Second Set of Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena Dev Diary Released
Atari today has released the second set of developer diaries and Q&A from Starbreeze Studios the developer behind Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Check it out:
Be sure to check out Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, April 7th for PC, PS3, and 360.
Hugo Hirsh
QA Manager
Starbreeze Studios
QA LIFE
My name is Hugo Hirsh, and I am the QA Manager here at Starbreeze. I have been working in Quality Assurance for almost nine years now, and worked on hundreds of games during that time.
When I started working on Riddick a year ago, I was very surprised with the quality of the game, both from a visual perspective and from a game-play stance too. It felt almost finished then, now it feels like a completely different game, and much better for it.
A typical day for me will start with looking over the new versions of the game, that our machines make overnight. This saves us a lot of time, and allows us to launch straight into the latest code when we arrive. I’ll check the three versions (PC, 360 and PS3) work then start making disc versions of them.
Whilst the discs are burning, my team of highly trained robot-ninja QA and I will have a quick look over the nightly builds to check for any glaring errors (Multiplayer menu missing, black screen on turning on the console, that kind of thing), then start the play-throughs.
After a year playing the same, slowly evolving game, play-throughs can become blindingly fast. Riddick is at least a ten hour game on the easiest difficulty setting for the latest of the two campaigns. The hardest difficulty would take about 15 hours. At one point we managed to complete the game in under an hour. Since then more levels have been added, so now it takes us about three hours to complete the Dark Athena campaign.
Once play-throughs are completed and the discs being tested from, we move onto more detailed tasks such as acquiring every collectable in the game (well over 100 at the time of writing) and checking that bugs reported have been fixed.
Every day at 4pm we turn the fun up to 11 with the hour long multiplayer session. A chance for scores to be settled and generally a lot of smack talk to be talked.
Conversely, it gives us invaluable time balancing the weapons and tweaking the maps. If it’s not fun for us to play, why should we expect other people to have fun playing it. Then for the last hour of the day we are generally hunting bugs. Trying to find useful reproduction steps for existing bugs or crashes.
I have had some of the most memorable experiences in my career playing Riddick. For a game that I usually spend 8 hours a day playing, 5 days a week, I do not hate it. I don’t think I will ever hate it. Most other games I have worked on start to irk me through bad design choices or extremely poor quality overall after only a few days or weeks. Riddick has consistently outperformed my expectations.
A great example of this was early on in development. Placeholders were common, and if an achievement was earned, a note would appear on screen informing you. I was testing the main decks area, where Riddick controls a Ghost Drone. If you waited long enough, the Ghost Drone would eventually be able to access the area Riddick was controlling it from. In a “What happens if I…” moment, I snuck up behind Riddick and shot him in the head. A note appeared on the screen saying “Darwin Award?” and I was reloaded to the previous checkpoint. I had not laughed that hard since I came to Sweden.
Another memorable bug turned out to be nothing more than a missing character in a text file somewhere. To solve it took taking on an additional four QA guys repeatedly hammering the multiplayer for months on end over the summer. Crash after crash after crash, kilos of torn out hair and blood later it was finally resolved.
QA can be very repetitive and mundane at times, but mostly it is rewarding and a joy to see the evolution of a game before your very eyes.
QA Manager
Starbreeze Studios
QA LIFE
My name is Hugo Hirsh, and I am the QA Manager here at Starbreeze. I have been working in Quality Assurance for almost nine years now, and worked on hundreds of games during that time.
When I started working on Riddick a year ago, I was very surprised with the quality of the game, both from a visual perspective and from a game-play stance too. It felt almost finished then, now it feels like a completely different game, and much better for it.
A typical day for me will start with looking over the new versions of the game, that our machines make overnight. This saves us a lot of time, and allows us to launch straight into the latest code when we arrive. I’ll check the three versions (PC, 360 and PS3) work then start making disc versions of them.
