Interview to Félix Habert, Creative Director at Steel Balalaika

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since we gave news about Broken Arrow, but rest assured, the team has been working hard.?

You're probably wondering what the current development status is: the team is working on the version that will become the beta; this version of the game will also contain multiplayer, unlike the demo back in February. We want to provide a polished and refined experience from the get go, so currently we're doing a lot of internal testing, ironing out a few details and, obviously, putting together the server infrastructure to accomodate many thousands of players at the same time.

專訪Steel Balalaika創(chuàng)意總監(jiān)Félix Habert

大家好！

我們已經(jīng)有一段時(shí)間沒有發(fā)布斷箭的消息了，但請(qǐng)放心，團(tuán)隊(duì)一直在努力

你可能想知道目前的開發(fā)狀態(tài)是什么：團(tuán)隊(duì)正在開發(fā)即將成為測(cè)試版的版本；這個(gè)版本的游戲還將包含多人游戲，與二月份的演示不同。我們希望從一開始就提供完善的體驗(yàn)，因此目前我們正在進(jìn)行大量?jī)?nèi)部測(cè)試，敲定一些細(xì)節(jié)，顯然，我們還整合了服務(wù)器基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，以同時(shí)容納數(shù)千名玩家。

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Communication wise, we decided to break silence by releasing this interview to Félix Habert, Creative Director at Steel Balalaika, who will talk of the design choices behind Broken Arrow. The interview is accompanied by new screenshots: they were previously released privately to Patreon members and those will be new to everyone else.

We're looking forward to a very heated autumn, there will be tons of Broken Arrow news coming, so stay tuned, and enjoy the interview.

在溝通方面，我們決定打破沉默，向Steel Balalaika創(chuàng)意總監(jiān)Félix Habert發(fā)布這篇采訪，他將談?wù)摗稊嗉繁澈蟮脑O(shè)計(jì)選擇。采訪附有新的截圖：這些截圖之前是Patreon成員私下發(fā)布的，對(duì)其他人來說都是新的。

我們期待著一個(gè)非常火熱的秋天，將會(huì)有大量的斷箭新聞，所以請(qǐng)繼續(xù)關(guān)注，并享受采訪。

Steel Balalaika（俄式三弦琴） as a new team is working on their first new game. Could you tell us? why you decided to make Broken Arrow? How was that decision taken and why?

問：鋼鐵三弦琴作為一個(gè)新的團(tuán)隊(duì)正在進(jìn)行他們的第一個(gè)新游戲。你能告訴我們你為什么決定制作斷箭嗎？這個(gè)決定是如何做出的，為什么？

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Félix Habert: Broken Arrow is born from our love of strategy games and Steel Balalaika from the dream to make our own game and make it our job instead of being simple consumers.

This is a dream of freedom: creative freedom, economic freedom, freedom to work when we want and not like assembly-line workers.

Of course, with freedom come responsibilities and “when we want” rapidly becomes “all the time” but we believe that our efforts will not be in vain and that they will be rewarded in the end. That’s why our motivation never failed and is even reinforced by the very positive feedback we have received after the Steam Next Fest's demo.

費(fèi)利克斯·哈伯特：《斷箭》源于我們對(duì)戰(zhàn)略游戲的熱愛，《鋼鐵三弦琴》源于制作我們自己的游戲并將其作為我們的工作，而不是簡(jiǎn)單的當(dāng)消費(fèi)者的夢(mèng)想。

這是一個(gè)自由的夢(mèng)想：創(chuàng)造自由，經(jīng)濟(jì)自由，在我們想要和不喜歡流水線工人的時(shí)候工作的自由。

當(dāng)然，自由帶來了責(zé)任，“當(dāng)我們想要的時(shí)候”很快就變成了“一直”，但我們相信，我們的努力不會(huì)白費(fèi)，最終會(huì)得到回報(bào)。這就是為什么我們的動(dòng)力從未失敗，甚至在Steam Next Fest演示后收到的非常積極的反饋也加強(qiáng)了我們的動(dòng)力。

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What are the goals you aim to accomplish with Broken Arrow?

問：你們開發(fā)斷箭的目標(biāo)是什么？

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Félix Habert:?Our first goal is to make sure at 100% that we deliver the game in the end. It sounds unambitious but this is our first game as a team, which means we cannot afford a failure.

Our second goal is more ambitious: create a new reference.

World in Conflict released 16 years ago in 2007 is a big inspiration in terms of atmosphere for us. We have the feeling that no game since WiC has managed to reach that level of immersion without sacrificing the scale of the battle.

But World in Conflict's gameplay was too simplistic in our view with its limited number of units and clear counters. We wanted something different that would feel more like a wargame with a huge number of units with statistics inspired by their real-life characteristics and the gameplay adapted around this constraint and not the other way around.

Another downside of World in Conflict was that the size of the battlefield that was too small to make planes controllable. The size of our battlefield was dictated by the fact we wanted controllable aircrafts.

In summary Broken Arrow is this: a mix between World in Conflict and a wargame.

