Mark Rubin: Call of Duty 4 DLC

Producer talks about new Modern Warfare content, and more

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Interviewing the creator of a new videogame is usually fairly easy fodder - the question set pretty much writes itself. However, when you're talking to the producer of a game already released and ridiculously well-established, what do you talk about? Well, luckily Infinity Ward are this week releasing a new downloadable map pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and we took this as the starting point when sitting down with producer Mark Rubin.

How long have you been at Infinity Ward, Mark?

i've been there about three years now.

And have you always been a producer?

Yes, in my time at Infinity Ward I've always been producer.

Before you joined Infinity Ward, what was the lure of the studio, and the Call of Duty franchise overall?

The big thing for me was how well they did their singleplayer. Since Call of Duty 1, their singleplayer game has been an amazing cinematic experience. CoD1 felt like you were in a Tom Hanks movie. An amazing experience - the quality, the passion, the intensity that came out in the singleplayer is what drove me to those guys.

So, would you like to see Call of Duty 4's singeplayer experience expanded in a similar fashion to the multiplayer improvements being offered with this new DLC?

Hmmmm. We don't want to water the story down. It's a very compact story. So... I don't think we would do that...

The new maps look great, very detailed and rich. How much research and time goes into this DLC?

Quite a lot! From an environmental art stand-point we actually send researchers all over the world to look at different locations. We'll send a team of artists with cameras to Chinatown, etc. They go around taking photos of everything, actually, we've sent them to some countries and they end up in trouble.

Becuase they stand there taking pictures of everything, and always attract police officers who want to know what they're doing. They're taking pictures of cracks, bricks, everything. Luckily everything is okay when we say its for a game. It shows, because this really comes out in a level.

How much time was spent balancing the new levels and are you confident you've got it right?

Yes! Very much so. We've been working on these maps since just before the end of CoD4. Many months. We play the game every day as devs. We talk about everything. In depth.

We'll move a flag, or something, for Domination. We'll move it a few feet to get the sight-lines right. We really pay attention to the details on the maps. There's actually a telephone pole on one map, and we positioned it there because there's two windows that can look at each other, and we didn't like that sight-line, so we put the pole right there. That's the kind of detail we like to get down to. That's why the DLC has taken so long.

What's your favourite location from the new maps?

I really like the Broadcast setting. At the same time Chinatown is amazing looking. When you play it, it really is amazing. The feel you get.. like after a rain storm. It feels perfect.

Any new weapon plans?

Not now.

in the future?

Can't say!

Is Creek the biggest of the new maps?

Yes. Although I'm not sure how big it is in kilometers. Its definitely one of the largest. But there's more to it than distance. There's a lot of variation in height. It takes the gameplay to a new level. This isn't something we've really seen before. This is far more than changing levels in a building... this is about terrain. This is an actual river-bed, with cliff sides and everything.

Do you have any DLC plans beyond this?

I can't... really say. We're very fluid.... we don't know specifically what we're working on next. We've been busy with this. So we'll see how this works out.

Speaking about DLC in general, the time and effort put into this new content seems noteworthy. Do Infinity Ward place more importance on this than other developers?

Yes. Hmmm. Interesting question!

The way our team works... is always intense! Regardless of what we're doing. Multiplayer and singleplayer action is white knuckle. All the time. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" How we develop is kind of like this. The whole studio is frantic. We couldn't do it any other way. That's how we are.

Does the success of the game, put pressure on you from a community perspective, internet forums being what they are, etc?

Internet forums are what they are. We're bigger in the picture now. So, there's a lot more... and we take it all seriously. It may be a fault of ours, but we really try. So, take this new map pack, we spent a lot of time with player feedback. So while there will be some people who think we don't listen, and those who love us and don't care about everything else. Hopefully, most of the people who play our games realise we do care and we love games. We're gamers... this is all we care about.

Were you surprised to see your game ahead of Halo 3 on Xbox Live?

Yeah... I think personally we thought that made sense! It was definitely nice to see. We were very proud. We had a little party. Drank some beers.

Can you attribute some of Call of Duty 4's success to the change in setting to the present day?

I don't know... I think its not so much that we moved to Modern Warfare. But the fact that we really hit our mark delivering the really intense experience we always aim for. And maybe the pacing is different, we really did a good job on the pacing, getting it working with the gameplay. The speed fits well with the game.

That's more important, than the modern vs. WWII setting.

Would you like to visit another time-frame with a future release? We assume that the millions of copies sold means a fifth game is on the way...

Yeah. Unfortunately we can't.

As a game designer?

As a game designer... of course.. we want to do everything. I want to do an MMO, roaming, hang-gliding. We love games!

PR lady: Just to be clear this isn't an official announcement of a hang-gliding MMO!

[Fits of giggles all round]

The hang-gliding MMO is not coming anytime soon!

And so the interview ends. Infinity Ward's Variety Map Pack will be out on Xbox Live on April 4th. Four maps are offered, which I recently got a little hands-on time with, playing (I kid you not) amongst burnt out Ford Escorts on the top floor of a car park in London's Soho.

Broadcast is a multiplayer spin on the singleplayer level, featuring frantic complex indoor environments with a bit of outdoor fun thrown-in. Killhouse, meanwhile, is ideal for split-screen action, offering a claustrophobic nervy maze of bunkers and buildings - made of ply-wood. Then there's San Francisco's Chinatown, a neon-lit urban battle scene, with plenty of sniping spots and wonderful levels of detail.

Lastly there's Creek, an epic forest environ complete with out-buildings, structures, caves, cliffs, forests, et al. This is a very large map, and as Mark Rubin notes, really does make interesting use of terrain to really mix up the experience.

April 4th it is...

By Luke Guttridge