BeyondUnreal Interview - Glen Dahlgren, Project Director, Legend Entertainment
World Press Preview Event: November 7, 2002
Chantilly, Virginia, USAI had the opportunity to speak with Glen Dahlgren, Unreal II Project Director at Legend Entertainment about Unreal II: The Awakening in general and, specifically, some of the new technical goodies. This is in addition to our public Q&A session, which you can read in our Unreal II: The Awakening PreviewQAPete: I could ask you all of the questions everyone's asking you, so let me start with this. What do you want people to know about Unreal II: The Awakening (U2:TA)?Glen Dahlgren: That's what everyone's asking me! (ed: laughter)QAPete: Ok, well, I'll start you out with something else, then. U2:TA is about a 25 hour ride through all the missions and objectives, depending on your skill level and familiarity with this type of game. How's the replayability of the game?Glen Dahlgren: Well, there are certain sections of the game that are designed for that, specifically the 'defend against assaulting mercenaries' scenarios. Obolis is a good example of that, where you set up your defenses, and they come and attack you. We have a few missions like that, and they actually all build up to.... well, first you have a mission 'Marsh', where you see those elements being used, specifically, the turrets and field generators. Then you have a mission where you are doing that yourself. Later, you have a mission where you are commanding forces, telling them 'ok, I want you out there at the perimeter, I want you guarding this guy, and I want you over there guarding the back door.'QAPete: Can you order them to set up a field generator or turret?Glen Dahlgren: There are some missions where the NPCs place these things, but when you're making the decisions, you really would want to place them yourself. What it's building to is the mission where you've got all that (the turrets and the field generators). You set all that stuff up yourself, and you can tell them to guard here, guard there, patrol an area, etc. That's the culmination of all of those things. And those missions are very replayable. You'll want to play them over and over again, because it's so cool to see how the AI reacts to it. The AI is very intelligent about the stuff you set up.