Whilst the discs are burning, my team of highly trained robot-ninja QA and I will have a quick look over the nightly builds to check for any glaring errors (Multiplayer menu missing, black screen on turning on the console, that kind of thing), then start the play-throughs.
After a year playing the same, slowly evolving game, play-throughs can become blindingly fast. Riddick is at least a ten hour game on the easiest difficulty setting for the latest of the two campaigns. The hardest difficulty would take about 15 hours. At one point we managed to complete the game in under an hour. Since then more levels have been added, so now it takes us about three hours to complete the Dark Athena campaign.
Once play-throughs are completed and the discs being tested from, we move onto more detailed tasks such as acquiring every collectable in the game (well over 100 at the time of writing) and checking that bugs reported have been fixed.
Every day at 4pm we turn the fun up to 11 with the hour long multiplayer session. A chance for scores to be settled and generally a lot of smack talk to be talked.
Conversely, it gives us invaluable time balancing the weapons and tweaking the maps. If it’s not fun for us to play, why should we expect other people to have fun playing it. Then for the last hour of the day we are generally hunting bugs. Trying to find useful reproduction steps for existing bugs or crashes.
I have had some of the most memorable experiences in my career playing Riddick. For a game that I usually spend 8 hours a day playing, 5 days a week, I do not hate it. I don’t think I will ever hate it. Most other games I have worked on start to irk me through bad design choices or extremely poor quality overall after only a few days or weeks. Riddick has consistently outperformed my expectations.
A great example of this was early on in development. Placeholders were common, and if an achievement was earned, a note would appear on screen informing you. I was testing the main decks area, where Riddick controls a Ghost Drone. If you waited long enough, the Ghost Drone would eventually be able to access the area Riddick was controlling it from. In a “What happens if I…” moment, I snuck up behind Riddick and shot him in the head. A note appeared on the screen saying “Darwin Award?” and I was reloaded to the previous checkpoint. I had not laughed that hard since I came to Sweden.
Another memorable bug turned out to be nothing more than a missing character in a text file somewhere. To solve it took taking on an additional four QA guys repeatedly hammering the multiplayer for months on end over the summer. Crash after crash after crash, kilos of torn out hair and blood later it was finally resolved.
QA can be very repetitive and mundane at times, but mostly it is rewarding and a joy to see the evolution of a game before your very eyes.
Q: We understand that you initially decide to remake Butcher Bay because it wasn’t backwards compatible with Xbox 360. What made you also decide to add the Dark Athena content?
A: That’s right. We made a lot of effort to get that game to run on the Xbox 360, but eventually realized it wasn’t possible. Additionally, the first game was never released on PlayStation, so there was a large audience that never had the opportunity to play the game. In the end it became a great excuse to do a remake and even enhance the quality of Escape from Butcher Bay.
So as we went into development on Assault on Dark Athena, our immediate goal was that reimagining of Escape from Butcher Bay for the new consoles. But as we were working on the game we all felt that it needed to deliver even more for Riddick fans. That eventually led to us extending the Dark Athena campaign. Assault on Dark Athena is a brand new game, with 10+ hours of gameplay, new characters, and a new story. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena also includes multiplayer for the first time!
So at this point we’ve poured our hearts and souls into something that we really hope makes gamers happy, and for anyone that’s a fan of the Riddick universe, we’re quite sure they’ll enjoy this return to those adventures.
Q: You mention the Multiplayer. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? We know that this is the part of the game that many Riddick fans are excited to check out.
A: We have been working on the multiplayer throughout the development of the game and we’re hopeful that gamers get a thrill out of our approach! We are featuring six modes—four classic modes and two that are completely new, “Pitch Black” and “Butcher Bay Riot.” “Pitch Black” is a seven player mode, where six players take on the role of mercs who hunt Riddick. Whoever kills Riddick, gets to be him in the next round. Riddick has the advantage of being able to see in the dark, while the mercs can only see what their flashlights spotlight.
