The Multiplayer of Project: Snowblind
Welcome to the second installment of the Project: Snowblind development diaries. We are getting really excited about the game hitting the shelves soon, especially because we can’t wait to play with you guys online! I’m Patrick Connor one of the designers here at Crystal Dynamics, and I would love to share some of the Multiplayer features we have in store for you.
Plant that bomb
Picture this, you are running down the streets of Hong Kong, the brightly colored neon signs illuminating the sky above you. You nimbly avoid the husk of a previously destroyed car. Behind you is your best friend, with the bomb strapped to his back; the two of you are bravely traveling into hostile territory to defeat the enemy. The target is in sight. You slow down to let your buddy plant the bomb, and just as you see the bomb has been planted, your vision gets fuzzy—you’re snowblind! You quickly react and throw a gas grenade near the bomb to protect it from being defused, and immediately begin to search for the enemy with your Carbine at the ready. A rocket explodes behind you, and you see the trail of high-powered energy come through the wall and fly past your teammate. Enemies are everywhere! As soon as your systems come back online, you activate your Shield augmentation to give you some extra protection from this onslaught. Meanwhile, another teammate comes jumping through the window with his Electrical Storm augmentation active, disabling any nearby enemies’ augmentations. This is Project: Snowblind multiplayer at its best, with all sorts of unique augmentations, a multitude of weapons—each with a unique alternate fire, and five different grenades, there is no such thing as a quiet moment in Project: Snowblind.
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Pick your fancy
With all the different options available to the player ranging from smart weapons to augmentations to player controlled vehicles, we knew we wanted to give a lot of opportunities for players to explore and use other tactics, which is why we created nine multiplayer modes. We were sure to include classic modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag, but we also wanted to create some modes that showcased the variety of abilities available to the player.
Which is where Hunter enters the picture. The basic premise of Hunter is that one player is the “hunter”, all the other players are the “hunted”, and the objective is for the hunter to kill the hunted and vice versa. The twist is the hunter is permanently enhanced with the Cloak aug AND has every other augmentation, weapon, and grenade available to him, where the hunted have a limited inventory selection and are not permanently invisible. However, when the hunter dies, a token drops and the first player to pick it up becomes the new hunter. This creates a fun dynamic, as the instant you touch the Hunter token your former teammates are now your mortal enemies. Do you think you have what it takes to the Hunter? Or better yet, do you think you have what it takes to survive being hunted?
Play with your friends
The best part about any multiplayer game is playing with your friends, so we tried to make this as easy as possible. When you sign in online you can quickly check whether any of your friends are online, and if they are, you can join their game with just one press of the button. Project: Snowblind supports most USB headsets, so once you are in game you can quickly and easily talk to your teammates via the headset.
Project: Snowblind is the first title released to use Eidos's web integration services. This allows PS2 and PC gamers to view their friend’s list on the web. With this service, you can quickly see what title your friends are playing and then jump online for a quick frag session. You'll always know when your friends are signed on to Project: Snowblind or other Eidos online titles such as 25 to Life. Other features of the service include being able to view your clan online, and advanced stat-tracking (way more stats are online then we could even fit in the game!) allowing players to get very detailed statistics regarding their online performance and comparing it to other players.
We’ve also worked in something special for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox players in the form of exclusive online team game modes for each platform. PS2 gamers will get the “Assault” mode where you defend your team’s generator while working to destroy the opposition’s generator. First team to destroy the opposition generator wins. Xbox gamers get “Demolition” where you find a bomb at a spawn point and transport it to designated targets inside the opposition base. The bomb is on an auto timer. When it blows, the base is destroyed, the round ends and the opposition gets a point. At the end of play, the team with the most points wins.
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Traveling in style
In case you do not want to run to the enemies’ base with your buddy to capture the flag, you could always just jump in a Hydra—two person off-road buggy with an attached missile launcher. Then, drive over with your gunner laying down covering fire, protecting you from the outside while you sneak into grab the flag. Of course, the Hydra is not the only vehicle available, and you would need to be on the lookout for enemy Titan’s and Ogre’s, which are slower but more powerful vehicles.
Our main goal with Project: Snowblind was to build a FPS playground that would allow each individual player to express themselves in their own style. There is an unlimited combination of weapons and augmentations that can be combined to make you truly unique on the battlefield. You’ll have the players that use the stealth augmentations to stay out of sight. You’ll have the players that will use their Shield augmentation and go in guns blazing. Then you’ll have players that prefer to climb into a vehicle and crash or shoot their way in. Then you’ll always find one player that thinks up something that’s so off the wall but at the same time is ultra useful and cool that everyone copies him or her. The point is, there is no limit to what you can do, and we’ve made sure to do our best to take out any limitations on the players’ creativity. If you can think it, you can do it in Project: Snowblind.
The best parts of Project: Snowblind are yet to come, as the entire team can’t wait to see how you guys at home start using tactics we never even dreamed of. Thank you for reading, and I am looking forward to seeing you online soon, shoot me (kevork) if you can!