GamesRadar: How much does the combat evolve throughout the game?
GZ: Quite a lot. The variety in enemies create a nice ramping effect. Maybe at first you're just shooting at guys, but later they might try to flank you or attack you from above.
RM: It plays very differently depending on what equipment you have as well. You might have to swap back and forth between armor that's good against projectiles and armor that's good against energy attacks. We want to force you to make smart choices.
Again, one sequence seamlessly transitions into the next. We go from action to character interaction as we meet a suited-up woman that Ray promises we'll "grow familiar with in more ways than one." We also meet some survivors on the planet, one of whom is acting so manic that Greg decides to choose "I know how to make him shut up" on the dialogue wheel to punch the guy's lights out.
GamesRadar: How big are each of these planets you're visiting?
RM: They're expansive. I don't know the exact size in kilometers, but they're large.
GZ: It's quite a variety of locations. Some are literally open planets where we just drop you in - the uncharted worlds. Others are more directed by story - we don't want the player getting lost and wandering off during the introduction to the game. By the end of the first hour and a half, however, you're on your starship, you're trained as a Specter and you have access to your galaxy map. You can either continue the core story or you can just go off and start exploring.
GamesRadar: Will every planet have subquests?
GZ: Some do, some don't. We wanted to create a realistic situation where some planets are just for salvaging raw material to trade for other stuff, which might start off its own arc of subquests with you as a space pirate or privateer.
Before the first hour ends, we've seen more combat and even a major plot twist... which we'll happily spoil here. A traitor Specter named Saren Arterius, your major arch nemesis throughout the game, shows up and shoots your new mentor Nihlus in the back of the head. Amazingly, we felt genuine sadness even though we'd met Nihlus only minutes before and had never actually touched the controller during the entire experience.
