Shack: Most Shacknews readers aren't exactly the Madden-playing bro-gamer. Will this be a game that's accessible to the non-die-hard football fans?

Matt Sherman: We're going to have a new control system, so that's probably going to be the biggest thing. We're not tied to generations of games where we have to stick with a control system. So we want to make it far more accessible in that sense. I can't really go into the specifics of how the controls are going to work. We're not really discussing the details of it. But it certainly won't be 64 different buttons for each different control. It'll be more simplified than that, so in that sense it'll be far more accessible.

In terms of the actual gameplay aspects itself, we want it to be more on-field, more visceral experience, more feel to the game. Like you're throwing the pass or you're catching the pass or you're making the tackle.

The engine allows that because in current football titles with canned animation, when "tackle 46A" starts, if you're standing right next to the guy being tackled, you can't engage that tackle as well. You can't be the second, third, or fourth guy in. Now they have some blending stuff where there can be one guy goes low, and he gets dragged forward three yards, but you really don't have an authentic gang-tackle experience.

Euphoria's going to change that because it's going to happen as it would in the game. It's going to take two, three, four guys to get a ball carrier down, and that third or fourth guy could make a dramatic impact.

Shack: You obviously can't use the NFL or NFL Player's Association licenses, but will the game have any licensed players, like legacy players?

Matt Sherman: We're not looking at going down that road, the legends road. How we're trying to handle that right now--I will say we're looking to have extensive customization. I can't really give you the details on that.

Shack: How representative of the game was the preview trailer you guys put out, as far of the visuals?

Matt Sherman: The looks are definitely representative of the game. It's going to be slightly futuristic. Not 2050 but maybe 2015. In terms of what you see in the demo, we simplified it, and we just wanted to focus on the tackles. This is a preview, so the character modeling isn't done yet. The emphasis of this trailer is to look at the engine.

Shack: Are you going to be pursuing the same level of realism with the tackles as in other areas of play? Can you break backs? In general, will players sustain injuries appropriate to the force of a tackle, rather than randomly?

Matt Sherman: As of now, we're not looking to actually even have injuries in the game, but that's something that's open to change, it's not set in stone. It's interesting, with the technology you can actually have injuries occur as they would--the body gets contorted as it would, and the injury might happen.

Shack: What about things like weather effects?

Matt Sherman: Weather effects will come into play. This engine takes everything into account running live. When you have a tackle situation, our relative speeds are into account, our height, our weight, our body posture, the velocity of our limbs, how firm the ground is versus how wet the ground is comes into play. So everything comes into play. The short answer is yes, that will come into play. The really cool answer is, it'll come into play on synthesized tackles when Euphoria is running.

Shack: What kind of online support do you intend to include?

Matt Sherman: We're not really ready to talk about that yet, although I will say that we definitely recognize that online gaming is the future. We're going to put together some cool features, but we can't really talk specifics.

Shack: What type of offline gameplay modes will be included? Any nonstandard mini-game type modes like we see in NFL Street?

Matt Sherman: We intend to have definitely a variety of modes and different features. We also want to put a lot of different types of mini-games where we emphasize the contact situations and some cool things that haven't been done before. There's definitely some things in the works.

Shack: What options are you looking at for a publisher?

Matt Sherman: We haven't announced our publishing plans yet.

Shack: You have a publisher though?

Matt Sherman: We haven't announced our publishing plans yet. [Laughs]

Shack: If a competitor like EA Sports or Visual Concepts were to come to NaturalMotion and want to use the euphoria engine in their football or sports title, how would you feel as an associate producer on Backbreaker?

Matt Sherman: I don't have feelings about that. [Laughs] I will say that we're excited about providing this technology complemented by a new type of gameplay experience.

I'd agree that this kind of technology would be fantastic to complement those games, but we're trying to create a gameplay experience that really fits well with this engine.

Shack: Thanks for the interview.

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