Boiling Point Q&A

The Ukraine seems to be the place for exciting, new angles at the first-person shooters genre. Boiling Point looks like a mix between Far Cry and Morrowind.

While the graphics may not be totally up to the standard set by Far Cry, the freedom is certainly there, while the scope is much larger: The game world measures 625 square kilometres – in one streaming level.

This means there's be no loading time while travelling around. Add to that a high degree of freedom in regards to accepting missions, befriending factions and moving around.

We had the opportunity to chat with Sergey Zabaryansky – Founder and Director at Deep Shadows – the Boiling Point developer.

Boomtown: How do you plan to eliminate the boring sequences where you have to travel from on point to another in the game? With a world that is around 625 square kilometres, these are bound to happen at some point.

Sergey Zabaryansky: Firstly, we have a Taxi system in place – so players can just pay some money and can travel to a lot of places in a short period of time (only during daytime). Secondly, players can buy a lot of different vehicles that help a lot – not only with travelling but with storing things in as well (cars, helicopters, boats etc.)

Boomtown: Regarding the factions in Boiling Point: Will it be possible to seclude yourself from sections of the game? If so, how early in the game do you have to choose sides and are there different endings to the game related to your choice of factions?

Sergey Zabaryansky: Players are able to improve their relationship with an enemy should they choose, so they are not limited to just befriending one faction. However, the whole system is dynamic: If players do things a faction likes (because it represents their way of thinking) their relationship will increase. As an example; maybe you are doing a job for the CIA that the mafia doesn’t like but at the same time the Officials like your actions and your relationship with them is improved as well. Every action you take forces a reaction in your relations to some factions. You will always have to pay the price for your actions within the world.

Boomtown: Will your choices have outcome on the actual gameplay?

Sergey Zabaryansky: Yes – a lot. But it’s not a choice you make just once – it’s also not an active choice – the factions are watching your actions and are constantly making their minds up if they like you or not. Based on this like or dislike they will react differently and you are able to get other missions.

Boomtown: Boiling Point has been under development for quite a while, and it is using your own brand of technology – do you feel it is hard to live up to the current standard of technology like the Source and Doom 3 engines?

Sergey Zabaryansky: Honestly all these guys did a great job on high-end graphics – but our focus is much more set to providing a very, very free game world, which I suppose is in direct contrast to the engines you mention. For us, there is no way to provide a Source graphics level in a game for 2005 that uses a 625 square kilometres big streaming game world.

But I think we have found a very good compromise for the game play we wanted to create. So yes we have a lot of high end features but we simply cannot use the same texture size like a game with a limited small level structure (small in comparison to our one level world).

Boomtown: Has any of the other games that have been released since you began development then made you stop and say “We need this and that feature?” If so, which games would that be?

Sergey Zabaryansky: A wise guy should always have a look around. So a lot of things were under discussion up to the last months … But there is not one feature or game that was over important.

Boomtown: Both the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the Boiling Point-crew are based in Ukraine, and some of your people has been a part of CSC Gaming World. Have you at any point had any kind of exchange of experience or have you drawn experience from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-project, as it is a similar kind of world?

Sergey Zabaryansky: There are some links, especially at the beginning as we all worked for GSC before Deep Shadows was founded. But Boiling Point and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. also have a lot of different aspects. Just think of our big 625 km2 landscape in one single world (one streaming level); doing this simply leads to a very different gaming experience so you can not compare in a lot of areas. We hope to deliver a lot more free gaming experience.

Thanks to Sergey Zabaryansky for taking time to answer these questions.