Commandos 3 is the latest in the action strategy series to come from Eidos and Pyro Studios. As with the previous 2, you must take control of an elite group of Commandos as they venture deep into enemy territory and perform a variety of missions vital to the success of the allied campaign. Commandos 3 boasts an improved graphics engine, more realistic AI and a greater variety of enemies and equipment. We got a chance to ask lead designer Ignacio Perez some questions about the game and what changes/improvments we can expect:

GX: Hi, Please introduce yourself and tell us what your role on Commandos 3 is.

I am Ignacio Perez and I am Commandos 3 lead designer.

GX: So far, how do you feel the development of Commandos 3 is going?

It is been a hard two years making the game and specially the last six months have been a very busy time but the development is coming to an end. We are working on the final balancing of the missions and we will have a master by the end of August.

GX: What do you feel is/was the biggest challenge while developing Commandos 3?

Evolving the gameplay style to the next level. Making it much more varied and intense. Putting some more action in to the game and all of this without loosing the strategic approach we have had on previous Commandos games.

GX: How will the interface for commandos change from that of Commandos 2, which was very easy to get used to?

I think that this will be even easier as most of the effort on this aspect has gone into simplifying it making it faster and easier to take any decision trough the game. All tests we have done on this have been very satisfactory and everybody find the interface much easier than it was on Commandos 2.

GX: In the recent video you can see that some of the scenery is getting destroyed. Will this introduce a new destroyable scenery element into Commandos 3 or will it all scripted?

Most of it will be scripted but will have an effect on gameplay as the situations and the map configuration will change.

GX: What commandos will remain from Commandos 2, have any been added or removed and why have you taken this decision?

There have been three commandos removed with only 6 remaining: Green Beret, Sniper, Sapper, Diver, Spy and the Thief. We wanted to have less commandos to make them more powerful and useful.

GX: Will the commandos have any new abilities, will some special abilities be available to more than one commando?

Many of the abilities which were specific of one commando in C2 are now available to all commandos, although they will keep each of them their specific abilities that define their characters. There will also be some new abilities and weaponry available in Commandos 3 like heavy machine guns, artillery guns, etc...

GX: With the introduction of 3 episodes, one taking place in Russia, are we going to be able to control Russian characters as well as the usual Allied characters or is the game going to be restricted to Allied commandos?

Yes, in Stalingrad we will have the assistance of Russian soldiers as well as we will have the assistance of the French resistance on the 2nd campaign or that of allied elite soldiers on the third campaign in Normandy.

GX: What changes have you made to the AI in Commandos 3 considering that Commandos 2 took care of enemy line of sight and noise detection?

Basically we have improved the behaviour of the enemies specially of the patrols which will be far more intelligent now and we have created some elite troops like Gestapo soldiers or elite snipers.

GX: Will there be new weapons or vehicles in the game? Can you tell us what they are?

Yes, as I mention before there will be new weapons out of which the heavy machine gun and the artillery cannon will be the most spectacular ones.

GX: The indoor rotatable rooms feature worked great in Commandos 2, is this going to be extended to other areas or will it remain an indoor only feature?

It will remain only for the interiors but with a new engine with far better graphical quality and which allows zooming in and out in them.

GX: I hear that Deathmatch Multiplayer mode is being worked on, how is this going? How will this mode be played?

Yes, There will be three deathmatch modes with capture the flag, etc.. it will allow for two teams playing against each other with up to a maximum of 6 players per team. I think it is a lot of fun and a very different multiplayer experience to what we have seen before.

GX: Can you tell us what system specs the game will need?

Not very high. I think that the game will run on a PIII 500 which is pretty low. We have done a big effort on optimizing the code to lower the specs.

GX: I read that this is the last in this type of Commandos game, will the next one be completely 3D? Will there actually be a next one?

I do not know what we will do in the future and most probably we would like to make another game in commandos universe but definitely it will be a totally different game to what we have done until now.

GX: Can you tell us when the demo is going to be released?

We are aiming for the end of August

GX: Are you still planning for a September release date or has this changed, does it look like changing?

We are working hard for a release at the end of September and it is very likely that we make this date.

GX: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Is there anything you would like to add?

I would just invite all your readers to play with Commandos 3 demo when it goes out. I promise it is lots of fun.