Haze - interview with Free Radical

You're putting a lot behind the story but do you think people will actually care about it? Don't they just want to shoot people?

Doak: I think people are always going to want to just shoot stuff and that's one of the reasons you'll want to play this game. We don't want to get in the way of that but the story has always been absolutely critical to us because it's the thing that keeps me playing a game. And we've got a story that has an interesting exposition right up to the very end.

What are you thoughts on the FPS genre as a whole?

Doak: It's hard because I think the world tries to put games into a box and unfortunately the games industry also puts itself into a box. It says "oh, not another generic first-person shooter" but that's what everyone queues up to do. We've become our own worst enemies in that respect. It's like we're taking tiny steps. Haze has to remain faithful to being a good arcade-shooter but on top of that we're trying to make the gameplay more interesting and we're trying to make you get into it more when you're playing.

Is Haze multiplatform? You only mentioned PS3 last night at the conference.

Doak: So we're going to be on 360 and PC but at the moment our big focus is PS3. Part of that is the company's heritage of working on PlayStation 2 with the TimeSplitters franchise, and just wanting to do something new. I think that launching a new brand on PS3 is a good place to do that.

Do you see Haze getting lost in the noise of Halo 3 and GTA IV on 360?

Doak: Clearly on 360 you're going to be going up against the juggernaut that is Halo. It's wise to not be standing in the middle of the road when it comes towards you because there's nothing bigger on Xbox. In many ways Halo 3 has already won that battle before it's even really started.

From looking at forums and the feedback they're in a difficult position with the Beta. Well, they're in a great position because it's going to sell. They're in a difficult position because they're now doing the third one. Some people liked the first one and some people liked the second one. Both sets of people now want the third one to be what they want.