In 2023 on Playstation 4, Xbox one and PC will come out Disintegration – first game from the studio V1 Interactive creator Halo Marcus Lehtowhich he founded after leaving Bungie. Recently, we visited the closed show of the novelty, learned a lot about it and have collected great material for you.
We were also able to chat with Marcus Lehto himself and found out why he decided to leave Bungie.
In the next part of our interview with the developer, we are talking about the production of Disintegration – what it feels like to work with a small team, why the project is not published by a large publisher, and how he came up with the idea of creating such an unusual shooter.
Is it easy for you to work with a small team, or did you encounter any difficulties on the contrary?
On the one hand, this work is much, much easier. We have a small team, we do not need any intermediate department, no group of producers. We can simply discuss interesting ideas with each other, and then immediately try to implement them. Almost all employees can act independently, can work on their own schedule. This is due to the fact that a decent part of our specialists are people with whom I have already worked. 12 out of 30 people are former Bungie employees who are now working with me in the new studio, which is really great. I know what they are capable of, I know how they are used to working. It turns out that almost all of us can work completely autonomously. But, of course, there are leaders, including me, who direct the common efforts in the right direction. So answering the question – yes, it’s easier to work with a small team than a huge studio.
And on the other hand, when you work in a large company, you just get used to the fact that even a very small group of people work on the smallest details. A separate team is responsible for the interface, for the implementation of some things, like a microtransaction system. We cannot afford such luxury. Every working day is something new. Yesterday I sat in the chair of the leader and gave out assignments, today I work on the environment, tomorrow I work on the animation, the next day I take part in the creation of the CG video, and so on. This is difficult, the need to work in different planes quickly exhausts. But personally, I find this experience favorable; I like this development process. I think that many colleagues share this position. They are not only growing professionally, they are becoming really involved in what we are working on. It seems to me that when you start going through Disintegration, you will immediately understand for yourself how our technique affects the final result.
Where do you get inspiration for your games? Perhaps other people inspire you?
At first, in the early stages of the project, I was assisted by two students hired by contract. I worked on the game universe, its basic ideas and principles, while young colleagues worked on central game mechanics. Then the staff began to expand, and new employees brought with them new bright ideas. So, inspiration began to come to us together, we came up with various abilities, characters, and gravicycles. Thus, over the past three years, the game has steadily evolved, and the driving force behind this dynamic has been new talents who have joined our team. Today, Disintegration is a much more ambitious game than its original concept, and I am incredibly happy about it.
Disintegration is an unusual genre mix, a little like the usual shooters. Did you intentionally try to move away from your previous games, or did this happen naturally during the course of your work?
A lot of things in Halo were created by me. We can say that this game reflects my author’s style. From the armor of Master Chief to the transport and architecture of the forerunner race, a certain aesthetic can be traced everywhere, with which I am accustomed to working. And when creating Disintegration, there were elements that I adopted from my past projects, not forgetting to make certain changes and adjustments to them that make them more accessible and understandable for players. I wanted the game to feel like something new, but at the same time well-known.
As for the gameplay, at first Disintegration was a full-fledged strategy in real time, but gradually the game changed shape, and turned into a first-person shooter. It was a gradual, consistent, laborious process, thanks to which the game got its unique face. We did not plan in advance to take just such a vector of development, but continuing the development, discussing various ideas and concepts, the studio came to what we have today.
Tell us about your attitude to shooters? What aspects of this genre do you like best, and how does Disintegration look against this background?
For what I love shooters and what Disintegration clearly succeeds in is responsive and soft control, which allows you to be at the epicenter of events and constantly move around the game space. In Disintegration, this feeling plays an even greater role, since your character is not chained to the ground, but controls a flying vehicle that allows you to make a lot of interesting maneuvers.
