>> Title: Unreal Tournament 2007

>> 03/19/2006

>> Platform: PC

>> Developer: Epic Games

>> Publisher: Midway

We had a chance to catch Producer Jeff Morris about what's happening with Unreal Tournament 2007. Although they are busy trying to crank this title out, we were able to get a brief Q&A. Special thanks to Tim DaRosa for assiting us.

1- Epic has always done a great job in supporting the mod community.  Will editing tools be available with UT2K7’s release?

Absolutely and we can’t wait to see what the community can come up with. We’ve often felt that a strong mod community can keep a game relevant many years after it’s been released. We hope to see the same efforts for UT2007 and will do our best to support them any way that we can.

2- Fans have blasted EA for the Madden series, oftentimes saying it’s the same game with a few tweaks and prettier graphics.  In what ways is UT2K7 not “the same old game”?

When you work with franchises, you need to be very careful to ensure that what your customers enjoyed about the previous titles is present in the new release. At the same time it’s a great opportunity to appeal to gamers that perhaps didn’t find the original to be their cup of tea. UT2007 strikes what we think is an ideal balance. Take Onslaught for example. It still involves capturing nodes and destroying the enemy’s Power Core. Anyone who enjoyed the previous incarnation will immediately be able to start playing and having fun. Where we’re innovating is a vastly increased roster of vehicles compared to UT2004, new types of objectives during the match, and even persistence results between individual maps.

3- Which maps and weapons from UT2K4 will make an appearance in UT2K7?

Lots of franchise favorites will be making a return appearance. On the weapon front you can expect new and improved versions of the Shock Rifle, Rocket Launcher and Flak Cannon. In our eyes, it just wouldn’t be UT without them. For maps, you can expect fan favorites like DM-Deck and CTF-Face getting the UE3 treatment. We’re pretty excited about all our new maps, but some of those classics have been in every incarnation of UT, and 2K7 won’t break the tradition.

4- Are you planning to have playable demos on the floor at E3?

For E3 we’re planning to have a theater demonstration where we will be conducting in-game tours of selected highlights of UT2007 in the most efficient manner.

5- Other than high poly counts and insanely detailed textures, what is the Unreal Engine 3 allowing you to do in UT2K7 that wasn’t possible in UT/UT2K3/UT2K4?

As a developer UE3 has had a tremendous impact on how we build the content for our games. One example is Kismet, a visual scripting language that enables our level designers to do things that once were only possible with the help of a programmer. Another would be Cascade, which allows artists to quickly prototype particle effects and see them in-game instantly. Across the board what once was a pain involving many people, is now a pleasure often involving only one.

Interview by: Alex Hammond