Where did the initial idea for Heroes of the Pacific come from? We set out to build a great arcade dogfighter. Initially we looked at the modern era, but decided that firing missiles at radar blips was not as fun or challenging as duelling it out close range. So we settled on WWII as it was the “Golden Age” of dogfighting. Sure, there were lots of cool planes and weapons, and the technology was moving quickly, but the combat still demanded pilot skill and intimate contact. This was the spirit that we wanted to capture in Heroes of the Pacific. How many missions will there be and what kind of objectives are going to be included? There are ten campaigns in the game, from Pearl Harbor through to Iwo Jima. Each of these campaigns has between one and four missions, for a total of 25 or so missions. In addition, there are a number of Historical Missions that we couldn’t fit into the main Campaign flow that we wanted to include in the game. These are available separately from the main campaign flow. As for objectives, it’s important to have plenty of gameplay variety in any game. The types of missions in Heroes of the Pacific include combat air patrol, ground attack, anti-ship, interception, ship and base defence, and finally full-scale air-air battles missions. How difficult is it balancing between arcade and sim? Will there be separate modes? Heroes of the Pacific offers two different sets of flight control, Arcade and Simulation. The Arcade controls are similar to those in Crimson Skies, while the Sim controls give you total control over the pitch, roll, and yaw of your plane. It’s always tricky to make sure that a game like this that is balanced. We design our games to be accessible to gamers of all levels, from casual to hardcore gamers. So the different control schemes and difficulty levels ensure that all players can play the game at their skill level. Ultimately the game is about fun, so we will always err on that side. You mentioned difficutly levels, what are they and what do they affect? There are four difficulty settings for the player: Rookie, Pilot, Veteran, and Ace. These difficulty settings will affect the player’s weapon reload times, and the amount of armour that enemy planes have. Finally, the difficulty level determines how many upgrade points you earn when you complete each mission. The higher the difficulty level, the more points you have to spend on upgrading your planes! Can you tell us about the line-up of planes in the game, how many are there and what differences can players expect? There are a huge number of planes in the game, but we had a lot of arguments about which ones to include... We ended up with about 15 US planes and a few less Japanese planes. Plus there are a bunch of bonus unlockable planes from around the world. The US planes include the Corsair, the Hellcat, the Avenger, and the Lightning. All the famous (and infamous) Japanese planes are in the game as well, such as the Zero, the Raiden, the Frank, and the Tony. The bonus planes was where most of the arguments started. Everyone has their favourite plane from WWII, and we wanted to include as many of these in the game as possible. A few of the notable planes that are in the game are the Mustang, the Me262, the Shooting Star, the Seafire (which is the naval version of the Spitfire), and the Thunderbolt. Each of the different planes (and their upgraded versions) is historically accurate, with the correct weapon loadouts and performance from the war. Some of the planes are fast and agile; others are slow but heavily armed. It's up to players to find the best combination of agility, armour, speed, and armament to suit their playing style. What kind of research went into Heroes of the Pacific for the missions and plane specifications? In the end we did about six months research into the battles and planes in Heroes of the Pacific. The research of the battles was incredibly important, because we based the missions around actual battles and chronologies in the Pacific. As for the planes, that was more difficult, because much of the information that is available is contradictory. In the end we were able to find reliable sources that provided us with the specifications and incept dates of all of the planes, as well as information about revisions and the strengths and weakness of each model. What efforts did the team go to in order to create a 1940s wartime feel to Heroes of the Pacific? None of the development team on Heroes was even born during WWII, so we don’t have any first-hand experience or even memories of the war. Thus, all of our knowledge of the war has come from just a few different sources. For the look and feel of Heroes of the Pacific, we mined three of these sources for reference that we use in recreating the 40s feel. The three sources are newsreel footage, propaganda posters, and oil paintings. Each of these sources has been used in different ways in the game. The propaganda posters have been used in the game’s front end menus, the newsreel footage is used in between the campaigns to inform the player of the course of the war, and the oil paintings have been used as art reference for the look and fell of the in-game graphics. Who is the player's character, and what's his background. Does the character get better planes, equipment, wingmen? The player always plays as William Crowe, but during the game he or she has a choice of planes and equipment. The player gains new planes as they entered the actual timeline of the war, which roughly equates to one every campaign. For example, at the start of the game you only have a Warhawk, then you get the Wildcat at Wake Island, as so on. After each mission the player can upgrade his planes to better versions. So the first P-38 Lightning he gets is the P-38D, which he can then upgrade to the P-38F and then to the P-38L. Each of these planes has different performance characteristics and armament. We have tried to keep the missions as diverse as possible so that the player can fly a lot of different planes, all with unique characteristics. There are single engine fighters, twin engine fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers, medium bombers, jets, and seaplanes. Approximately what duration of single-player gameplay are you aiming for, and what degree of replayability do you anticipate? Depending on the skill level of the player, the difficulty level they play the game at, and how deeply they explore the different game modes, there are between fifteen and twenty hours of gameplay in Heroes of the Pacific. Of course, there are also countless more gameplay hours available online, dogfighting people from around the world. Back