United Front Games Opens up on SMASH+GRAB, Would Love Adding a Story Mode to It

Vancouver-based studio United Front Games rose to prominence around five years after its foundation in 2007, when it released the open-globe activeness game Sleeping Dogs with Square Enix equally publisher.

A spiritual successor to True Crime, it was a critical and commercial success that spawned iii DLC packs and a remastered Definitive Edition. After that, United Forepart Games worked on the PC game Triad Wars, a spin-off that was eventually canceled.

Now the evolution squad is going independent with Smash+Grab, an online championship that recently debuted on Steam Early Access to favorable user reviews. The game is currently gratis to play until Tuesday, October 18th at 12pm (PDT), so should you find the following interview with Head of Production Jeff O'Connell intriguing yous may just download Blast+Grab and give it a endeavor. We also included a gameplay video at the very terminate of the article.

Later Sleeping Dogs and Triad Wars, Smash+Catch seems to continue the tendency of gang warfare for United Front Games. Why do you similar this setting so much?

We beloved activity games – specifically, third-person melee activity. Over the years, we've been lucky enough to gather a talented team with lots of experience with these types of games. With Smash+Take hold of, we wanted to play to these strengths, but too bring gamers something fresh and new, and we feel like we've done that. Southward+G and Sleeping Dogs both have urban settings, but the tone and vibe of each are very different - and, actually we believe S+G stands apart from anything out there now in that respect.

Is there anything you can/want to say almost Triad Wars and its cancellation?

Not really. Sometimes, the things you learn during Beta hateful having to make the hard decision non to motility beyond information technology. In any case, we're grateful to the fans for their back up.

How long has the team been working on Boom+Take hold of, and how many folks practice you have working on information technology?

We've been at it a couple years, and while we tin can't exactly say how many folks we have on it, it'south an experienced squad, with lots of titles nether their belts. We believe gamers are going to see this in the quality of our Early Access offering, and nosotros're excited to grow the game in the months to come.

What's the core feature set of Nail+Grab?

We've worked really hard to bring a total and fun set up of features to Smash+Catch for our Early on Admission (with more to come throughout it!). Some features at launch include:

• Assemble your coiffure from a set of melee and ranged characters
• vii leaders to play and 13 lieutenants to back y'all upward
• 100'southward of perks and vanity items to customize your characters with
• Lead your squad into deep melee-focused combat against human and AI enemies
• Collect loot, weapons, and crafting materials from an urban environment
• 12 base weapons to detect and 18 weapon mods to arts and crafts
• Squad up with other allied gangs to out-upgrade and outfox your enemies
• ii competitive maps/modes; parties; private rooms; and co-op and practice confronting bots

How important is teamwork in the game?

Paramount! When we run tournaments in the part, good team coordination is often fifty-fifty more important than pure combat skill. And it's important to take advantage of both teamwork betwixt you and your own gang, and teamwork between your gang and the other gangs on your team.

To give an example of teamwork within your gang, many of the AI Lieutenant characters have abilities that give you, the Leader, an opportunity to act – say, by stunning an opponent, buffing your damage, or injecting enemies with a poisonous substance that causes them to bargain AOE harm when they die. If y'all capitalize on the opportunities your Lieutenant creates, you have a big advantage over an opponent who doesn't.

Teamwork with other players on your team is fifty-fifty more important. A match of Nail+Catch goes through several "rounds" and at the beginning of each circular, new objectives spawn all over the map simultaneously. No ane person can be everywhere, so every bit a team y'all need to coordinate to merits as much as you can – but if you spread also thin yous'll certainly lose combat encounters with the enemy. So it's a balancing human action between spreading out to grab all the loot, and sticking together to win squad fights. If you have good recon and skilful communication yous'll take a better idea of what residuum is appropriate to beat your opponents' strategy.

How many modes are you lot planning for the full release? Can you make some examples?

We are not ready to reveal the details of our future modes at this time, merely we are launching with ii modes in Early on Access and are working on more modes and maps right at present.

Volition there be deep customization for your gang (logo, motto, name etc.)? Are you planning a Tournament mode to let gangs compete inside the game?

Currently you can customize a gang'southward roster, and advent/perks for the leader and lieutenant. We are investigating other customization options, and nosotros promise that a successful Early Admission will help usa expand into fifty-fifty more customization. For competitive play nosotros are primarily looking at adding a formal Ranked Play system and so players tin compete for a global ranking.

Is at that place a level cap in the game? Also, how extensive is character customization?

Each grapheme has a level cap, simply there is no account level cap. It'southward worth mentioning here that characters don't become stronger every bit they level up in Smash+Catch, but rather they get more options, in the form of perk unlocks and vanity item unlocks for that character. Leveling upwardly your player business relationship awards you a random vanity particular, which could be for any character. Mix-and-match characters, perks, and vanity items to create your own unique gang.

Melee combat and multiplayer are rarely combined successfully in games. What are you doing to make sure everything is synchronized in a satisfying mode?

Aye, it'due south a unique claiming for sure! The gainsay arrangement is a mix of the activity game combat nosotros are known for, and the rules of classic fighting games like Street Fighter. The cadre of the gainsay is a stone-paper-scissors relationship where attack beats catch, take hold of beats defend, and defend beats assault. This sort of arrangement volition be familiar to classic fighting game fans. You can mix it upwardly by throwing in heavy attacks, evades, counters, dart attacks, and abilities - or attempting to stagger the timing of any of your options to throw your opponent off. A i-on-1 fight between humans can be a real chess match.

However, non every character is a man! Considering each player has a gang, there are also 4 AI characters in the match for each human character. Yous can fight against AI characters a lilliputian more like an action game than a fighting game. So as yous alternate betwixt fighting AI and fighting humans, you become a bit of both experiences: The ane-vs-many dominance that you get in activity games, and the tense twitch experience of fighting games.

Obviously, several console gamers already asked you to bring Nail+Grab to PlayStation 4 and Xbox I. Would this but happen after the full release on PC?

We hope that a successful Early Admission launch on PC will assist us bring Smash+Grab to consoles.

What practise y'all call up of the PlayStation 4 Neo and Xbox I Scorpio, as a developer? Would y'all support them for a potential console release?

Right at present our focus is on bringing the best possible game to the PC. If new hardware tin help us bring it to the couch in the future, we're definitely interested.

What exercise you think of cross-platform play? Would that be something you lot would evaluate for Smash+Grab if the game is released for multiple platforms?

We're just getting on our beginning platform now, but we'll certainly evaluate cross-platform play in the hereafter if the game finds a various audition (which nosotros believe it can!).

Provided that the game turns out to be a success, would you lot be interested in adding a story focused single player/cooperative campaign DLC? That seems to exist what many fans of Sleeping Dogs are expecting from you.

Both singleplayer and co-op play is something we are big fans of, and nosotros're hoping to expand into at least co-op for our full launch. Having said that, we believe the fictional earth of Smash+Grab is actually interesting and if people relish it, we'd love to delve deeper into the story with both co-op and singleplayer.

Is there anything else you lot'd like to say to fans?

We believe that if you're fans of United Front Games and any of the games we've made over the years, you'll savour Blast+Take hold of. Nosotros've put all our effort into making something that has the 'UFG feel' – not just the controls and action, but the colorful characters, interesting visuals, and off-vanquish sense of sense of humour. We promise you lot give Blast+Grab a endeavor and let us know what yous think.

Thanks for your time.

Source: https://wccftech.com/united-front-games-opens-smashgrab-love-adding-story-mode/

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