Q&A: IO Interactive’s Kim Krogh #2

X360: Did you consciously consider the balance between immediate fun and long-term incentive, so far as multiplayer action goes?
KK: Yeah, you could say that. My goal was that people could explain the game after just one session. When you look at the play testers we brought in to test the game, they tend to understand all the core things within the game. Then, they have another go and find out it’s not a deathmatch area, where you have to know exactly where each gun is and exactly where the sniper is and exactly where to sit with it. It’s more about reacting to a situation as it occurs in front of you, and how individuals play the game. Every round is different, based upon who I am, how I played the game and how everyone else played the game. Of course, I hope people keep playing it for a long time, but immediate fun was the goal.

X360: Was there a temptation to include a medic character class, or some other mechanism to ensure elongated matches?
KK: No, it was there and I took it out. In the first game you could buy armour between rounds, but I wanted the game to be fast and intense. I wanted to work with the here and now, rather than stuff you could bring into the game to prolong it or make it different. I was more concerned with how you play the game, what you do right now. That’s also the idea behind the campaign. Lynch constantly improvises – that’s his mindset, and our features are created to support that idea. You’ll sit in cover, pinned down, thinking “how the f**k am I going to get out of this situation?” You’ll have to deal with events right there and then. All of our features are created according to this mindset, and I definitely wanted this to carry over into multiplayer play.

X360: Are you almost going for the ‘entry level’ shooter market, then?
KK: Yeah. I would definitely love to see more people blend in. I’d definitely love to see more causal players, as we normally call them, pick up on multiplayer. You see a lot of people who are really good at shooters never go online, because they’re ruled straightaway. Everyone online is so good at it, they never get a chance. That was one thing I really, really wanted to at least try to change with this game – to bring new players in and say to them “hey, without firing a single shot you can win this game, in theory”.