Kanaan: превью на “Gamers Alliance”

We contacted Jennifer Miller of UBI Soft for information about their upcoming 3D Action Shooter, Kanaan (older name: Chaos). Here is the information she sent us including some answers from the Project Manager, which at this point does not appear on their website or anywhere else on the net. Enjoy!

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What can you tell us about its 3d engine?
When the game was first designed we wanted to give the player a huge amount of freedom. Go anywhere you like, use any vehicle you find and enter any building you come across.

Due to the demands of the games design we have had to develop 2 separate 3d engines and then integrate them seamlessly. The exterior portions of the game are rendered using a revolutionary technique which allows us to scale the amount of detail the ground needs. Closer portions of the ground are rendered in very high detail (in the order of thousands of polygons) whilst the further parts and horizon are rendered in lesser detail. This feat is made possible thanks to what are known as splines. These allow the designers to produce realistic curved hills and mountains and then let the program decide how many polygons to use when rendering them to the screen. This technology not only allows us very smooth visuals but also gives the frame rate a boost and allows huge drawing distances for this type of game.

The interior parts of the game are intermixed with the exteriors at any point so it would be impossible to break to load a new engine or new data this left us only one option integrate the spline renderer with a portal renderer. The portals are essentially a means of cutting down how much of an interior space is drawn. Some portal systems can reproduce weird effects but as we were putting real buildings into a real world we haven't implemented anything like rooms bigger on the inside than on the outside or any effects like that. Although if we want to later on we could. The upshot of these 2 systems is that the player will be able to jump into a car (or tank, or aircraft, etc.), drive across a beautiful looking countryside towards a city. Drive into the city and up to the entrance to a 30 storey skyscraper, jump out of the car and then go and explore inside the building, any building in the entire game world will be handled like this, from tents to the aforementioned skyscrapers. The possibilities are immense.

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What will multiplayer be like, will there be different games to play?
Multiplayer games will be a unique experience. Imagine at the simple deathmatch level, 16 people in a 1.25km by 1.25km map along with a huge variety of weapons, vehicles and buildings. (of course there will be a facility to pinpoint the approximate location of other players). On a more complex level team games with transport aircraft, armoured personnel carriers and programmable drone equipment (radar's, SAM sites, guns, etc.) can turn into very strategic games indeed and we're still only at a deathmatch type of game. Add in capture the flag and territory capture gameplay types and the possibilities are only limited by the number of maps the designers can produce before we go final.

Tell us about the plot and storyline?
The Galaxy is at war, two powerful races have carried their fight to a stale-mate over the past 700 years. Now one of the races, a vicious dog like breed called the Kanaan have discovered what may be a way of breaking the stalemate.

Enter the planet Camrose, an idyllic planet who's inhabitants have striven to eliminate warfare and violence from their society and have more or less succeeded. Unfortunately for the people of Camrose their planet is of huge strategic importance to the dog like aliens who begin to plan their invasion.

Camrose has only one line of defense, the Chaos Squad, a small group individuals who are specially trained to deal with the rare violent incidents on Camrose, and the planets only hope of survival. When the dogs arrive their first action is to destroy the planets capital city and then the Chaos Squad.

All but 2 of the squad are killed in a bloody massacre. The first of these survivors is Agent Gabriel Cain, gravely wounded and left for dead by the second survivor, Isaiah, captain of the Chaos Squad and a man who has just betrayed his planet.

Isaiah had been contacted by the aliens months previously and was seduced by them and the power they offered him into betraying his entire race. Now Isaiah has joined the aliens and is the new Planetary Governors right hand man and advisor.

Gabriel is found after the betrayal by Destiny Harper a member of the new resistance forces of Camrose. Founded by the few surviving members of Camrose's government the resistance movement has one goal, to rid Camrose of the Kanaan.

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What types of objects will the player be able to interact with? Like will players be able to blow up trees, go into a tent and see tables, then blow them up.. that sort of thing. And will players be able to use and sort of objects in the gaming world?
The player will be able to interact with most of the in-game objects. Trees can be blown up, as can tables chairs and pretty much any other object in the game. Objects that the player can actually use are restricted to pickups and inventory items. Pickups are things like weapons, health, ammunition and the like while inventory items cover things like keys, night vision goggles, limpet mines and other items which the player has to use in order to complete his missions.

What types of weapons will be in Kanaan, and how will they differ from other games?
In “Chaos” there are over 10 different types of hand held weapon that the player can use. These range from a simple machine pistol, through laser pistols, flame throwers, and a rocket launcher to more esoteric weaponry like plasma cannons, gauss rifles and the effector gun.

The weapons in Kanaan are one of the most interesting parts of the game. In keeping with the rest of the game the player will have to choose which weapon to use very carefully to match the circumstances he is in. Some of the weapons are silenced, some are good against personnel, some can be used in a sniper mode and others are very effective against vehicles. An anti personnel situation, for example, would favour a flame thrower or mini-gun, a sniping situation would favour the snipers rifle or gauss rifle, and if the player was being strafed by an aircraft the rocket launcher or plasma cannon would probably be a good choice. Then again the player may not have some of these weapons, or ammunition might be scarce on that level, so some thought must be applied when deciding if the situation merits actually using that weapon. In the last example for instance, would it be best to use your last rocket to bring down the aircraft or would it be better to find a tank with anti aircraft capabilities or even another aircraft to tackle your enemy head on with. That is what is at the heart of chaos. It's completely up to the player to decide how to achieve his objectives or get out of a tricky situation.

