death!

In each level the player will have as primary objective to go safely through the map but he will also have secondary objectives to help the war effort such as steal important documents or sabotage German equipments. "Pilot Down also features hidden objectives for the player, that represent their sabotage of the Nazi war machine. Although the player is primarily tasked to escape to the Swiss border, Bill Foster is a US airman with a strong sense of duty, and as such wants to help the allied war effort whenever he can - these secondary objectives allow the player to take part in the overall war going on outside the game, ruining equipment, disabling vehicles and generally causing trouble.

These objectives are puzzles the player must find and figure out.”

Bill via his travels will meet with French Resistance characters that will help him to evade his pursuers, but in most cases the characters the player will meet are enemies. Not to mention of course the fact that Bill speaks no German or French, so would immediately betray his identity if he was to talk to any of the German or French characters in the game!

Pilot Down have a number of distinguishing features one being the character management system which will measure the exploits of the player and assigns experience points that the player can spend on 9 different game skills (strength, endurance, shooting, stealth etc). These skills improve combat effectiveness, ‘stealthiness’ and Bills ability to survive the hostile environment. Like all such systems the player can choose to specialise their character for the gameplay they enjoy most. Carl added, “We feel that the survival gameplay in Pilot Down is unique (at the time of writing!), and the challenge to the player - not just to shoot the baddies, but also to combat the environment, will be a completely new and rewarding experience for players."

There will be plenty of onscreen help and icons so that the player can ascertain how well Bill is faring and every aspect must be taking into account to succeed indulging the fact that food and warmth are vital to his well being! The player's health will deteriorate due to damage in combat and the effects of the environment - so a full experience is on offer!

The all-important AI in the game is based on the Atlas engine systems the team developed for Prisoner of War. It uses A-life routines to create believable human AI, which will not only attack the player, but will also have an awareness of their own mortality - in other words, fear! In game characters will work effectively as a group, covering each other, and raising alarms if they feel they are losing a fight. Chris added: “Our AI has a hierarchy, where senior officers improve the effectiveness of their grunts, so the player can ‘surgically strike’ officers to decrease the effectiveness of their enemies and put them into panic. Finally, the AI will also feel the cold, so, as much as the player, they will tend to stray towards warmth and shelter. The player can use this to their advantage - drawing AI out of their way by lighting fires, etc. Equally, this means that the guards will tend to be in the places the player wants to get Bill to, so it is a double edged sword!"

The game is still in its ‘early’ stages and with its extensive 3D world, human behavioural systems and a few other surprises the first basic screens and conceptual work be showed may not do it justice visually but it does appear to have all the right ideas in place and a involved mix of events and tasks the player will have to undertake – bodes well that this is one worth keeping tabs on.

A console and PC game offering new ideas and created by a team who have complete awareness of what the gaming public want is not a bad premise.

Article By: TVG Staff"