I am Jeff Wofford, Project Manager on the Brothers in Arms project at Gearbox Software. It's my job to get the game done. I came onto the Brothers in Arms project in May of 2002, when it was just getting started. I have to admit that my first thought when joining the project was, "Oh no, not another WWII game." But from the beginning, all of us who were involved in getting the project off the ground fell in love with the setting, the soldiers, and the incredible stories that these people lived. At the same time, we worked to make the game unique and to create gameplay that we ourselves wanted to play but had never been able to get from another game.
As far as I am aware, Brothers in Arms is the first video game to be based on a true story. Most games, including those set in the real world, are based on movies, or on a generic version of reality. In contrast, Brothers in Arms tells the story of a real military unit and what happened to them in the first eight days of the Normandy Invasion, sixty years ago this year. You can read about these events in history books, but few if any of them have ever been retold on film, much less in a video game.
I play the game every day, and I still find it at once haunting and terrifying when I realize that real people really did what I'm doing in the comfort of my office: ducking away from a rain of German bullets, leaping up to send a spray of Thompson fire to keep the enemy cowering, creeping along the enemy flank to move into a position to surprise them... Even to this day, the game still forces me each time I play to wonder what I would have done if I had really been there. ...If I had to give the orders for a team to charge the enemy. ...If I had to stand up and return fire against an MG42 sending 30 rounds per second against me. ...If the person dying next to me was a living, breathing human being.
I know that American infantrymen in WWII loved the sound - the steady, muscular hammering - of a Browning Automatic Rifle. How do I know this? Because I've been there: under fire with nothing but a half-spent pistol, cringing as the Germans start their flanking assault against my squad, and watching as my BAR gunner brings them down one by one. For the American soldier in WWII, the sound of a BAR is as close as it gets to the sound of security. I love the sound of a BAR.
Personally, the thing about Brothers in Arms that I'm most excited about is the Squad Command Trigger. On the Xbox and PS2, the right trigger shoots your gun, the left trigger shoots your squad. It's just that simple.
What makes this feature work so well is the fact that your squad members are not idiots. You'd think that would go without saying. But an ancient tradition in gaming is the idea that your troops/minions/lackeys need to be told exactly where to stand and what to do. Not so in Brothers in Arms. In BiA, as in real life, when you tell a group of professional soldiers to go stand somewhere, you don't draw circles on the ground for them. Instead, you wave your hand in a general direction and expect them to take up reasonable positions in that area. Your soldiers know what to do. They know where to stand, how to find cover, and who to shoot. As their commander, you don't need to babysit them, but lead them. The challenge isn't keeping them alive, but using them along with your own weapon and skills to outmaneuver and overpower an enemy who is smart and doesn't want to die.
Those of us who have poured our hearts and souls in this game over the past few years cannot wait to show you what we've made. We're working now on putting the finishing touches on Brothers in Arms so that you can experience it firsthand. As we do so, we hope you enjoy these developer diaries, which will give you an inside look into the development of one of gaming's biggest forthcoming titles. Watch this space.
