Star Wars: Battlefront designer on the ‘daunting’ challenge of Star Wars combat

Above: You ever notice that it hurts more to get shot when its cold?

Image Credit: DICE

GamesBeat: So, what was the first game you were a designer on?

Fegraeus: That would be, actually, Battlefield 2. That was back in 2005. I wasn’t a part of the design work in the pre-production, but I did take care of some weapon design toward the end of the project. So, I did the basic weapons balancing and bullet-spread calculations and such. It was basically my first design job.

GamesBeat: So, how did the idea for Star Wars Battlefront spark up?

Fegraeus: I don’t really know the specifics because I wasn’t a part of the negotiations with Disney and [Lucasfilm]. But, what I do know is when the contract was signed and EA was given the green light to make Star Wars games, I … along with my team, was asked to make a project.

And Battlefront was right there and perfect for us. I remember some people talking about how a combination of having the Battlefield developers take on the Battlefront project was a match made in heaven. And I completely agree.

GamesBeat: So, why do you think they said it was a match made in heaven? What components do you bring?

Fegraeus: I think when people talk about … how well we can combine large aspects of gameplay into a functional, holistic, thing. That’s something DICE is known for, and I feel we have the tech and experience for that genre of games. … We are experienced with first-person shooters and our ability to render worlds very well are also some of the things people think of.

And I would agree. I think that’s very true.

Above: There are a billion other planets out there with really great environments, but the emperor absolutely has to have his lava planet.

Image Credit: DICE

GamesBeat: It’s like, “I’ve got to balance the flight combat experience. I’ve got to balance the vehicle gameplay. I’ve got to balance the first-person shooter aspect.” It just seems overwhelming to me.

Fegraeus: It is! It’s incredibly difficult.

You know, there’s no magic bullet. There’s no scalable thing that helps unlock the doors. It’s so much work and so much deep analysis of super large systems. It’s quite daunting, actually.

I am really happy to be a part of a team with such high ambition that DICE represents. Just, you know, feeling like, “Yes! We can do this! It’s super, super difficult. But we can do this!”

That sort of attitude.

And, of course, it takes time to perfect formulas and find the right solutions. But, it’s quite incredible when you get those things to work together, and you can talk about moments that happen, which are quite emergent for what they are. Which is a testament when things do work together.

GamesBeat: So, what piece of a game like this … is hardest to balance?

Fegraeus: Right, from a balance perspective, I think the hardest thing is planning around player ingenuity. Where they can take one thing and turn it into a bunch of other things. There is so much creativity and cleverness out there that people make amazing things when they get their hands on a system.

And I think the hardest thing to balance is to foresee and know how much … how wide of a use, a system can have. And making sure certain aspects of that thread [don’t] ruin things for everyone else. That’s really hard, and that’s where a lot of time is spent testing and so forth.

GamesBeat: Being more specific, though, like what component in Star Wars Battlefront has been the biggest pain to design around though?

Fegraeus: I think for Battlefront, the hardest thing is the asymmetry thing. Where the Empire is incredibly strong in terms of what they are in Star Wars [narrative]. They have these powerful machines. They have these legions of troops and super deadly ships.

Where as the rebels you identify as the freedom fighters trying to resist all of this. It’s a David versus Goliath thing, but it still has to be balanced because it’s a game.

Just getting that to work without it minimizing, [he puffs out his chest and raises a fist] “Yeah! I’m the Empire!”

Or [hunches down, both fists raised to punch an imaginary bully looming over him], “Yeah! I’m with the Rebels! Come get me!”

If you want to get super specific, it’s vehicle versus infantry, speed versus stationary … that’s one thing that is really tricky.