Rogue Warrior
We offer the first-hand goods from an exclusive showing of Bethesda’s next big thing.
Published: October 27, 2006
Videogames, as with any form of creative expression, are constantly evolving. You’d be hard-pressed to browse through your own game collection without seeing the undeniable influence on at least one aspect of a game, an influence spawning from the archetypes that came before it. Ideas are burrowed, innovations are replicated and history stands true to it all. And as any certified old-school gamer will assure you, “without Mario, there’d be no modern-day platformers.”
To the game developers themselves, it seems to present itself as a logical process: use what’s worked in the past and build upon it. Sure, it’s not the most inventive mindset in the world, but when you’re looking to improve upon a genre that is already chockfull of about a thousand titles that took a similar course of action, the desire to reinvent the proverbial wheel is a sensible one. Just look at any action game. Or fighting game. Or first-person tactical shooter.
Ok, so the latter genre is a little too specific to blend in with that series unanimously, but it’s there for a reason (read: we suck at transitions). It also stands out as one we’ve come to either love or loathe, depending on who you ask. Tons o’ guns that go “boom” and authentic locales may be all the rage, but the brain-dead AI and linear gameplay that tend to resurface time and time again have become quite the genre sticklers.
Zombie Studios thinks it’s about due time for a change. And the game they’re doing it with is Rogue Warrior.
We recently sat in on an exclusive showing of the game in Las Vegas and, suffice to say, the boys of the Seattle-based developer are more than just a little excited about what they’ve been cooking up. As CEO and Lead Producer Mark Long put it, “we wanted to go with something that was a departure from the genre’s ... overstylized direction.”
A story-driven tactical shooter, Rogue Warrior not only has the advantage of next-generation capabilities on its side (with a little help from the Unreal 3 Engine), but is exactly the kind of cliché-ditching, boundary-pushing project that Zombie has been wanting to make for years now. Moreover, this marks a particularly significant milestone for the folks at Bethesda Software, and in celebration of their 20-year anniversary, are calling this the “biggest, boldest game we’ve ever done.” Keep in mind, they did Oblivion.
For the military buffs out there who might recognize the franchise name: good call, cadets. Rogue Warrior is actually based off the best-selling autobiographical series of military novels by Richard (Dick) Marcinko, a 30-year Navy vet, founder of the counter-terrorism units SEAL Team Six (the Navy’s first and only) and Red Cell, and an all-around badass who’s plenty fluent in war lingo, if you ask us.
What works so well with his contribution to the game is how it in turn reflects his not-so-conventional war tactics. As Marcinko was quick to mention, things hardly ever go as planned, and it’s not uncommon to be stuck behind enemy lines with nothing more than your squad and the equipment on your back. And take it from Dick: “When you’re a small unit, nobody’s coming to help you out.”
As a result, Rogue Warrior consistently throws players into a quandary with “Marcinko moments” -- as the team affectionately put it, times when things just get all effed up – to progress the plot, and consequently, forcing you to find alternate means of completing a mission.
Just take the storyline. War has just broken out between North and South Korea and you, as Marcinko, and your elite SEAL team are caught right in the mess of all, 200 kilometers behind enemy lines. In what began as a covert task to scope out a potentially threatening nuclear arsenal in the North (now doesn’t that sound familiar), you’re now short on supplies, devoid of support and on an imperative mission to make it back to the South unnoticed. Not to mention the North is already on high alert and prime to launch a massive surprise attack on its southern neighbor. Yeah, good luck.
To the game developers themselves, it seems to present itself as a logical process: use what’s worked in the past and build upon it. Sure, it’s not the most inventive mindset in the world, but when you’re looking to improve upon a genre that is already chockfull of about a thousand titles that took a similar course of action, the desire to reinvent the proverbial wheel is a sensible one. Just look at any action game. Or fighting game. Or first-person tactical shooter.
Ok, so the latter genre is a little too specific to blend in with that series unanimously, but it’s there for a reason (read: we suck at transitions). It also stands out as one we’ve come to either love or loathe, depending on who you ask. Tons o’ guns that go “boom” and authentic locales may be all the rage, but the brain-dead AI and linear gameplay that tend to resurface time and time again have become quite the genre sticklers.
Zombie Studios thinks it’s about due time for a change. And the game they’re doing it with is Rogue Warrior.
We recently sat in on an exclusive showing of the game in Las Vegas and, suffice to say, the boys of the Seattle-based developer are more than just a little excited about what they’ve been cooking up. As CEO and Lead Producer Mark Long put it, “we wanted to go with something that was a departure from the genre’s ... overstylized direction.”
A story-driven tactical shooter, Rogue Warrior not only has the advantage of next-generation capabilities on its side (with a little help from the Unreal 3 Engine), but is exactly the kind of cliché-ditching, boundary-pushing project that Zombie has been wanting to make for years now. Moreover, this marks a particularly significant milestone for the folks at Bethesda Software, and in celebration of their 20-year anniversary, are calling this the “biggest, boldest game we’ve ever done.” Keep in mind, they did Oblivion.
For the military buffs out there who might recognize the franchise name: good call, cadets. Rogue Warrior is actually based off the best-selling autobiographical series of military novels by Richard (Dick) Marcinko, a 30-year Navy vet, founder of the counter-terrorism units SEAL Team Six (the Navy’s first and only) and Red Cell, and an all-around badass who’s plenty fluent in war lingo, if you ask us.
What works so well with his contribution to the game is how it in turn reflects his not-so-conventional war tactics. As Marcinko was quick to mention, things hardly ever go as planned, and it’s not uncommon to be stuck behind enemy lines with nothing more than your squad and the equipment on your back. And take it from Dick: “When you’re a small unit, nobody’s coming to help you out.”
As a result, Rogue Warrior consistently throws players into a quandary with “Marcinko moments” -- as the team affectionately put it, times when things just get all effed up – to progress the plot, and consequently, forcing you to find alternate means of completing a mission.
Just take the storyline. War has just broken out between North and South Korea and you, as Marcinko, and your elite SEAL team are caught right in the mess of all, 200 kilometers behind enemy lines. In what began as a covert task to scope out a potentially threatening nuclear arsenal in the North (now doesn’t that sound familiar), you’re now short on supplies, devoid of support and on an imperative mission to make it back to the South unnoticed. Not to mention the North is already on high alert and prime to launch a massive surprise attack on its southern neighbor. Yeah, good luck.