Between the development of the 2006 PSP titleSOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 2and the upcomingSOCOM 4, Zipper Interactive released one game:MAG, which launched just over one year ago tocritical acclaim. That ambitious shooter set a new standard for online multiplayer on consoles with support for up to 256 players in one match, and I figured that the studio might have learned a thing or two that would be applicable to the development ofSOCOM 4.
So I askedSOCOM 4designer Ben Jones about what kinds of lessons the team took fromMAG, and aside from the obvious — “on the networking side, we’ve perfected that technology, and we’re able to route a ton of players and get them into games super-quickly” — Jones noted thatMAGtaught Zipper a lot about how to design objective-based multiplayer modes.
“We learned a lot about what kind of objectives are necessary, what number, how to assign them, [and] how they [worked] with larger groups of players inMAG,” he told me. While Zipper “had an idea before” of how to implement objectives, Jones explained, the unprecedented scale ofMAGallowed the studio to try “a bunch of new stuff” and “really [perfect] it.”
ButMAGwasn’t the only source of inspiration and paradigms to follow forSOCOM 4. According to Jones, Zipper not only looked at its own previous titles, but also at other games within Sony.
Thank God forMAG. Because we know whatSOCOMis, and we’ve done it for a long time, and I think we’ve done it really well. But in adding a lot of the new elements that we did, I think we looked to titles that we’ve developed internally … and said, “What are they doing that players have really latched on to, that has made the game better for them?” And [we] looked to incorporate some of those elements as well.
One of those elements is an increased focus on making the tactical gameplay ofSOCOMaccessible to modern shooter fans. For more details, hit up mypreview.SOCOM 4launches for PS3 on April 19th.
