Freedom Fighters preview

Units in the game will seek cover when under heavy fire.

The Danish IO Interactive is probably mostly known for their Hitman character, which so far is represented in two games, and a third on the way. But before we throw ourselves into yet another Hitman fever, we must take a look at Freedom Fighters – IOI’s next project. We had a rendezvous with Tobias Biehl, 3D artist at IO Interactive, who gave us an appetizer from Freedom Fighters – a third person action game, which is based a lot on what IOI has learned from their former projects – and much more.

Freedom Fighters has undergone a lot of name changes, but this name should be final. Originally the game was presented as Freedom – Battle for Liberty Island, but since then the title has changed to Freedom – Soldiers of Liberty and now the name of the game should be the final title – Freedom Fighters. The reason for the many changes was that the name – Freedom Fighters – originally was taken, but suddenly was made available. Therefore it has become the final name of the project.

City warfare is the keyword.

Freedom Fighters takes a look at an alternative reality – A “what-if” scenario, which depicts a possible change in the world history, if the USSR had been the first to develop (and use) nuclear weapons.

In Freedom Fighters you play a straight up ordinary guy, who’s been captured in the middle of a war torn New York. Your brother has disappeared in the ruins, and your goal is to find him. Unfortunately the USSR has undertaken a grand invasion of the USA, and is in the way of your reunion with your brother. This leads to bitter fighting against the Red Troops, only allied with the last of the brave American Freedom Fighters.

Karma Police

Note the very nice surroundings

As a part of the resistance force you obviously don’t have to fight alone, so you have a handful of Americans at your disposal on every level. Your level of Karma, which increases throughout the game, defines the number of helping hands. Each time you finish an assignment by helping civilians or something else, you receive karma points. When you reach 100 karma points you advance one level in Karma, and get a freedom fighter to assist you in battle (to a maximum of 12 freedom fighters). There’s no way to loose karma again, because the game gets harder and harder as you move on through history, and your compatriots become increasingly needed as your progress.

With three simple buttons you have the ability to give commands to your troops, and this simple system works surprisingly well. Your “Scout Ahead” command is used to get your soldiers to move forward and attack whatever they come by. “Defend” lets them stay behind and “Follow Me” makes them close up around you. Each command has it’s own button, and whether you want to control one guy or the entire troop is dependant on whether you press the button lightly or keep it pressed down. If you want to be more specific with your commands you can enter in first person mode and send your people off.

The freedom fighters are pretty anonymous, but put together so differently that it gives some differentiation in the troop. Each freedom fighter is ’born’ with his weapon, and unfortunately cannot change it, but each soldier can be replaced if you run into someone with a better gun. Luckily there’s fresh freedom fighters on each level, which makes the loss of a soldier less fatal to your progress.

The artificial intelligence in the game seems to be just fine. The computer controlled soldiers move forward and retreat much like a real soldier would do it, and the cover in the ruined city is used to its full potential.

Long Live Freedom of Movement

Booorn in the USA. I was... booorn...

The unique thing about Freedom Fighters is the construction of the game. Instead of having to move around from level to level, you move around in the nine zones in the game. These zones are connected through the sewer system, where you also find the resistance force headquarters. You can leave your current zone through the sewer, which at the same time serves as quick-save and headquarters between the missions. There are a total of 21 missions in the final version of the game, distributed with about 2-4 missions per zone.

As in Hitman the way you complete the game is largely up to you. If you choose to go on the rooftops you might find a rifle, which can be used for eliminating the enemy from a distance. If you choose another path you might find some wounded soldiers, whom you can help and thereby get karma faster, as well as a couple of helping hands.

The zones also have an influence on what happens. Throughout the missions you can, as an example, get a sub-task to remove two snipers. The two snipers are firing at some freedom fighters in another zone, so if they aren’t removed you’ll have a hard time getting to your destination in the other zone. It’s like that throughout the entire game, which makes exploring the game a little more interesting.

Focus on Game Play

Your comrades will use the landscape to their advantage as well as the weapons that become available.

Biehl told us that IOI has focused a lot on the game play in the game. First and foremost the game should be fun to play and because of that they’ve removed all unnecessary and bothersome controls. In order to make the game work for consoles it has to be simple, so the number menus and commandos are boiled down to a minimum. If you want to help a wounded soldier, all you need to do is stand next to him and press X. You’ve got access to your equipment through a so called commando wheel, in which everything has its own space – Once again the point is to make it easier, so you can get your equipment quickly with only a few presses on the controller. The controller is easy and intuitive and should be easy to get used to, even for those who are not used to having a game pad in their hand.

The level of difficulty also makes the game far more interesting. The harder the game becomes the more energy your soldiers and the enemy gets, and thus the battles gets more intense.

-We’ve had a great pleasure from using EA testers, who with the first playable version felt the game was too hard, Tobias Biehl grinned. We’ve played Freedom Fighters so much while developing it, that we’ve gotten used to the level of difficulty in the game, and in fact now only play the hardest level, he explains.

Getting technical

Nobody promised you good weather, soldier.

Freedom Fighters runs on a developed version of the Glacier engine, which was also used for both Hitman and Hitman 2. The Team behind Freedom Fighters has been in dialog with the team behind the next Hitman game throughout the entire process, and has made sure that the teams could share and use each other’s ideas.

-We use the same ragdoll-effects as in Hitman, though only on the opponents, Tobias Biehl explains. We had great fun running around and testing the effect of grenades on soldiers, when the effects were implemented in the game, he continues smiling.

Where Hitman 2 has clear colours, the Freedom team has chosen to smudge the game a bit more, and the clear colours are thus gone and instead replaced with a far more realistic look. You can still see that it’s the same engine that runs Hitman and Freedom Fighters, but the style is thoroughly improved and fits well with the futuristic war torn New York. The Concept and style can be compared with the ideology and decoration of Red Faction, just a lot more stylish and prettier.

The game already looks fantastic. The Playstation 2 version has been locked at 30 frames per second and seemingly was running without problems under the entire demonstration. The PC and Xbox version will use a bit of pixel-shaders, and besides from that will not contain other big differences than a higher framerate.

Cooling Under the Cooler

An example of a Freedom Fighter

Besides from being the blessing of the game the Glacier engine also has its curse. Since Glacier doesn’t have any net code, the only kind of multiplayer in the game is through split screen on the consoles – This unfortunately also means that it will only be the Playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube who will get the multipayer option, since split screen on PC would be pretty meaningless.

-We would have loved to make more multiplayer options, for example on Xbox Live, Tobias Biehl revealed. Unfortunately there’s not enough time for that now, since Glacier from the beginning didn’t contain a net code. Maybe in a later product, he comforted.

Luckily IOI is considering making a new edition with full multiplayer support – but whether that will ever come true time only can tell. So far that project is only on the draw board.

Tobias Biehl surrounded by the rest of Freedom's graphics team. And yes, a tiny teddy bear.

Freedom Fighters looks to become a godlike solid title with focus on fun and action filled game play. Right now the team is working on finishing the graphical part so the programmers can get to work on the final test of the code. And after Freedom Fighters? There’s a new project on the way in cooperation with EA, but what exactly this project contains Biehl wouldn’t reveal. But judging from the quality of Freedom Fighters, it can only be worth waiting for.

(Translated by Bo Kruse)