ANDREAS SKOGLUND TALKS BATTLEFIELD 1: THEY SHALL NOT PASS
"This creative desire to do something new"
Daniel John
How did you end up at EA DICE and as a producer for the new 'They Shall Not Pass' expansion for 'BF1'?
I’ve been working here for almost seven years now, and it was really my drive to start working in the game industry that led me here, and I got the opportunity to start specifically at this studio. So I’ve been here with the 'Battlefield' team since 'Battlefield: Bad Company 2', which was the first game I worked on here, though back then I actually worked more with hosting, game servers and things like that, the kind of stuff that has to work for multiplayer.
What had you done before you came here?
Before I came to DICE, I worked a lot with information technology, IT. Mostly web development and project management in general, there was a lot involving different IT environments at companies and things like that.
What does being a producer involve now?
As producer for this expansion pack I’ve been responsible for two things, partly making sure we build the right product, and also, since I’ve been responsible for the whole team, making sure everyone is happy and satisfied while doing what they’re supposed to do. So I’ve had oversight over the entire team here. I was also a producer on the main game though I helped out in many different areas there as well.
I have a question that’s a bit about Nintendo…
About Nintendo?
How’s it going with the Frostbite engine and the Nintendo Switch?
Wow. That is a very specific question! (laughs) I actually don’t have anything I can say about that. I hope that Frostbite on Nintendo Switch could become a reality, but it’s not something we’re ready to talk about!
But you want to make games for Nintendo consoles?
I absolutely think we do. We’re very open to working with many different partners in the game industry. But! We also need to make sure it’s the right opportunity, and that it fits with the kinds of games we make.
Did you have any other ideas that weren’t the First World War, before deciding on this setting?
We have had had the First World War in mind for a long time but now felt like the right time to commit to it and prove ourselves.
What was the first step once you had decided on it?
This has especially been the case with 'Battlefield 1', but really whenever we make these games, we first try to find the balance between authenticity and what’s fun to play, that “gameplay fun”. So we spend a lot of time talking to experts to get an idea of, “Okay, this is what happened during the First World War”. And then we can base the game on that reality! But at the same time, we also want people who can step in and say, “Alright, this may have happened, but how do we make it feel fun in a game?” We try to find a path where we base the game on reality, while also allowing ourselves the creative freedom to change things a little in order to make the game enjoyable to play as well.That’s really the big challenge initially.
What do you personally think about war being treated as you put it “fun” entertainment in video games?
If we take my personal view, war itself is obviously a horrible thing when human lives are lost. But just like with other forms of popular media, it’s also a part of human history and human reality. And yes, it’s something we try to include and turn into entertainment, but we always want to do it in a tasteful way! When it comes to violence and games, I personally think, I have two daughters myself, and I believe it’s a huge responsibility for us as parents to teach our children the difference between reality and entertainment. Because that’s what this is! It’s entertainment.
But there's still this balance between being tasteful or not, considering the reality of it?
I think it differs from developer to developer, but it's about finding something that is tasteful while also being respectful toward what actually happened, because I think it can go too far in both directions. It can go from being far too tasteless to becoming something that does not feel real at all.
What surprised you the most during research?
I personally wasn’t involved when the research work was done, we have people responsible for that part, creative directors, historians, and people like that. But personally, I think, when we were in school, I probably wasn’t the best at history, but something I’ve actually learned only now during the making of this game is about all the different factions that were involved in the First World War. Americans! French! Everyone! It was such a much larger conflict than you really paid attention to back in school when you were actually supposed to learn about these things! (laughs) But yes, the fact that it involved almost the entire world is something I learned through making this game.
Do you portray environments with the same care for historical details the same way you do the specific events?
It’s the same there, we have the people who did the research, and the maps are based on the real battles that took place. For example, we have this fort, Fort DeVaux, where you play underground. There are various tunnels, which are based on the real fort, the very real fort that existed in Verdun.
Are the Operations—missions in the game based on real ones?