費(fèi)利克斯·哈伯特：我們的第一個(gè)目標(biāo)是確保我們最終能100%完成游戲。這聽起來沒有野心，但這是我們作為一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)開發(fā)的第一個(gè)游戲，這意味著我們不能承受失敗。

我們的第二個(gè)目標(biāo)更為雄心勃勃：創(chuàng)建一個(gè)新游戲標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。

16年前的2007年發(fā)布的《沖突世界》在氛圍方面給了我們很大的啟發(fā)。我們覺得，自WiC以來，沒有一款游戲能夠在不犧牲戰(zhàn)斗規(guī)模的情況下達(dá)到這種沉浸感。

但在我們看來，《沖突世界》的游戲過于簡(jiǎn)單，單位數(shù)量有限，計(jì)數(shù)器清晰。我們想要一些不同的東西，讓人感覺更像是一款戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)游戲，有大量的單位，其統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)受其現(xiàn)實(shí)生活特征的啟發(fā)，游戲圍繞著這一限制而不是相反。

《沖突世界》的另一個(gè)缺點(diǎn)是戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)太小，無法控制飛機(jī)。我們戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)的規(guī)模是由我們想要可控飛機(jī)這一事實(shí)決定的。

總之，《斷箭》是一部介于《沖突世界》和《戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)游戲》之間的作品。

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What has been the hardest obstacle while developing Broken Arrow so far?

問：到目前為止，開發(fā)斷箭最困難的障礙是什么？

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Félix Habert:?This is the first game of the studio so we started from nothing, everything has to be made so it’s not the kind of obstacle like a cliff that you can blow up with dynamite or avoid, it is rather a very long and smooth slope that you must continue to climb every day for multiple years.

費(fèi)利克斯·哈伯特：這是工作室的第一款游戲，所以我們白手起家，一切都必須做好，這樣它就不是那種你可以用炸藥炸毀或躲避的懸崖之類的障礙，而是一個(gè)非常長(zhǎng)而平滑的斜坡，你必須在多年內(nèi)每天繼續(xù)攀登。

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Was there a specific feature you definitely wanted in Broken Arrow?

問：《斷箭》中有沒有你絕對(duì)想要的特定功能？

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Félix Habert:?There are definitely 3 main things we wanted:

1) We want to include all the most impressive military equipment and techniques in existance or that are being developed. The logic we follow is “if it’s cool, we want it!”.

So you name it: airdrop, helicopter heavy lift, swarms of cruise and ballistic missiles, heavy bombers, all types of bombs and missiles including nuclear, AC-130 gunships, A-10 making gun runs…

2) Customization of the equipment. We wanted players to select which missiles and bombs they want for their planes, then we extended the principle to all units. Vehicles have armor upgrades, different weapon packages, infantry weapons can be swapped.

3) Give tools to the players to create and share content. Since we had to create everything from scratch including our own tools to create missions, we have decided to hit two birds with one stone and develop these tools as part of the game instead of a separate software. That way players will be able to create their own scenarios with dialogues, music, cinematics etc.

費(fèi)利克斯·哈伯特：我們想要的肯定有三件事：

1） 我們希望包括現(xiàn)有或正在開發(fā)的所有最令人印象深刻的軍事裝備和技術(shù)。我們遵循的邏輯是“如果它很酷，我們就想游戲加入它！”。

所以你能說出它的名字：空投、直升機(jī)重型升降、成群的巡航導(dǎo)彈和彈道導(dǎo)彈、重型轟炸機(jī)、所有類型的炸彈和導(dǎo)彈，包括核武器、AC-130武裝直升機(jī)、A-10火炮…

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2） 設(shè)備的定制。我們希望玩家選擇他們想要的飛機(jī)導(dǎo)彈和炸彈，然后我們將原則擴(kuò)展到所有單位。車輛有裝甲升級(jí)，不同的武器包，步兵武器可以互換。

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3） 為玩家提供創(chuàng)建和共享內(nèi)容的工具。由于我們必須從頭開始創(chuàng)建一切，包括我們自己的創(chuàng)建任務(wù)的工具，我們決定一舉兩得，將這些工具作為游戲的一部分而不是單獨(dú)的軟件來開發(fā)。通過這種方式，玩家將能夠通過對(duì)話、音樂、電影等創(chuàng)建自己的場(chǎng)景。

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Once the game is released, do you envision expanding the game with new factions, maps and campaigns?

問：一旦游戲發(fā)布，你是否設(shè)想用新的派系、地圖和戰(zhàn)役來擴(kuò)展游戲？

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Félix Habert:?Yes, of course! We have started with USA and Russia because they are the most documented armies providing obvious opponents for the game but we intend to add more factions to the game.

We also intend to add new maps with new biomes and new solo campaigns.

We also intend to develop new game mechanics and provide more tools for the players like the ability to create their own campaigns.

費(fèi)利克斯·哈伯特：當(dāng)然！我們從美國(guó)和俄羅斯開始，因?yàn)樗麄兪亲钣杏涗浀能婈?duì)，為游戲提供了明顯的對(duì)手，但我們打算在游戲中增加更多的派系。

我們還打算添加新的地圖、新的生物群落和新的個(gè)人活動(dòng)。

我們還打算開發(fā)新的游戲機(jī)制，并為玩家提供更多的工具，比如創(chuàng)建自己的戰(zhàn)役。