Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Publishers: Steam / Bold Games
Release Date: March 2006

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On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the eastern bloc and fought the bloodiest battle the world has ever known. The Soviets paid an enormous price to push back the German invasion into their territory. By the end of 1945, over 20 million people were either killed or wounded. This is the battlefield for Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45.

Let me start by telling you that this is not just another WW2 game. The Tripwire team has aimed to deliver a realistic war experience instead of the cinematic action of other games. Iron sights will replace your onscreen crosshair. Even your bullets follow the barrel of your gun instead of moving to the center of your screen. If you are wounded, no med kit will heal you; the only thing that will make the pain stop is your own death. As far as your classic WWII weapons, all you know is how many clips you have and if they are heavy are light. No ammo counter or combining of ammo at all.

The game play is objective based, with spawns reoccuring in waves much like Day of Defeat and the Battlefield series. That is where the similarities stop however. Tanks will have to be run by a crew, not just one guy with a third person view. Being in a tank will limit your viewing and unless you bring a gunner, you become a worthless piece of metal. The team has completely reworked the movement for the play models since its mod days, giving it a smoother feel and adding features like diving.

A full review is in the works so stay tuned. For more information check out a FAQ here.

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Alan Wilson and the folks at Tripwire interactive were nice enough to do an interview with us.

A lot of people seemed to be confused by how much you guys really won with the Make something Unreal contest fill us in on the details.

The original Red Orchestra was a mod created for UT2003, then shifted on to UT2004 when that came out. We entered it into Nvidia's "$1,000,000 Make Something Unreal" contest from Phase 2. We then won outright Phases 2, 3, 4 and the Grand Finals. No, we didn't win a mill. The total value of all the prizes was a nominal $1million. We won $10,000 for the early phases - split between about 20 people and then the bloody IRS whips off 30% as well. For the Grand Final, we won $50,000 and the Unreal engine license (2.5 and 3). The leads pooled our resources and set up Tripwire Interactive March 2005, with the intention of being a cool indie games developers. It has been a LONG road over the last 12 months, especially in trying to stay independent and not get eaten alive.

Explain what winning Unreal license means?

What we won is a license to use the Unreal engine for 2 games - one on 2.5 and one on 3. For Ostfront, it saves us the cost of buying that license. You want to know how much that is, go look at Epic's information! We then have the full source code (no not Valve's "Source" engine...) to the relevant Unreal engine, which we can use and change exactly as we see fit for one game. In financial terms, it means we didn't have to raise the money to buy the license!

In most license agreements you also gain developer support. How helpful was the team at Epic?

We've always had a good relationship with Epic - and I think everyone will agree that they are always very supportive. To be honest, though - we haven't needed much technical support from them - we've been working with the Unreal engine for over 3 years now.

One of the biggest rewards of being a PC gamer is playing mods. Companies like Epic, Valve and Id software allowing users to play with their code to make new games. With some of the best games ever coming from the mod community do you think companies will still support PC gaming despite the money than can be made in the console market?

Yes. There is still money to be made in PC games. But this is where we start to disagree with some of the "big" publishers - if your game might sell 200,000 units on PC, how can you really afford to spend $10 million building it? What is the point of all these huge "production values", such as expensive Hollywood voice-overs and cut-scenes, if all it does is push the price of the game up? This is where Steam really helps - very low-cost distribution and Valve not telling us how to build our game!

You guys risked a lot to start up a company and make your own game. At what personal cost did this game get made?

That's one of the things that makes us lose sleep! Apart from the silly working hours, it has cost the 4 of us who own the company a LOT. Put bluntly, we're in this up to our nuts. We looked at all sorts of ways of funding I, but were determined to maintain our independence, so the whole financing has come down on us. If the game bombs, expect to see us out there with begging bowls!

How did offering the game on Steam come about?

Very simply: John Gibson (Pres) saw they were looking for third party games, picked up the phone and called them. As soon as they realized what we were talking about, they went "YES!" - we went from opening discussions through to contract in very short order. Kind of a match made in heaven - the Steam model works perfectly for independent companies like Tripwire.

Does Steam allow Tripwire to put more money in its pockets apposed to your retail deal with Bold Games?