Meanwhile, “Butcher Bay Riot” pits three teams of four against each other: prisoners, mercs, and guards. As a team, you’re fighting for control of a power cell that you are trying to plant in your enemy’s base. The winners of this mode score UD credits (currency in the Riddick universe) that can be used to purchase ammunition or weapons for the next round.
Q: Cool. Is the new game co-op supported?
A: No. We’ve always talked about it, but the idea never ends up working out because Riddick is too much of a loner and we often feel that he’d rather kill that “buddy” than fight alongside him. We’ll see. Maybe someday it will make sense but for now it would just feel tacked on.
Q: It seems that it has been especially important to you to create a game that was one-hundred percent true to the Riddick character and universe. How did you go about developing a game that fits with the established Riddick cannon, even while creating a new storyline?
A: With Vin Diesel involved in the game, not only committing his voice to the character, but also his creative ideas to the new campaign, developing a game and storyline that fit with the Riddick universe as fans know it turns into a really inspiring collaboration and fun problem to tackle. So for example, in Assault on Dark Athena we introduce the Ulaks (a set of curved knives) that you’ve seen in The Chronicles of Riddick movies, but here’s Riddick’s first encounter with this weapon, and it makes a connection to those films. That’s just one example of the kind of thing we’re doing all over the place.
Q: Why will gamers who have already played through the old Butcher Bay want to play through the Escape from Butcher Bay remake? Is it possible to just play the new Dark Athena campaign without playing through Butcher Bay?
A: It is possible to jump straight into Assault on Dark Athena, but we believe that even those who have played the original game are going to want to play the revamped Escape from Butcher Bay because the game has been extensively enhanced. Every environment, texture, animation, sound, and character has been recreated, taking advantage of new technologies we’ve pioneered for next-gen consoles. It’s actually quite amazing to see the difference!
Q: You guys are known for combining various gameplay elements in the campaigns you’ve developed. Butcher Bay was commended for its awesome mix of close- quarters stealth and gunplay. How have you incorporated this style of gameplay into the development of Dark Athena?
A: I’m glad you asked about that. For Dark Athena we have tried to bring together multiple elements of gameplay, as we have in the development of our previous games. We have an enemy in the game called a Ghost Drone. These Drones have their weapons attached to their arms. When the Drone dies, the player can then pick-up the body and use it simultaneously as a gun and human shield. This is an example of how we have been able to combine gunplay and close-quarters stealth.
Q: What about achievements in the game?
A: The game will have 50 achievements total, 25 for Escape from Butcher Bay and 25 for Assault on Dark Athena. For Athena, about half of the achievements will be for multiplayer, ranging from easy to very difficult to get.
Q: Thank you for your time. Is there anything else you would like to say to Riddick fans?
A: We really feel that Chronicles of Riddick: Assault of Dark Athena is an amazing game and our best effort at Starbreeze to date. We certainly hope you enjoy the improved Escape from Butcher Bay Campaign, exploring the new levels of Assault on Dark Athena, and of course our new multiplayer. For everybody that loves the Riddick universe and for everybody that’s experiencing it for the first time – this game is our love letter to you!
A: That’s right. We made a lot of effort to get that game to run on the Xbox 360, but eventually realized it wasn’t possible. Additionally, the first game was never released on PlayStation, so there was a large audience that never had the opportunity to play the game. In the end it became a great excuse to do a remake and even enhance the quality of Escape from Butcher Bay.
So as we went into development on Assault on Dark Athena, our immediate goal was that reimagining of Escape from Butcher Bay for the new consoles. But as we were working on the game we all felt that it needed to deliver even more for Riddick fans. That eventually led to us extending the Dark Athena campaign. Assault on Dark Athena is a brand new game, with 10+ hours of gameplay, new characters, and a new story. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena also includes multiplayer for the first time!