Well, I don’t think they are, not one hundred percent, but they’re partly based on real events, and then we’ve taken some creative liberties with different twists and turns.
How do you think about the longevity of all the different maps?
When we create our maps, we really try to focus on two things, making the maps representative of what actually happened, and then creating a balanced experience. No matter how you play on the map, whether it’s with a vehicle or as a sniper, it has to feel balanced. But then, absolutely, we also want to offer variety, of course, like Fort DeVaux, again, which is very iconic for 'Battlefield 1'. It’s the first time we’ve had that type of gameplay where you go underground. Or Verdun Heights, where everything around you is burning, that is also a very unique map people remember and talk about. That is what we try to do, create new experiences that we don’t already have in the base game.
There’s been some discussion lately that DLC-maps especially separate players from each other?
Yes, we’ve heard that feedback from our players for a while now, and it’s absolutely something we’re aware of and actively working to solve. But it’s not something I can talk about exactly how or when we’ll be able to accomplish, though we are looking into it. It’s something we’re looking into.
What are the new maps we’ll get to play in this expansion?
We have four maps included in this expansion. The vehicle-focused maps Soissons and Rupture and then the more infantry-focused Verdun Heights and Fort DeVaux. Soissons is a larger map, and it was actually where France’s “Tenth Army” pushed the Germans back and reclaimed the beautiful French countryside with its green hills. And with them they had heavily armored tanks to help retake their land. Soissons is part of the Beyond the Marne operation together with Rupture. And in Rupture, players will experience what it was like fighting on a battlefield that’s been abandoned for a year, where the trenches have become overgrown with beautiful red poppies, and infantry battle alongside old rusty tank wrecks while advancing along a river. Then we have the map called Fort DeVaux, which is infantry-only, it takes place both inside and outside a fort. The fort was actually where the first major battle engagement of the First World War took place. There are many dark and cramped corridors! That map is part of the Devil’s Anvil operation together with Verdun Heights. Verdun Heights is our second infantry-only map. It takes place during the Battle of Verdun, where the German attacks caused these massive forest fires around them. It’s an uphill battle where you fight your way toward the fortress at Verdun.
Is the expansion title, ‘They Shall Not Pass', a Tolkien reference?
Tolkien? Nah, the title is based on an actual reference from the French army, there was a French general who, when the Germans invaded the country, gave an order to the entire army, which was “On ne passe pas!” Which means “They shall not pass!”, it was a message to the French people, “They shall not pass, guard your country.”
Maybe that’s where Tolkien himself got it from for 'The Lord of the Rings' then?
Oh! That Tolkien! Now I get it. No, this has no connection to Gandalf, it’s the French general!
So no Gandalf DLC then?
(Laughs) Not confirmed!
So what is the new expansion about?
This is the first of four DLC packs for the game, and it’s about the French, who were one of the major armies during the First World War. A large portion of the fighting in this war actually took place on French soil. In 'They Shall Not Pass', we have both smaller infantry skirmishes and large-scale tank battles.
It was quite a surprise when you revealed the First World War setting for 'BF1'. Were you certain about it beforehand?
During development, I think we became more and more confident in what we were doing, as we ourselves started seeing the product we were building. That the game was fun to play and was becoming something special. But of course, it was also very exciting to hear the community’s reaction to us choosing to go back in time to the First World War. But it was really when people got hands-on time during the open beta and things like that that we truly began to understand, that’s when we realized you felt the same way we did, that it actually was fun and that we had hit exactly the right note, which was a great feeling to have.
How did the idea of going all the way back to that time period first come about?
I think 'Battlefield 1' was born out of this creative desire we had to do something new, and when many first-person shooters today focus on “modern shooter” gameplay, it became a greater challenge to do something where we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could make it work, to make the First World War function together with traditional 'Battlefield'-gameplay and the mechanics those games are built around. I think the end-result turned out really well, and as I said, our players seem to think so too.
Why did you choose France and the French army?