What I really love our game for is its unique approach to mobility. All your actions will feel much more accurate and thought out than in other shooters. Many projects of this genre trend boiled down to a normal reaction game, and we propose something else. More balanced and smart gameplay. For ourselves, we describe the game as a first-person shooter for those who like working with brains. Moving through the level, you will not always succeed in hoping for a banal opportunity to shoot all your opponents, you constantly need to think through winning tactics. This will be especially noticeable in the campaign mode, where we allow players to spend more time making decisions in battle. Victory depends on the actions you took before the start of the battle. But even in the heat of battle, when one of your soldiers applies a skill, the playing time slows down, which leaves you with the opportunity to think carefully about your next move. You will be able to watch the battle unfolding on the ground, while changing your position. Or combine several skills at once, which once again proves the tactical depth of the gameplay. Disintegration is truly a unique game, and I look forward to when players can get to know it.
When creating a storyline campaign, you first come up with interesting locations and levels, and then write a story for them, or is your workflow built in the reverse order?
As in the case of Halo, I first started with the plot content, general ideas of the game universe, its history. Next came the heroes who inhabit this world characters. But the start was given to the study of key gameplay mechanics. Here lies the success of creating any game. If you want to succeed in this field, the idea and its implementation must go hand in hand. The story develops, and along with it the gameplay is improved. Accordingly, at the same time, the gameplay begins to dictate its conditions and give shape to the plot component. We are beginning to understand what our heroes should look like, what they should be able to do. This is such a synthesis, where different elements mutually influence each other in the process of work. But if you answer your question directly – it all started with the plot. At first, a single player campaign was developed, a little later it gave rise to multiplayer modes, now both parts of the project are created with the same zeal.
Please tell us about the difficulties you encountered in finding a publisher. Why did you choose Private Division, and not Sony, Microsoft or Activision, for example?
I have direct access to the companies you mentioned. I know many of their employees very well. We showed Disintegration and Sony, and Microsoft, and Activision, and other major market players. But at the time of our pitch, the industry was not very interested in this kind of game. Everyone was interested in either modest mobile games or colossal AAA-developments, which did not correspond to our format. A small studio of 30 people, which creates an extremely ambitious project, did not find a place. Yes, we needed a little more money than other similar teams, but our offer still remained extremely attractive, given the game we were working on. Then I met with my former colleagues from Bungie, who had recently signed a contract with a young publisher. And they suggested that I turn to this company for help, and we, in turn, did just that. Private Division just took its first steps inside Take-Two Interactive, and when we came to them with the Disintegration prototype, it turned out that our partnership could be as mutually beneficial as possible. Private Division was just interested in a project of such a format that we could offer them. They were satisfied with the size of our staff and the necessary budget. We can say that we were very lucky, I am happy that everything turned out that way.
What advice would you give to developers working in large studios and dreaming of working on something new?
There are tons of people in the industry who are like me. I often communicate with them, give advice. Almost every month I hear stories about specialists who, after many years of career, leave large studios in the hope of working on something new. Firstly, there is no need to be afraid of anything. If you have a bright idea, if you really are burning with the desire to implement it, you will succeed. Yes, there will be many difficulties on your way. Therefore, most often I try to help such developers in relation to things that they might not have encountered before. For example, in matters of business organization. I’m the head of the company, therefore, I’m not only creating the game, but also managing the business. I make sure that people can work from home, can stay in touch with each other while a pandemic rages outside the window. I spend half my time on making sure everything is functioning as it should. It is this kind of advice that I give to authors who find themselves in a situation similar to my own.
What would you like to say to the readers of our site, Russian players?
I look forward to the moment when together with us you can share the joy of the launch of Disintegration, scheduled for this year. I hope you try our game and give it a chance. From the outside, it can look exciting, for this we really tried. But when you start to play yourself – it is a completely different experience, which is difficult to compare with something, and you are unlikely to ever play something like that. Therefore, please read Disintegration, I think you will like it and will give a lot of pleasant experiences.
Thank you for the interview, it was nice to talk!
Material prepared by: ACE, Someretard, Skyerist
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