So at this point we’ve poured our hearts and souls into something that we really hope makes gamers happy, and for anyone that’s a fan of the Riddick universe, we’re quite sure they’ll enjoy this return to those adventures.
Q: You mention the Multiplayer. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? We know that this is the part of the game that many Riddick fans are excited to check out.
A: We have been working on the multiplayer throughout the development of the game and we’re hopeful that gamers get a thrill out of our approach! We are featuring six modes—four classic modes and two that are completely new, “Pitch Black” and “Butcher Bay Riot.” “Pitch Black” is a seven player mode, where six players take on the role of mercs who hunt Riddick. Whoever kills Riddick, gets to be him in the next round. Riddick has the advantage of being able to see in the dark, while the mercs can only see what their flashlights spotlight.
Meanwhile, “Butcher Bay Riot” pits three teams of four against each other: prisoners, mercs, and guards. As a team, you’re fighting for control of a power cell that you are trying to plant in your enemy’s base. The winners of this mode score UD credits (currency in the Riddick universe) that can be used to purchase ammunition or weapons for the next round.
Q: Cool. Is the new game co-op supported?
A: No. We’ve always talked about it, but the idea never ends up working out because Riddick is too much of a loner and we often feel that he’d rather kill that “buddy” than fight alongside him. We’ll see. Maybe someday it will make sense but for now it would just feel tacked on.
Q: It seems that it has been especially important to you to create a game that was one-hundred percent true to the Riddick character and universe. How did you go about developing a game that fits with the established Riddick cannon, even while creating a new storyline?
A: With Vin Diesel involved in the game, not only committing his voice to the character, but also his creative ideas to the new campaign, developing a game and storyline that fit with the Riddick universe as fans know it turns into a really inspiring collaboration and fun problem to tackle. So for example, in Assault on Dark Athena we introduce the Ulaks (a set of curved knives) that you’ve seen in The Chronicles of Riddick movies, but here’s Riddick’s first encounter with this weapon, and it makes a connection to those films. That’s just one example of the kind of thing we’re doing all over the place.
Q: Why will gamers who have already played through the old Butcher Bay want to play through the Escape from Butcher Bay remake? Is it possible to just play the new Dark Athena campaign without playing through Butcher Bay?
A: It is possible to jump straight into Assault on Dark Athena, but we believe that even those who have played the original game are going to want to play the revamped Escape from Butcher Bay because the game has been extensively enhanced. Every environment, texture, animation, sound, and character has been recreated, taking advantage of new technologies we’ve pioneered for next-gen consoles. It’s actually quite amazing to see the difference!
Q: You guys are known for combining various gameplay elements in the campaigns you’ve developed. Butcher Bay was commended for its awesome mix of close- quarters stealth and gunplay. How have you incorporated this style of gameplay into the development of Dark Athena?
A: I’m glad you asked about that. For Dark Athena we have tried to bring together multiple elements of gameplay, as we have in the development of our previous games. We have an enemy in the game called a Ghost Drone. These Drones have their weapons attached to their arms. When the Drone dies, the player can then pick-up the body and use it simultaneously as a gun and human shield. This is an example of how we have been able to combine gunplay and close-quarters stealth.
Q: What about achievements in the game?
A: The game will have 50 achievements total, 25 for Escape from Butcher Bay and 25 for Assault on Dark Athena. For Athena, about half of the achievements will be for multiplayer, ranging from easy to very difficult to get.
Q: Thank you for your time. Is there anything else you would like to say to Riddick fans?
A: We really feel that Chronicles of Riddick: Assault of Dark Athena is an amazing game and our best effort at Starbreeze to date. We certainly hope you enjoy the improved Escape from Butcher Bay Campaign, exploring the new levels of Assault on Dark Athena, and of course our new multiplayer. For everybody that loves the Riddick universe and for everybody that’s experiencing it for the first time – this game is our love letter to you!
Be sure to check out Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, April 7th for PC, PS3, and 360.