Medal of Honor: Warfighter multiplayer – Bergqvist discusses endgame, hacking, VOIP, more

By Stephany Nunneley

Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s multiplayer will be a “cohesive experience,” with single-player and multiplayer sharing features, plus, will be a more expansive than last time out, according to creative director of multiplayer at Danger Close, Kristoffer Bergqvist.

Speaking with Games.On.Net, the ex-DICE employee, who worked on the Battlefield series for six years, said the team looked at multiplayer flaws from the first game and set about making sure the same mistakes weren’t repeated in Warfighter.

“One of the things we knew from the start was that we wanted to be one, cohesive experience,” said Bergqvist. “We also wanted to expand on the depth of the game, to be a game that you played for months and months and years. We did that in a couple of ways. Firstly we expanded the content a lot. Six multiplayer classes instead of three, classes all have unique support actions, they all have unique grenade types and weapon systems. Even things like run speeds. Just a lot of content inside the core gameplay.

“We’re also adding endgame features, such as platoon versus platoon matches, which is our take on clan gaming, and trying to make that as accessible as possible. We also really want to support this game post-launch, making sure it stays up to date. We implemented systems for post-launch patching so that we can update stuff like weapon damage and recoil without deploying patches – we can do it server side.

“If we see that nobody is using a gun because it’s not powerful enough, we can bump it up without needing a patch.”

Speaking of post launch support, Bergqvist said the team spoke with DICE quite a bit regarding vulnerabilities to certain hacks in Frostbite 2, noting that when DICE finds a hole and closes it, Danger Close does as well.

“We have removed parts of the code [in Frostbite 2] that were most exposed to hacking,” he said. “It’s a very real problem, and we don’t tolerate it. We’ll do everything we can to stop it.”

The team will combat such exploits and hacks two different ways: a dedicated team which will combat cheating after launch; and Punkbuster support for the PC version.

In the interview, Bergqvist also went into detail on how Danger Close brought in features which it felt make Warfighter stand out from Call of Duty and Battlefield; how the Fireteam Feature will work; why the game runs at 30fps on consoles; how the in-game VOIP will work, even when switching fireteams and more.

He also explains why you can’t look down a scope when prone. Hint: you can’t really do this in real-life anyway.

It’s a rather comprehensive interview from a multiplayer standpoint, so you’ll want to give it a read.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s multiplayer beta, and Xbox 360 Gold exclusive, started yesterday and runs through October 15.

The game launches on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on October 23 in the US and October 26 in the UK.

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