Below is an Interview I recently conducted with Henning Rokling the Managing Director of Innerloop about IGI 2

General:

First of thank you for agreeing to this interview, can you please tell us a bit about yourselves?

I'm the Managing Director of Innerloop, and helped found it in 1996. I've been in the industry since 1996 and IGI2 will be the 10th (or 11th?) game I help bring out to the market.

How impressed with IGI 2 are you at this stage?

You're asking me? Of course I'm impressed :) You really ought to ask someone else...


Can you tell us if we get to play or at least See Jones and Anya's escape from the first game?

IGI2 takes place some time after the events in IGI1, and as such it isn't a direct continuation.


Community:

What are your feelings on the strong community that has followed the game since the original announcement?

We're very happy with the game's community - a community we feel part of :). The IGI-universe has a life of it's own, and we do our best to encourage the fans to keep supporting us. However, we are of course ridiculously busy doing our best to finish the game as soon as possible. Also, we try to do our best to make the waiting easier.

Demo:

Can you tell us is there plans for a SP or MP demo?

There are plans for both a SP and a MP demo (separately).

If so, will the demo be levels from the game or totally new levels?

We won't be making additional content for the SP demo, so it will be actual game level(s).



Editing:

What about a level Editor after the game has been out for a while?

This will most likely happen (90% sure). However, I think you guys are seriously underestimating the complexity of making the IGI-levels. This makes creating maps for Quake, Unreal, Half-life etc look like summer-school tests you did when you were 11 years old. We think only a selected few really die-hard people will dig their teeth into it - if you're able to do it you might just as well apply for a job with our company!


Can you tell us if IGI 2 will support Mods?

We won't be supporting Mods in the sense that you can modify the content to that sense. You will have the same opportunity, but supporting a mod-community would be very, very resource-demanding for us. It's mainly the creation of MP-maps we will support.


Will we be able to use Custom Skins in Multiplayer for faces?

This is unknow yet. It's a maybe. The faces are basicly textures, but currently the client doesn't actually download textures from the server - it's not distributed like that.

Game Features:

Have there been any interesting features added to the game intentionally or otherwise?

I should say the Thermal Imaging Device allowing you to see humans through walls is an interesting feature. Also, the impact created by your own stance as well as the light you're in has on the AI's ability to spot you is important. Almost as important as the AIs ability to hear you at different distances on different types of material. Stealth is the name of the game, and it would be a joke to compare it to IGI1 - it's completely different and so much more advanced. All of this is intentional however. As for unintentional things, I can't think of any right now.

Have you added any features that make use of Newer Hardware E.g. Geforce 4 Graphics cards or EAX 3?

We have EAX support. The biggest thing with better graphics-card is just the ability to get a decent framerate with more rendering effects on. We're not going all out doing special stuff (apart from bug-fixing) to give advantages to an ATI or Nvidia card.

One feature I found annoying in the original was updates in game, which you had to read will these be read to you?

The in-game updates you get from IGI-HQ are now recorded as audio as well.

What has been the hardest thing to add to the game, and what has been the most fun?

I'm sure everyone in the team has their own opinion of this, but adding the lightmaps has been fun in the sense that it makes the game look so much better. At the same time it's been very hard, as we've rendered, rendered and rendered over and over and over again - this takes so much processing time it is ridiculous. But it makes the game look hot!


Game Play:

How do you enjoy the game? In addition, what is your favourite weapon?

Right now my favourite is the Chinese SMG Type 64. It's firing rate is insane (which is a bad thing cause you have to keep on reloading all the time) but it is deadly, and pretty accurate. As we're still tweaking the weapon-settings my favourite weapon changes often.

Right now I usually enjoy MP more than SP - I play mostly SP to find bugs. However SP has many nice moments and really nice cutscenes - and I enjoy that.

How complete is the game at present?

About 85-90% complete in my opinion.

How many levels will IGI 2 have and how long on average will game play last?

There are 19 SP levels and 5 MP levels on release, with more MP maps planned after release. Game play would definitely depend on the difficulty level and your skill of play. I'm sure you would be able to complete the game on Easy in about 10 hours. But for the hard-core fans, Easy should not be an option. If you want it like IGI1, you definitely should play on Hard (no saves, tougher AI, less ammo etc).

Multiplayer:

Will IGI 2 support the All Seeing Eye as an alternative to Gamespy?

I can't comment on this, as it's Codemasters who handles our relations with the matchmaking companies.

Other:

Any ideas on a release date?

Sorry, Codemasters handles this as well. It wouldn't be right if I said anything, and honestly: I don't really know for sure. It's very hard to tell until you've actually Mastered the game for sure and sent it to production.

Can you tell us the system Specs?

P3-450 with 128MB RAM and 32MB Graphics card for Single Player. It's higher for MP, but I can't remember right now. I'm sure it's on the webpage?

Will we be able to download Kim Jensen's Music shortly?

Kim is still making some tweaks to the music, but in theory you could now. If you plead enough on the forum, I'm sure Codemasters eventually will release it :)