Shack: Act of War: Direct Action received high marks when it was released last year, but it seems that the game was overlooked by the gaming public (at least in North America). Any idea why this is?

Henrik Strandberg: With Act of War: Direct Action, we dedicated a lot of marketing resources in the U.S. in trying to reach audiences with a general interest in modern warfare and PC gaming, i.e. not necessarily the traditional RTS gamers. In hindsight, perhaps we would have had better results if we'd done a more traditional "PC RTS" marketing campaign -- as our colleagues in Atari Europe did -- but it's always easy to say when you have the results. We're still very happy with the reception and critical acclaim though, and hope this expansion pack will breathe some new life into the community of devoted fans all over the world.

Shack: When you set out to create an expansion pack, what were your main goals?

Henrik Strandberg: It's always tricky to limit the feature set of an expansion when there's so much you want to do, but in our case we had three pretty much given areas -- extend the replayability by deepening the multiplayer experience, both with more options and more maps, secondly to expand the gameplay experience by introducing new units, mainly naval battles and mercenaries, and finally of course to develop a new single-player campaign which was more interesting and challenging in terms of gameplay than in the original game.

Shack: (Slight story spoiler here in regards to the first game) The original game ended with a high-stakes mission set in Washington DC and the player protecting the White House. How does the story continue in High Treason?

Henrik Strandberg: The story in High Treason is a free continuation from Direct Action, we follow the same Task Force Talon members and they're fighting the same type of global conspiracy as in the original game, in the same type of techno-thriller plotline.

Shack: What are some of the new locations we'll see in the singleplayer campaign?

Henrik Strandberg: I won't reveal too much of the actual twists and locations, but you can expect to see the same kind of unique and spectacular scenarios -- in which other RTS game have you fought on top of New York skyscrapers, invaded Cuba, or deflected a terrorist attack on a modern airport?

Shack: High Treason is adding naval combat to the mix. What made you decide to add this, and what kind of units will the player be able to control?

Henrik Strandberg: Well, aside from the fact we think naval combat is really cool, we felt we needed a big design challenge for ourselves, too. Everything in Act of War is to scale, and designing a game that seamlessly mixed the radically different scales you have between ground combat with single infantry soldiers as the smallest units, and naval combat with ships several hundred meters long was indeed a huge challenge, but we're extremely happy with the result! You'll have everything you could expect from a modern naval warfare RTS -- destroyers, submarines, anti-submarine helicopters, aircraft and helicopter carriers, amphibious assault landing ships, mines, torpedoes, tomahawk and typhon missiles, active and passive sonar, sono bouys, etc.

Shack: Instead of adding a new faction, you opted to introduce mercenary units. Tell us a bit more about how these can be used, and what kind of units the player will get by hiring mercenaries?

Henrik Strandberg: Mercenaries can be deployed anywhere on the battlefield and are basically used as "wild cards" to be used at short notice whenever the situation requires. In one way they level the playing field a little as they even out weaknesses of the existing factions, but they're too expensive and vulnerable to make up a standing fighting force. They include everything from F-117 stealth bombers that will destroy any building they hit, to close assault infantry with Benelli shotguns.

Shack: You are adding several new units and upgrades for the existing three factions in the game. Can you tell us what players can expect here?

Henrik Strandberg: Aside from 5-7 naval units for each faction, we've also added 5-10 new units and upgrades for each faction and also, some existing units (mainly artillery and airplanes) have new behaviour and abilities. Some of this was based on feedback from the community to "nerf" units that were too powerful or boost units that felt underpowered, and some just to cover gaping holes in the tech tree. Combined, they give a more varied and dynamic gameplay experience. Some examples are two new elite infantry for Task Force Talon, a sniper unit for the Consortium, and a cluster bomb upgrade for the A-10 Thunderbolts.

Shack: Act of War: Direct Action is one of the best looking strategy games out there. Regardless, are you introducing any new graphics features in High Treason?

Henrik Strandberg: Most of the efforts in the graphics department went to support the naval combat, with better looking water and water physics. Direct Action already introduced a whole host of advanced graphics techniques for the first time in the RTS genre, and we've optimized and improved these further in High Treason.

Shack: Let's talk about multiplayer. I hear you're introducing quite a few new options here?

Henrik Strandberg: There's a bunch of new multiplayer options, such as game speed, map wealth, resource harvesting speed, shared vision between allies and unit lethality, and by combining these different settings you can get a very different gameplay experience. For example if you want a game that's more reliant on always using the right weapon in every situation, you can decrease unit lethality. If you want a more of a shoot'em'up, just increase game speed and set starting resources to like $50,000 and you'll suddenly have an extremely fast-paced game where resource management and harvesting are secondary.

We've also added two brand new game modes: Marine One Down and SCUD Launcher. These are basically like "mini-games" within the game, as they provide a gameplay that is fundamentally different from the basic game, and incredibly fun! They totally change the way you play the game, but still using the same fundamental mechanics. Also, there are alternative victory conditions such as destroying the enemy HQ to win, or capturing a certain number of POWs to win.

Shack: Are the game's new mercenary units available for hire here as well?

Henrik Strandberg: Mercenaries are featured in some of the single-player missions, but mainly designed to be used in the multiplayer modes.

Shack: How many new multiplayer maps will High Treason add to the game, and how many of those include naval possibilities?

Henrik Strandberg: The final count I believe is about 35 brand new maps, bringing the total to over 60, seven of which are exclusively for the navy mode.

Shack: After the release of Act of War: High Treason, do you see the possibility of future installments or expansion packs?

Henrik Strandberg: The future will tell, but I'd certainly hope so!

Act of War: High Treason will be in European stores March 24, and the North American release should follow late April. Check back on Thursday for a demo, which will include one singleplayer mission and two multiplayer maps. More information on Act of War can be found at the Atari website.