What’s the main difference between this and Desert Combat?

Halper: Well, we have a really strong multiplayer background and people are expecting that from us, so we’re definitely going to deliver on that. But one thing we always wanted to make sure of with Frontlines was that the single-player is a huge focus. It’s not a bot-match - it’s a very story-driven, cinematic single-player campaign. As gamers, we really wanted to break away from certain linear gameplay elements and give the player more choice. “Do I want to be a sniper? A machine-gunner? Do I want to drive a tank? And how do I want to take this city?” So it’s a bit like a combat sandbox, but it’s based on this frontline mechanic which constantly moves through the level as you take new objectives.

Given that you provided a lot of the ideas for BF2, how do you feel now that you’re effectively competing against it?

Halper: We’re not too worried. We know that there are features in Frontlines that are original, but it’s also a combination of experiences from other games. We’ve combined the non-linearity of Battlefield and the intense firefight feeling of, say, Call of Duty. That’s the simplest way of putting it.

You’re doing an Xbox 360 version as well. Do you still see hardcore PC gamers as your core audience?

Halper: Yeah. We’ll appeal to the layman too, but hopefully they’ll become hardcore gamers as they play the game… The challenge for the Xbox 360 users is the control mechanism, but the interface is very intuitive.