Armchair General gets the full scoop on when we can expect to see the first hints of Battlefront’s new title, Theatre of War, on store shelves. Can it make it out in time for the holiday shopping season…or will gamers have to make it their first purchase of the new year? Did we just give away the punch line? Skip to the last question if you simply can’t wait to learn the answer!

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ACG: Can you give us an update of the progress of Theatre of War? Will there be a demo soon?

Battlefront: We have changed plans some while ago and instead of trying to put out a demo or preview version quickly, we decided to have the team fully focus on the plethora of changes we’re implementing right now over the original Russian release. The game has really changed in many aspects, so a demo based on the older version would simply not do it justice. We have around 60 (!) pages of tweaks based on tester feedback including little things like getting the unit names right (ahem… ;-)) to big things like completely changing the way spotting and engagement ranges work (creating a much more tactical game, much more like CM and much less like other RTS stuff out there) for example.

So at the moment I cannot say when we’ll have a preview version. The problem is aggravated by the fact that the game is so friggin’ huge (nearly 2 GB), so it takes a lot of time to just put together a full build, upload and distribute it, that we want to avoid this delay and instead want to put together a release candidate first as quickly as possible. The original plan was to have the first such candidate by the middle of the month, and we’re a little behind schedule, but not much.

ACG: Knowing that no game will ever be perfect upon release; can you describe what are some of the key features which are being added in this final time period, as well features that may have been requested, but can’t be implemented in the short term?

Battlefront: The most important aspect we are seeking to change is how spotting and targeting work. There are a host of issues here, but most revolve around tweaking variables to be more accurate for each particular weapon. This is what the 1C development team has been working on for the last month or so. As for most requested but no time… that would be to have infantry enter buildings. We know from first hand experience that this is a lot tougher to programmers than gamers think, and so does 1C. This is something they would really like to fix but it isn’t practical for them to do so.

ACG: You mention this game will separate itself from some of the other RTS games out on the market right now. Is your market going to be the people playing Company of Heroes today with a “light” RTS or is it going to be geared at those who are looking for something deeper and realistic a la Combat Mission? Is there going to be “resource gathering” or is this going to be scenario driven like CM?

Battlefront: We like to think of TOW as being right in the middle between something like Company of Heroes (realism "light") and Combat Mission (realism "heavy"). The scenarios are mission driven and require tactics that are based on real world concepts, not just how fast you can lasso and click on stuff. Having said that, the amount of "grognard" detail in TOW is purposefully kept to a moderate level. This means less minute control over unit behavior and a de-emphasis of features like Command and Control.

ACG: Can you shed some light on the current development process, such as how you are working with beta testers and how that information is fed back to the 1C team for implementation into the game?

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