Exclusive Interview: Battlefield 3 Creative Director Lars Gustavsson - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 20 October 2011 / 6,925 Views
At the EB Games Expo, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Lars Gustavsson; the creative director of Battlefield 3 (the game that also won "Best of Show"). Our discussion was brief, but we covered a good few important notes: including the early development phases, how BF3 is going to go up against the competition and how you can get into the game industry.
gamrFeed: First off; congratulations on winning best of show. You must feel honored.
Lars Gustavsson: It's definitely an honor. I mean this show, coming here, it's an amazing crowd since it's so passionate, it seems like everyone wants us to do well. And that's really wonderful. And getting these awards is more than what we expect coming here.
gamrFeed: I think you'll find that Australia is full of passionate gamers like us. We're so grateful you could all come down here.
Gustavsson: We're grateful that you could have us.
gamrFeed: Now, just looking around the floor, it's obvious that BF has a lot of competition. Rage, Halo, Skyrim and Modern Warfare. It's going to be tough, regardless of how great the game is. What is it that's going to make Battlefield 3 the must-play game of the year?
Gustavsson: I think that we pushed the boundaries in so many areas. To be honest, it's extremely good looking, it's the best in industry sound, we have the destruction, we have the huge landscapes and I think this time, we really let you play it your way with the tight worlds and the open worlds. They're kind of tied together with the BattleLog. It's such a complete package and it's all high level since we pushed the boundaries, everyone can look at this game and see that "this is something more."
gamrFeed: So would you call this the ultimate FPS experience of this generation?
Gustavsson: I would say so. Of course, we will do more in the future. But yeah, I would say so.
gamrFeed: Lots of confidence, we love to hear that. Now, you've made, as you put it, "The most realistic shooter ever", can you tell us a bit about some of the challenges you went through making this experience so real and memorable?
Gustavsson: First off, it's worth saying with "realistic", we always choose fun over realistic. You should never forget that some people will get bored when they're playing, but we've gone in-depth with every piece of hardware. How it works, getting the animations right, getting the movement on the battlefield, connecting the player to the battlefield physically. You know, you do a hand plant when you jump over something, you're not doing some stiff animation. So, these things are there in the battlefield. We brought in Andy McNabb, former SAS soldier who wrote Bravo Two Zero and he could really step in, look at things we've done and kind of pin point how you would do it in the field. So, we've got so many layers of realism. This is how you open a door, this is how you reload your weapon, don't do that in the field if it'll get you killed. With these things, you feel really professional on the battlefield while still having a good experience if you see what I mean.
gamrFeed: I think I see. Clearly a lot of effort went into this. The majority of FPS's these days cater towards the multiplayer experience. They usually don't even touch the single player all that heavily. But there are still many gamers, much like myself, who still play games for the single player experience. What are you guys doing with Battlefield 3 to cater to the single player experience?
Gustavsson: Well, it's interesting, because Battlefield came from a multiplayer only experience with bot wars and have since added single player and co-op. But I think, once again we want to cater to everyone. This time it's a much more mature story that goes kind of in line with the tone of the game overall. It's a really engaging story with pacing that allows you to really feel the heat of battle, but also the anticipation of the battle. It's got both up and down which is quite unique.
gamrFeed: I see, so you've gone for a more immersive experience than other shooters out there?
Gustavsson: It's an extremely immersive experience.
gamrFeed: Turning towards the game industry as a whole; you're a veteran, you've been at this for a long time, you've produced one of the greatest games to ever be released. For someone out there who is trying to get into the gaming industry, design programming etc, what advice can you give to any aspiring university students that want to break into this industry?
Gustavsson: I would say there are a couple of ways. There are education programs you can go into, that's definitly one of them. Second one would be the modding scene. Start building a level, show them that you can handle the 3D room or world. Build up anticipation, build up the immersion or try out with smaller mini games. Just to show that you have the eye for it. And for us, many times it's the sheer passion, the will and showing that you have a spark of talent that will take you a very long way.
gamrFeed: Thank you very much for you time Lars, I won't take up any more of it. Thanks for the talk and enjoy the rest of the show.
