Michael de Plater, creative director on the real-time strategy game Tom Clancy's EndWar, told SCI FI Wire that the game's 2020 settings are based on modern cities, with subtle futuristic touches.
In the game, America and Russia set up dueling missile-defense shields in 2016. By 2020, Europe withdraws from NATO, and the three factions begin fighting World War III.
"EndWar has maps set in Washington, D.C., Moscow, New York City, Three Mile Island and a bunch of other European locations," de Plater said in an e-mail interview on Nov. 6. "We used Google Maps and tons of reference photos to model the areas and iconic buildings as accurately as possible. EndWar is set in the future, but not so far ahead [that you'd] find Blade Runner-style cities. There are a few subtle yet noticeable differences, though; for example, these edgy-looking high-rise buildings in downtown Paris or this humongous U.S. military sea base stationed in New York City's harbor."
As players command their armies of ground troops, vehicles and aircraft, they will recognize most of the weapons at their disposal. Sometimes, though, the 2020 versions will be more developed than their present-day counterparts.
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"It's definitely a careful balancing act, but, really, we just used real life to dictate what went in," de Plater said. "There are a lot of amazing technologies being researched by military organizations all over the world, and some of them can be pretty outlandish. The places where we pushed the tech the most was in things like power cells and energy sources. Let's just say we were very optimistic about future development of fuel cells for things like exoskeletons and battlefield robots."
Even in those cases of creative license, EndWar takes its cues from real life. "Just look at the news, and you'll see that there is a lot going on as far as anti-missile technology is concerned. Heck, we even already have THELs (Tactical High-Energy Lasers) that can shoot down artillery rounds. The same goes for the energy crises and Russia becoming more powerful. At first, this stuff did seem a bit more far-fetched to us, but as we got further and further along in development, more and more stuff that was fiction in our game became reality. We also had military advisors and read a lot of books and articles about future warfare."
Tom Clancy's EndWar is in stores now for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. --Fred Topel
