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Commandos: Origins
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An Impossible Mission (Gamescom) - Commandos: Origins Interview with Claymore Game Studios
We caught up with art director Thilo Gebhardt and level designer Gregor von Frankenberg to learn more about the upcoming strategy title and how the team is returning to the foundations of real-time tactics within it.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone, I'm Alex here with Gamereactor. We're live at Gamescom.
I've just checked out Commandos Origins. I'm here with Thilo and Gregor.
Guys, what can you tell me about the game?
Just sort of an elevator pitch to get people hyped."
"Maybe they've played before, as you've said to me.
This is a return to, as we can see here, the origins of the franchise in a way.
But it's also maybe something perhaps for new people to get stuck into.
What can you tell me about it? What can get people hyped over?
Definitely. As you've said, it's the origin story."
"It's basically a prequel for the well-known franchise.
We hope to, that way, onboard new players just as well as the old players.
They will meet the familiar cast from the original games.
So we feature the six characters from the original games and tell their story, how they came together to a team."
"As I say, I've just been able to sit there and watch you guys go through it.
The map size was the first thing that took me.
You have a huge map with a lot of things for people to do.
It's not this linear strategy where people have just one corridor to go down."
"You really are allowing for a lot of agency, a lot of replayability.
Could you just talk a bit more about what the design process was like for creating that and how you went into each map, making sure that people have multiple paths and want to replay every time?
Basically, all maps are inspired by real historic World War II events."
"The historic commando's missions, we have tried to design them that you can approach them either in the lethal way or on the direct route.
I want to attack and take the Germans out.
Or you go the sneaky route and use the commando's abilities like you are used to."
"That was our goal, to really push the sandbox feeling for the commando's that you can use and combine the abilities of them.
So you can work your way through the enemy lines, get behind them and get the feeling of, okay, I'm moving through them being unseen and get to the objectives."
"Something you talked about when we were looking at it, as you say, the commando's each have their own things that they're good at.
Maybe not necessarily abilities, because you've still got it grounded in this realistic element.
But something that you talked about before was the early access feedback was about these lock and key elements of maps."
"I wondered if you could just tell people a bit more about what those encompass and how they will make it feel like you're really using everyone in your team to the maximum.
I can also go with that one, because it also is the level design part.
We have tried to really design the maps also in their geometry so that the commandos have to use their special abilities, like the commando's climbing ability, his camouflage ability where he can bury into the ground and be unseen and wait until the patrol gets over or passes by."
"And, of course, we have these enemy setups prepared for the players where they then have to use, in most cases, special ability or combinations of the abilities of the commandos.
So you can't just go take any of the commandos that are on that map, but you have to think about it and use the marine's stone ability to distract a guard while you're running past with another commando or you have to really combine the abilities to solve our riddles and get to the objective."
"Perfect, thank you so much.
And also there's a lot of modernizing in this game, like you talked about the abilities.
It's going back to the classic commandos that we know, it's going back to classic World War II missions, you guys are recreating history in a way, but you've also brought a lot of modern elements to it, people that in modern gaming would expect."
"Could you talk a bit about the UI specifically and about the changes maybe to how players can interact with the world and how the difficulty, something that you talked about before, was also the difficulty and how it's not about clunkiness, it's more about the actual game being difficult."
"Precisely.
From the setup, it was really important for us.
The biggest question was what are the player expectations for this, right?
So it was really important to fulfill these to meet the player expectations and that was at the same time keeping true enough to the original game for our fans, for the big fan base, but also updating that in a way that it's more modern and that it's not getting rid of some of the frustrating elements, the micromanagement that was before."
"So updating most of that was due to targeting the UI elements and the UI layout.
So we got rid of the grid-based inventory system and have a more dynamic skill-based inventory system.
A lot of the alpha feedback that also came back was basically targeting to usability, to the usability of the UI and controls and we tried to make that as modern as possible so it feels very fluent and pick up old players and accommodate new players just as well as the old ones."
"Did I answer everything?
Yeah, yeah.
Like also for the usability, you could imagine to use the old HUD and UI with gamepad, so we have streamlined that as well so you can use it on couch co-op with your friend, you can use it to play with controller, everything is accessible just to add on what you said."
"The accessibility is, as I saw, there's a lot that you guys have done to bring this game up to modern standards, but as it is history, people are very specific about their World War II, as you guys will know, they're very locked into what they want to experience."
"How do you balance creating historically realistic idea while also letting people have fun in a way with the six commandos?
Yeah, that's a good point that you mentioned there.
It was tricky for sure to keep true to the World War II genre of fans and being historically authentic and accurate, but at the same time giving certain freedoms to use cool abilities and have some fun in a gameplay way."
"So I think we managed quite well with making our motto to always feel authentic, but not necessarily are actually authentic when it is down to gameplay ability.
So there are certain abilities that are based on gadgets that might not have existed in that way in reality, but most of the vehicles and weaponry that you meet is actually in the era, is in the actual era of that war at that time and is modelled in quite detail after the original weaponry."
"Thank you very much.
That's about all I have for you guys.
Just as a last thing, when can we expect to see Commando's origins and what platforms can we see it on?
Platforms on all the new consoles and PC and it's still sighted for 2024."
"Very nice. Thank you very much guys. See you.
Thank you.
Pleasure. Thank you."
Gamescom
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