Unreal Championship Preview

The well-established game developer Digital Extremes seems to be right on track with their approaching multi-player action-packed title Unreal Championship. This time, we made a brief interview with Mr. Adriano Bertucci, the programmer in DE's Unreal Championship developing team, who was kind enough to reassure us that everything is going as planned.

ActionTrip: We've received a lot of feedback on our preview on UC. However, most of our readers are unhappy since the game will be an Xbox-exclusive. Is there at least a slim chance to see it on PC or any other platform?

Adriano Bertucci: We have no official plans for a PC version right now.

AT: How does the engine handle the demands of the game so far? Are there many differences between the engine that is going to be used in Unreal II and the one that will be utilized in Unreal Championship?

AB: We have the latest Unreal Engine build, and we've added lots of our own features to it. Here's a few that we've announced publicly: particles that are effected by wind, as well as character and projectile movement; projective texturing; and a new character animation system (DECA). So, it will be very different than the one being used for Unreal II.

AT: Can you explain more about the innovations used in level designing?

AB: Besides all the cool technical innovation, the Level Designers are working hard to seamlessly integrate their level into the environment using some new techniques. I can't say much more about this right now, but keep watch for some new screenies soon.

AT: Is there perhaps a correlation between UC and Unreal II at all?

AB: No. Here's the scoop: Unreal II is the sequel to Unreal, which is being developed by Legend Entertainment. Unreal Championship is a follow up to Unreal Tournament, which is being developed by Digital Extremes.

AT: A special attention was apparently given to the in-game weaponry assortment. The same attention was maintained on the vehicles as well. Tell us more about these weapons and vessels we will get to use throughout the game.

AB: UC will have single and multi-person hover vehicles and wheeled vehicles. These will allow players to boot across the large terrain maps quickly and will offer some really awesome gameplay experiences. Check this out: you're sitting at home on your couch with your buddy playing split-screen over the net... you're protecting your friend who has the flag, but you get gibbed, and you respawn at your base... so, you jump into a 2-person hover skiff, and head over to where you died... your buddy is just about to be taken down by an enemy when you come flying in and turn that bastard into roadkill. Then your teammate jumps in and you head back to the base and score!

AT: As we all know, this will be a multi-player-only title. Fill us in on the multi-player features the Xbox possesses?

AB: Although UC is playable over our LAN right now, we're just starting to get information on Microsoft's broadband service. So nothing is definite yet, but we're aiming for at least 16 players online. We'll have more info on this soon, so be sure to check out our website regularly for our weekly developer updates.

AT: When can we expect Unreal Championship to come out?

AB: Everyone here at DE is really kicking ass to make sure we keep to our tight schedule. We're currently working towards a really important milestone at the end of this month - all characters and maps will be complete. UC is still on track for a mid-2002 release alongside Microsoft's broadband service.