As it nears its fourth-quarter release date, ALTAR’s Jiri Rydl talks about UFO: Aftershock
By Louis Bedigian and Michael Lafferty

“…the best part of UFO: Aftershock is that you have to control everything”

Aliens have offered to help restore Earth by turning the planet into, essentially, a living organism. The Council has agreed and humans are relocated to an orbiting satellite while the planet is administered too. But something is wrong. After the humans (most of them anyway) are relocated, the aliens fade away and contact with them is lost. Further, the life-support system on the satellite is beginning to fail.

The task that lies ahead is one of survival, and discovery. What happened to the Earth and those who did not leave? These are two questions that form the central theme of UFO: Aftershock, a PC and Xbox release from Cenega slated to hit store shelves in the fourth quarter of this year on the PC and Xbox platforms. The game will also have a mobile gaming iteration.

The game itself is a strategy based title and features:

• Global strategy intertwined with tactical missions

• Strategic resource and base management

• Advanced tactical SAS (Simultaneous Action System) and RPG system

• Encounters occur inside and outside structures, with a broad range of terrains and multi-level buildings

• Amazing technologies and items to be researched and developed

• All-new system of leveling up and training your troops

• Fearsome new enemies and powerful allies

• Diplomacy – an important strategic element

• Strong storyline

• Destroyable environment

GameZone caught up with Jiri Rydl, PR Manager at ALTAR Interactive, to talk about this title as it nears release.

Q: UFO: Aftershock introduces new elements like resource gathering, dealing goods, and diplomacy. Unfortunately a lot of real-time strategy games get bogged down by those elements. What's being done to ensure that doesn't happen with UFO: Aftershock?

J.R.: “Aftershock isn’t your typical RTS – there is a clean break between the strategic part (with resource gathering, research and production, or diplomacy) and tactical missions where the actual combat takes place. So the ‘economy management’ part doesn’t get in a way of the combat. Also, what becomes boring about RTS is that you have to build the same building and research the same technologies all over again: a new mission starts and you have to build this basic Barracks building for the umpteenth time. This does not happen in Aftershock where the strategic game is one long continuous ‘mission’: you never research the same technology twice.”

Q: This isn't your typical RTS -- you're fighting aliens! How did this influence your design of the game's weaponry, both for humans and for aliens, and are there any new weapons or units being designed for Aftershock?

J.R.: “Well, it’s not RTS at all, but turn-based strategy with simultaneous turns. When designing Aftershock we had in our minds post apocalyptic Earth fifty years after aliens changed our home to great ball of biomass. You have usual human weapons from the beginning like knife, Desert Eagle or AK47. After some time you meet aliens with their laser weapons or psi weapons, which you capture and use against them.”

Q: The last time GameZone interviewed you, you mentioned the inclusion of cyber implants. What do they do? Are they beneficial? Can they be harmful?

J.R.: “I can only confirm what I told you then. Cyborgs can use implants to boost their attributes like strength or dexterity. They can also use advanced implants to gain new levels of skills like sniping, etc. They can’t harm you, but you can use one implants just once. Once used you can’t ‘unequip’ it from the cyborg.”

Q: I remember seeing concept images when the game was early in development. Did the game stay within that range and, in its final form, look very much like the concept? Or did the team end up doing things that weren't originally planned?

J.R.: “Yes, we used almost everything we planned in concept phase of developing UFO: Aftershock like cyborgs, psionics, cultists, environments and so on. Of course we have something left in our pocket like one really big and ugly creature, which didn’t fit in our story.”

Q: In the last game humans had to leave Earth. Does Aftershock revisit that story element? Will there be a point where humans can return to Earth, or find a better home within the galaxy?

J.R.: “Well, you didn’t leave you planet totally, but humans, who made peace treaty with aliens and green-lighted the biomass scientific experiment, are floating on the orbit on flying island, the ‘Laputa.’ But after short time you find out there is something wrong with your alien neighbors. And here your mission begins – find out what happened, drop down to Earth’s surface, find new allies and new enemies and finally regain the Earth back from them!”

Q: In the year since we last spoke about this game, have there been any changes to the game's inherent technology, such as graphics or sound?

J.R.: “We have made the whole game in the last year, but there were no big changes in the engine or basic gaming mechanism like simultaneous action system etc. We have optimized few things to make the game look better, to make it faster and so on.”

Q: We are beset with both RTS titles and alien shooters, it seems. What elements do you feel are fresh and will draw players, given the current gaming climate?

J.R.: “UFO: Aftershock is combinations of global strategy game with tactical missions, which means you have two games for one price! You manage resources, research and manufacture weapons in strategic point of view, then you take your best men, arm hem with the best equipment you have and go to the battlefield to face your enemy on ground. Show me another game like this!”

Q: When you put together a title like this, what do you consider being the primary design elements for it to be successful? And what have been the most fun aspects of this game to create?

J.R.: “For me, the best part of UFO: Aftershock is that you have to control everything – what territory to gain next, what buildings build in your new base, what to research first and what next, what manufacture, how to beat the enemy and so on. You have to think before act to win UFO: Aftershock!”

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