They were one of the largest armies, and much of the war took place on French soil! So, ever since we first made the decision not to include them in the base game, because of the focus we had chosen for the base game, we knew the French army would become part of this first-major content update instead. We’ve dedicated ourselves and spent a great deal of time and effort portraying them correctly.
Did the change in time and setting mean anything different for the gameplay itself?
I think it’s more about how we choose to portray that time period. There are things from modern warfare that we no longer have access to, like jet planes and high-performance weapons, we’ve worked within the limitations that existed back then when there was a lot of hand-to-hand combat and more low-tech weaponry available. Making that work has been very exciting. But I think the end result turned out very good.
The game is, of course, mainly called what it is because it takes place during the First World War. But the game is also somewhat of a return to the roots of the franchise with more focus on open battlefields. Was that intentional with the title too?
To some extent, yes, with the name. It also felt like we were inspired a bit by the fact that we once had an even earlier game in the series called 'Battlefield 2', a long time ago, and choosing to return to this kind of naming convention felt fitting, especially since the First World War was involved as well.
Didn’t the beta for 'Battlefield 1' become so super-successful that it still now has continued to live on alongside the full game?
Yes, as our “Community Test Environment”, which is a tool we use. Basically, we’ve set up a separate copy of the game that our players can download, and there we upload what you could call shorter-term updates that we allow players to test and then give us feedback on. After that we can decide whether it was a good decision or not and whether we should patch those updates into the main game. So, it’s a way for us to work closely with all of our players and hear them. Developing games is a huge undertaking, especially on this scale.
What caused the most trouble for you during developing 'BF1'. I imagine maybe the horses?
(Laughs) Trouble and trouble, we like challenging ourselves with new technology. But the horses, and getting them into the game in a way where they behaved correctly on the battlefield, has definitely been exciting. There’s a lot involving all the animations in the game, like mounting horses and getting off horses, and things like that. But also the new Operations-game mode, which is a much larger mode than anything we had previously done. We included cinematics and things like that. I’m super happy with the result, but it’s definitely been a long journey getting there, but we simply wanted to do it because we felt it would be good to bring in a bit more storytelling, even for multiplayer! To add more context to what’s happening and guide players into something a little bigger, it’s also a mode with a different kind of engagement. While we have other game modes where you can finish a match in twenty minutes, Operations is usually something you invest more time into. Instead of constantly being pushed back and forth between different matches after short periods.
In times when many players also completely ignore story campaigns, that actually sounds like a pretty good solution?
Exactly!
Are proper story DLCs that expand the campaign narrative something you have considered at all?
Right now, we are focusing on our multiplayer experience for the game’s premium pass, just like we did with 'Battlefield 4' and 'Battlefield 3' before that. There’s nothing stopping us from doing something like that in the future! But, right now, and for 'Battlefield 1', we’re primarily focused on multiplayer.
Another big addition that's new with this expansion, and that we haven’t talked about, is the Frontlines game mode?
Frontlines is indeed a new game mode where we’ve taken some previous modes from the series, like Conquest and Rush, and combined them into a new exciting experience. It’s basically Tug of War where the battle moves back and forth, so a player, regardless of which side they’re on, can switch between being an attacker or defender depending on how well they’re playing. It just goes back and forth constantly. So we’ve created this new experience entirely based on these two slightly older experiences, really that's what it is.
Out of all the, for you, ‘new-old’ First World War weapons, is there one you prefer when you play the game?
I have to say the Swedish Sjögren Inertial, which is a shotgun for the Assault class. It feels a bit patriotic to use, but it’s also just really fun, especially underground in Fort DeVaux, when it’s really tight infantry gameplay!
'Star Wars: Battlefront' got a special PlayStation VR chapter. Could that happen for 'Battlefield' too?”
We’ll see! Maybe sometime in the future but right now we have no plans for VR.
What would you like to see in the next 'Battlefield' game, if you got to decide the time period or direction the series should go in next?
Right now, we’ve announced everything we’re ready to talk about. But I think the foundation we’ve built now paves the way for us to really explore everything that happened during the First World War. We’ll see how far we go.