Yes - there is far less cost involved in putting the game out over Steam. But Destineer/Bold also gave us a very good deal - they are wide awake to the possibilities of Steam-distributed games. After all, there are a LOT of people around the world who either can't buy games via Steam (no CC) or don't have highspeed internet connections, so can't download the games.

Do you think online disputation is the future of PC gaming?

It isn't the only future - but it is certainly a major part of it. There is no reason why online distro shouldn't expand fast. The retailers obviously aren't going to like it - and there may be "downward pressure" on the price of PC games because of it. Be interesting to see :)

Ok it is 1945 what gun do you want in your hand to defend mother Russia?

Easy one for me: PPSh-41 smg. Stable, high rate of fire and heavy enough to beat your head in with :) Now John would like the Mosin-Nagant with the PU-40 sniper scope - simply because he's got one at home.

How much testing was used to balance vehicles into RO`s game play?

Interesting point here: we've never nerfed any of the kit to make it "balance". The real world isn't all neatly balanced, so why should a realism-based game be? If you're in a Soviet T-60 and come round a corner in front of a German Panther, then you'd better just get the hell out of there! When we first put vehicles in, it was hard to make the maps playable, to be fair. It probably took us as much as a year to really get the idea of how vehicles really played. The "balancing" that goes on is about making sure you've got a good mix of vehicles and infantry classes.

We first put vehicles in to the game coming on 2 years ago and we've learnt a lot about using them. We don't artificially balance the tanks - we adjust the equipment issued on each map. For instance, we've got an early-war tank map. At the time, the Soviet tanks were way better than the German ones... to "balance" things, we've given the Germans artillery on call, the Soviets none on that map. Helps shift those sticky T-34s :) At the end of the war, on Konigsplatz, the Germans have a plentiful supply of Panzerfausts to take on the Soviet armor.

Where do you draw the line between realism and game play?

Well, sitting in a trench being shelled for 4 hours would be crud. So we don't do it :) We looked at adding in steadily more complexity in the vehicles - manual gears and other stuff - but decided it simply wasn't worth it. Its stuff we may add in as options later, but it is just too complex to start with. Its like calling artillery - in reality, it was a complex and boring process, so we've skipped a lot of the dull radio procedures. Key for us is that it has to be simple to do: this is a combat game and people ain't going to mess around with 5 minutes of radio drills. So - keep it simple! >>You community forums seem quite active how involved does the development team get into the concerns of the average poster? We try and stick with the idea that the community knows what it wants in a game. We always listened in the mod days and got a great game out of it. We'll try and do the same with Ostfront! But you can't implement every idea that pops out of the forums. Besides, there are some staggeringly silly ideas too :)

Many developers fall to the pressure to make it noob friendly overtime, to have less of a learning curve. Where do you see your stance on that?

We don't want Ostfront to be a massive learning curve - but we aren't going to dumb it down any. People go on about all sorts of other gamers being incapable of learning something new. Firstly, Ostfront is an FPS: all the basics are the same. Just learn to actually aim your weapon - no cross-hairs - and you'll be fine! Secondly, there seems to be this whole big thing that most people who play the existing FPS games are complete 'tards. I reckon its about time to credit the players with a bit more intelligence: Ostfront is like any other game - you can learn the basics in minutes, but getting GOOD will take time and patience!

Name a pet peeve in a gaming that you wanted to avoid?

Cruddy voice-overs, pointless but pretty cut-scenes that you only watch once at best - and most of all, over-priced games!

Any other conflicts you would like to make into a game besides the Eastern Front?

Long list for me - all the lesser-known wars of the 20th century :) Spanish Civil War with tin-can tanks, Finland vs USSR in the Arctic, Japan vs USSR in 1938/9 and 1945. You want more "controversial" ones - Soviet "liberation" of Afghanistan, the Russian "intervention" in Chechnya. Hell - Poland vs Russia in the 1920s - cavalry charges and all! Someone mentioned Korea recently - why not? Israelis vs Arabs in the desert? So many possibilities - so buy Ostfront and MOD IT !!! lol

Ok thank you for your time any closing statements?

Just to say thanks for your time. Its fun to see who is taking an interest in RO... which types of players like the look and which don't :)

Official site: www.redorchestragame.com
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