GameShark | Features | Sword of the Stars II Developer Interview

Article by: William Abner

Can you tell us a little bit about what the Sword of the Stars franchise is all about?

Sword of the Stars is about taking the classic 4X genre and pushing it to take advantage of current hardware. The 4X genre was cemented at a time when computers were fine keeping track of a galactic empire, but combat was much simplified, or even just abstracted.
Sword of the Stars takes the turn-based strategy part of the genre and puts some unique twists on it and at the same time, takes combat and makes it fully 3D, real-time tactical battles between spaceships the player has designed. So basically, the game is turn-based until opponents bump into one another, and then it moves to real-time fighting, with players in direct control of their fleets.
That’s the heart of what SotS is – there are a lot of other unique details we added on top of all that. Things like 3D star maps (just like when you look up at night), a randomized tech tree (or tech forest, in this case – randomized to keep hardcore players from developing optimal win paths), and 7 races that aren’t just copies of one another with different funny names, and slightly different ships – mastering one race means you’ve only mastered 1/7th of the game.

Kerberos has grown quite a bit as a company since the original game was first released. How has the added manpower helped in the development of the sequel? Where has most of the attention been given?

The increase in manpower is evident everywhere throughout the game, upping the ante in a lot of ways from the first game, but there is no doubt about it that the first thing people notice and comment on is the look of the game – a lot of work went into the game engine, making the game and particularly combat look absolutely amazing, and even more work went into the creation of the ships by the artists. The detail of the ships is fantastic, and makes it hard at first for long-time SotS fans to pay attention to things like, oh, not getting shot, and shooting back!

The original game is several years old at this point, what does the new MARS 2.0 engine allow you to do that you couldn’t in the original?

Two key things the MARS 2 engine does are the depth of detail in the game and takes advantage of current core systems. MARS 2 takes advantage of the current, DX10 era for example, and gives the ships in the game that incredible, reach-out-and-touch it quality. Materials, shadows, and so on – and the in-house effects editor takes advantage of this jump in technology as well; even the fading plasma clouds that are the result of a weapon hit cast their own light. And multi-core systems were basically a one-of-these-days idea when SotS first came out, and while expansions to the game helped maximize the MARS 1 engine, MARS 2 was created with multi-core systems in mind.

How has it been working under the Paradox umbrella? How has it helped the game’s development?

Other than our fans, Paradox has been our biggest supporter since the beginning. They helped expand the first game, and when we wrapped that arc of the game up, they were ready to work with us to take our still growing, indie game, and start on a proper sequel, from day one. I don’t think we could be more comfortable with anyone else than we are with Paradox.