Shack: Speaking of people wanting to go back and try to get the most out of each objective, are you including Achievements for the 360 version that play to that kind of completionism?

Joe Halper: Well, in every 360 game you have to have Achievements, but as far as the specifics we don't know what they'll be yet.

Shack: Here we've got both the Xbox 360 version and the PC version. Are those going to be able to play together?

Joe Halper: No, no. You mean with Live Anywhere?

Shack: Yeah.

Joe Halper: No, we don't have Live on PC. We've got separate games on the Xbox 360 and the PC.

Shack: What do you do with the drones?

Joe Halper: They're based off real world drones. The reconaissance drone is this handheld helicopter drone. You throw it out, and it kicks back recon information to you and and your team, so your entire team can target enemy soldiers. You can see them through the walls. They show up on your minimap and on your actual screen. Besides that, you can use it as an assault drone by running into infantry and blowing up.

There are other drones too, based on real drones. The assault track drone is basically a gatling gun on tracks. Then there's the mortar drone, with a four barrel mortar. The cool thing is, you can place that as the corner of the room, hide somewhere, and use it as a diversion. Or you can use it a sentry unit. It's very cool and creative what some testers are doing with this things.

The Red Star drones are cool, too. We saw a video of some soldiers taking a prototype RC car, and they threw it up into a second story window. It didn't matter how it landed; it would always revert itself. We thought that was so cool, and we had to have it. Not only that, we put a twist on it and packed it with C4 so you can blow up tanks with it. Sometimes you'll see this big tank, then you'll see a little RC car chasing it.

Shack: You have basically a class system with the roles. How does that work?

Joe Halper: There are loadouts, and there are roles. There are six different weapon loadout options, and those are typical of first person shooters--there's the sniper, the shotguns, the rocket weapons, the assault rifle, and so on. Then you have four different roles--ground support [with explosives], countermeasures, drone tech, and air support. Those roles upgrade up to three levels for an RPG kind of twist. You combine those with any loadout, and you can switch at any time. As you use your role, you get points. It juices up your bar, and then you get to level 2. Playing in multiplayer, you can see the game intensify as people level up. You can see [an air support player] calling in cluster strikes, and so you know they're level 2 now. Then you see MOABs--mother of all bombs--blowing out entire territories, and you think, "Oh my god, they're level three!" It's something to fight for.

Shack: What can you do with the airstrikes?

Joe Halper: The airstrikes are cool. It's sort of like how snipers like to kill people from afar; the airstrikes are a similar thing. You can target any area on the map that you can see, using your targeting system. Target a corner of the map you can see, and you can call in an unmanned bomber to pull off a precision airstrike. You can get to rank 2 with the cluster bomb, and drop it in an area with a lot of vehicles and infantry. At rank 3, you have your MOAB. It's a fuel air bomb in the military right now. They've never actually used it, but you can use it in the game. It's a step below a nuclear weapon. It's a psychological weapon, it really does have an effect. Enemies see you're level 3 when you've got the MOAB, and they don't want to be there when it recharges.

Shack: It's got a pretty long recharge time, I'd think.

Joe Halper: Yeah, we're really working on balance. There are over 60 vehicles and weapons, all these levels. We have a huge team which includes a balance team from Relic, which is awesome, and the QA team from THQ. Just doing balance testing, to make sure this all works.

Shack: What's the involvement of [Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes developer] Relic, exactly?

Joe Halper: Relic is under THQ too, and we talk with those guys all the time. We have a couple guys who came over from Relic, a designer and an AI guy. I talk to other guys too, like [producer] John Johnson, who did Company of Heroes. They also have a balance team. It's a small group of guys and I can utilize them to balance our game. It's a service. That's a luxury of being related to these studios. You know how competitive this industry is. There can be a dinner conversation you have with another studio, and it can save you two weeks in finding a solution to something.

Shack: Speaking of THQ, one thing I've noticed is that while it has a lot of console games and particularly licensed games, it has been putting a lot into PC development. Relic does Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, there's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. [from GSC Game World], Gas Powered with Supreme Commander, Iron Lore's Titan Quest, and so on. Your game is multiplatform, but it's part of a genre that's traditionally on PC. That many big-name PC titles is unusual in big publishers these days. Do you have any knowledge or insight regarding THQ's plans there?

Joe Halper: Well, there are many studios within THQ. It's more that it's a specialization within the studios themselves. Relic does real-time strategy, and the home of that is on the PC. Company of Heroes was one of the highest rated games in the genre, ever. They did so well with that game, and that means a lot to THQ. But there's stuff in that genre that's starting to move to consoles, as consoles move up. But I think it's just because studios specialize in those titles, and those development cycles can be lengthy, so a lot of them are just coming out now. THQ is focused on all areas.

Turn the page for the interview's conclusion.