Call of 3D
Treyarch's senior manager speaks out.
Having lots of smart people. It wasn't something that was necessarily developed in house at the studio. It was some R&D tech support through Activision, by some engineers that they had there.
It was something that they brought to us. It was mentioned that we'd like to do it, that they were going to be working on it. We said that we can't stop what we're doing, but if you can make our timeline...
It was internal, from some of the engineers from different teams at Activision.
Let's not forget, it's still a fantastic offering in 2D. You don't lose anything, you just gain a little bit.
Believe me, that was where everybody was. We were definitely focused on delivering Call Of Duty: Black Ops, not looking at some other technology to go along with – to put another thing on our plate. The team's worked so hard and long and it's been such a passion of theirs for two years.
And to be fair to that, you wouldn't have what you have today if we'd set out to produce the game in 3D. It would potentially have been too much of a distraction for the team.
Correct. So that was part of the equation as well. We didn't want to have it that you could only play single player, or you could only do zombies or you could only play multiplayer. We really stressed to make sure that whatever mode you like as a player, we would be able to support that.
In Combat Training you can have up to 12 characters on screen, you can go six-on-six co-op and any combination of that. We're actually playing 3 on 9 and right now it's free for all team deathmatch. But it gives you a chance to go through the guns.
That really was one of the main reasons that they came up with Combat Training - to let players get the experience of the levels, give players the ability to understand the system, understand levelling up and the perks, et cetera.
Nothing.
We confirmed that zombies will be in Black Ops. And that's all we're saying. You should be excited that it's back. I believe even in the press release it said it was one of the world's worst kept secrets.
People a hundred per cent went crazy for it. And you see its progression through the World Of War DLC. If you look at the maps that were on the disc compared to Der Riese, with the portals and the hell hounds, you can see how the game progressed through its iterations and became this great community game that everyone loves.
It's very exciting, and I think that the community is really going to love the new zombies.
I would say it's a compliment. Everybody knows Call Of Duty has zombies, but we're not the first one to come up with zombies in video games. But the bar is high.
It's been submitted, yes.
Well, I'll do my best to keep my nose clean. And focused on the future. We do have some festivities planned, and a lot of people getting ready for vacation... We are at the end, just waiting to see how everyone responds to everyone's hard work.
Jay Puryear is senior manager at Treyarch. Call of Duty: Black Ops is out on 9th November for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and DS.