"Exclusive Interview With Insurgency 2's Project Lead, Jeremy Blum" + IMS Comments

http://www.fpsgeneral.com/news/insurgency-2/20938-exclusive-interview-with-insurgency-2s-project Excerpt, for the entire interview click the link. Emphasis and comments by IMS.

With Insurgency 2, this is no longer a mod but a full standalone game, correct?

Correct. You can currently pre-order the game on Kickstarter for $15.

What was the biggest design challenge between putting together the total-conversion Source mod in Insurgency and designing Insurgency 2 as a standalone title?

I think the biggest design challenge with the first Insurgency was creating large, open environments that were properly optimized and detailed. We were fighting against Source Engine the entire time during development, with a design plan that would have worked much better on a larger scale engine like CryENGINE or Unreal.

With Insurgency 2 we ultimately decided that the most important component of the game was its “feel” and the realistic, highly intense firefight you can’t get anywhere else. Insurgency 2 retains this, while shrinking the scale down slightly to be more suited to what “works” best on the engine we’re using. The game is much more focused now – players will never have a hard time locating objectives.

What sets Insurgency 2 apart from other first-person shooters?

First and foremost, the feel. This is such an underrated component to FPS games that we took quite seriously. We wanted the game to feel familiar, but unique at the same time. What we have now is very easy to learn but is also far more realistic and natural feeling than your typical crosshair-based FPS.

I think the next thing that makes us different is our outfitting system. You can pick from light, heavy and standard outfits that determine your armor, speed and ammo capacity – kind of like Tribes [INSMODSCUM: AA 3 also does something like this?]. Your choice of outfit won’t affect what weapons you have access to. Weapons are instead obtained by weapon caches at your team’s spawn and you can upgrade them for your whole team by performing objectives – incentivizing teamwork.

On top of this we are also looking forward to delivering a realism mode that will slow the game down, make weapons even more powerful, increase the free aim area, and disable the HUD. This will be for the elite players and hardcore fans of the original. I will probably play this mode myself to stay clear of all the newbies [INSMODSCUM: LOL].

The Kickstarter seems to be coming along nicely. With other games having such success getting funded, was the decision to go crowd-funded a pretty easy one?

It wasn’t a hard decision, but I wouldn’t say it was an easy decision either. We’ve already put a lot of time and money into the game and the unfortunate reality is that we will run out of these resources by September. We would have to sell out to a publisher [INSMODSCUM: that will probably not end well], somehow raise more money, or merely deliver to the public what we have and hope to make some profit off of it. None of these are ideal for us – we really want to deliver something we’re proud of that fulfills and surpasses peoples’ expectations.