Interviews// Rebellion: Aliens vs Predator

SPOnG: Surely that's the last thing you want to be asked to do that right? You want to innovate and make a great new experience.

Eric Miller: I don't think any concession, if you want to use that word, was made because we developed this for consoles as well. We're not neglecting the PC platform, we're doing DirectX 11, and we're one of the first to do that. I wouldn't call that a concession, or neglect in any way, shape or form. The only thing I can say is that improvements we've made to the game – and yes, partly because we're putting it on consoles – are to help attract more people to PC gaming. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

You see on the Internet these arguments as to whether PC gaming is dead. The only people that would really know that would be publishers and retailers. But as far as I'm concerned PC gaming is dead if you don't attract a continued audience. There's an explosive growth in consoles, but is the growth there in PCs? I can't tell you. But ignore the PC market and... maybe it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.


SPOnG: PC and console popularity seem to go around in a circle – one period people are all about PC gaming, the next consoles are more popular, then back again. And it's great that you guys are looking to satisfy both audiences at once with features that make sense for all platforms. Like the original AvP game introducing co-op play for the first time on a PC, it's a gameplay feature that suits consoles too.

David Brickley: Yeah, it really makes the boss of the company happy when people go up to him and say “So, you did that Gears [of War co-op] thing?” [Laughs]


SPOnG: With the specs of a PC able to outweigh anything we've seen on consoles – much less the PS3 but more so with the Xbox 360 – are there any benefits you've found using DirectX 11 that allows you to do things that wouldn't be possible on a console?

David Brickley: Performance wise, yeah. No question. It's incredible, even at this early stage, to see what it can do and how much it can process. If your desire as a PC gamer is to be at the very cutting-edge of power, then that's what we have to achieve to succeed.

Eric Miller: People are regularly seen asking, DX9, DX10, DX11, what's the difference? “Crysis looks just as good in XP with this hack and that process and all the options on whatever” [laughs]. Those are the opinions that are out there. Is DX11 is a massive, massive leap forward? Yes. Visually? I think there's a leap, but it's more about what else it has enabled. I mean the benefit in AvP? You're going to get all this stuff happening with no framerate issues. What's not to love about that? It also lets us do larger resolutions.


SPOnG: So you'd say that the PC version is like the ultimate version for tech-heads?

David Brickley: I don't think we're diminishing anything from the console versions by saying that, yeah. I mean it's a fact that you can build or have access to something that allows for much more than you can get out of a television screen. It's pretty much a given.


SPOnG: Any potential for downloadable content?

David Brickley: Well, it's been ten years, and it's not like the company has been sitting idle between then and now. We've been doing other things yeah, but you can consider this a return, and the intention is that this is a proper reboot that is well supported and does new and interesting things. And part of that is in rewarding people who like it and keep playing it by doing whatever we can to improve the experience. There are certainly some things in production in terms of DLC that will follow the game's launch, hopefully.