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AI seems to be a big issue these days, I did see a group of beings in a pack, that should suggest Kanaan has a good AI system. How will your AI be different?
Wow, this is actually a very big question. The AI in Kanaan is actually one of the most complex areas. Probably the biggest difference will be that Kanaan's enemies will seem to have a life outside of waiting for the player to show up. If you burst into a barracks the enemies won't just be standing around waiting for you, they will be having conversations, playing cards, sleeping or cleaning their guns. Then, when they see the player, another difference can be seen: instead of all of the enemies charging straight at the player shooting wildly and occasionally dodging a bit, the enemies in Kanaan will try to find cover from which to shoot at you. Some may try to get to an alarm or a radio to bring in re-enforcements while others try to distract you by shooting at you immediately.

There are some other nice things as well. If you are sniping at an enemy from outside his visual range and he can't find a hiding point, the enemy may start to panic. Also higher ranking enemies will throw lower ranking enemies out from behind cover to face the player. This only covers a few aspects of the character AI, there is a lot more that I just don't have the time to go into right now and I haven't even started about the AI for the vehicles!

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In Kanaan will players be suggested to not go into battle with their guns blazing, or will stealth be the emphasis on the game?
The stealth mode is certainly important in certain parts of the game, but not throughout the entire game -- sometimes it will be best if the player is in and out without the enemies being any the wiser, other times kicking ass is the best way to go.

For example, if the player has to infiltrate an enemy base he has a number of options. He can use the sneak movement mode to enter the base and using a silenced weapon if any opposition finds them may be the course of action advised in the briefing session. However this isn't the only way the player can accomplish his mission objective. He may feel that scouring the area for as much rocket launcher ammunition as possible, finding a high vantage point overlooking the base, and then obliterating it totally with rocket launcher fire is the best way to go.

Alternatively, the player could hijack a heavy tank and use its superior armour and firepower to crush or destroy any opposition in his way to his objective. It is totally up to the player. That said it may be that if you need to collect an item or person from inside the base, levelling it with a rocket launcher may not be the best idea.

What types of vehicles will the players be able to drive? And will the vehicles have special abilities and weapons? Is there anything else you can tell us about the vehicles?
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There are a huge number of vehicles in the game, anti-gravity bikes, scout cars, tanks, fighter aircraft, bombers, APC's, gunboats, cruisers -- the list goes on and on. Each vehicle has its own unique physics model, weaponry and armour statistics. This means that the player will have to master each and every one of these vehicles if he is to finish the entire game.

One of the more interesting things that is possible with the game, particularly in the networked game, is the ability for some vehicles to carry other players, enemies or vehicles. For example, there is a large cargo plane in the game and this can be used to carry up to three heavy tanks. Imagine the ability to drop that kind of firepower near an enemy base in a networked capture the flag game! Of course the enemy could be invading your base with 7 people in scout cars or skimmers or 4-5 people in light tanks. Another possibility is loading up to 4 people into APC's and then loading 3 APC's into a cargo plane.

In the single player game, not only will the player be able to use the vehicles but the enemies will too. Pilots will be able to use aircraft and drivers will be able to use ground vehicles. This opens up the possibility of not only disabling vehicles by destroying them but the potentially easier solution of killing the enemies who may use them against you. For example, if you have to steal a plane, the chances are that if you are discovered all the pilots in the base will get in their planes and try to shoot you down. A number of solutions immediately present themselves: you could use a heavy weapon or vehicle to destroy the planes while they are on the ground, you could steal the plane and then use it to strafe the other planes, again while they are on the ground, or you could find the pilots' barracks and throw a grenade or two into them. It's all up to the player.

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What types of objects will be in the game? Such as tables, lamps ect.
The entire list of objects in the game takes up about 5 pages of small font text. In the exteriors there are all the expected natural features, trees, bushes, ferns, flowers, cacti, small rocks, big rocks, walls, fences, and buildings. Interiors have an even longer list due to the diversity of the areas we are including. Tables for military, medical, living quarters, kitchen, shops, offices, etc. with matching chairs, desks, wall units and other things. Glass partitions, cups, cans, cookers, sinks, toilets, the list is absolutely huge.

And lastly what are the system requirements?

Minimum System Requirements

Pentium P166 or 100% compatible.
16 bit colour - VESA compliant video card.
2x CD-ROM.
Soundblaster 16 or similar sound card.
16 MB Ram.
Windows '95.
Mouse.

Recommended System Requirements

Pentium P200 with MMX.
3d Accelerator Graphics Card. - With features to be defined later.
2x CD-ROM.
Soundblaster AWE-64 or similar sound card.
32 MB Ram.
Windows '95.
Analogue Joystick.
Mouse.

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Special thanks to Jennifer Miller of UBI Soft for sparing us the time for this interview. We look forward to see more of Kanaan in the near future.