Three Speech’s intrepid reporter Steve Boxer recently got to chat to industry legend, games engine expert and Epic Games guru Mark Rein. With Unreal Tournament III hitting the stores soon it seemed a fitting time to catch up with him and put some questions his way regarding the forthcoming title. Over to the interview.

How long is Unreal Tournament III going to be an PS3 exclusive for?

Right now, I can’t say. The big reason, the main reason, we brought it to PS3 first, is the mods. You know how important mods are to Unreal Tournament and we love user-created content. And remember, our user-created content isn’t just about re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the boat - it’s about making a new boat, right. I mean, it’s making a plane, it’s making a car! It’s making whatever you want to make, so we’re pushing the envelope on user-created content. PlayStation 3 is an open network and so when we went to Sony and said, ‘we want to make this game support mods’, they were like, ‘we’re an open network, you can do that’. We’re like ‘ha ha, really, we’re going to challenge you on that!’ And sure enough, they’ve embraced it, and they’ve stuck to their word, and supported it. And I mean, Jack (Tretton) even talked about it on stage at E3, which was very kind, so they’re right behind the idea of real honest-to-goodness user-created content.

Do you think it’s going to be the game that really kickstarts the PlayStation Network?

I hope so. I mean it’s such a great game. It plays really well over PSN. And one of the things that we can do that’s really unique about this game is that you can run the PC server and surf for PlayStation 3 users. Theoretically, if the game’s popular, we could go and get a bunch of good quality, high value servers and stick them on and run really dedicated service to the game, really good service. That’s a clear benefit. The other thing is, the customers are going to decide how popular a game is. We’ve done our job in making the best game we can - the users will decide whether it is the best game for them online. I hope so because I think it’s a great game to play online and it’s an equally good game to play completely offline, to play against bots or to play against LAN.

Will it run in 1080?

Yeah, you could have user-generated content that runs on 1080.

The PS3 version, will it be 720?

In fact, there are levels that will run inside 1080 if there’s nothing else going on in them. So you can build content for 1080 if that’s your goal; you decide what your goals are when you’re making a game.

One of our goals was a super rich experience with really high levels of detail on the graphics; to really push the bar up there and do that. Well, if our goal was 1080 we couldn’t have achieved that. Just because it’s all about the trade-offs. It’s the same thing with UT. Our goal is to have a really fast, smooth experience. You played it, with all kinds of crap going on; at the same time people with black particles and rockets and explosions going off everywhere. Being able to fly through these levels, if that’s your experience, if that’s what you’re trying to do, then you’re 720 straight. So those are the decisions we make because that’s the kind of game we’re trying to make. But that has nothing to do with your frame rate, if your goal is frame rate related, or it’s resolution related, you can just make trade-offs. You can use less stuff or code it differently, or simulate things, so I mean that’s really just a game and design decision. Now the engine does get better and better as we move forward, so the engine is definitely faster than it was last year; so is it possible that one day we do a UT style game on PS3 at 1080? I guess so. Is that something we’re likely to do? I don’t know.

Warfare mode - that seems to be the new thing. Can you talk us through it; also how you think the competitive gaming industry is going to embrace it?

I never know what the competitive gaming community is going to embrace. I mean that’s always a big question mark. We just want to make a game that we love to play and we’re confident enough that if we love to play it, so will lots of other people. That’s how we approach all game making. It’s not about targeting a game specifically for one audience or another; we’re targeting it for us. And we’re pretty broad in our thinking.

Is Warfare the coolest thing about the new UT for you?

It’s really the showcase mode for the game. I mean, last time, Onslaught turned out to be the big mode when we looked online to see what people are playing. We really wanted to simplify the game and concentrate on making great, super-fun modes that were really popular and leave the rest to the mods and Onslaught was it. Assault was another one that people really enjoyed.

There’s some levels that have objectives to them, some levels are more just about Onslaught in style. But that is definitely the mode that we thought was going to be one of the chief attractions of the game. Like if you want to play something with a little more depth than just Deathmatch or CTF, then that’s your mode, and it’s great. I’m surprisingly good at playing it and the one thing I really enjoy about Warfare is when you’re playing it against the bots, because you know if you put in 10 bots, they’re all going to be about the same skill level and so you’ve chosen the skill and they’re pretty much going to balance each other out.

What I really like about playing Instant Action is that I’m the difference. I will make the difference between winning or losing. It’s me giving them the right orders at the right time, or leading the charge, or staying back to defend. To me, that’s exciting.

So many people are so good and they’re forming little cliques that are doing this, that and the other. Sometimes, in part, I’m a defence guy or an attacking guy, or helping somebody with the flag, you know, or carrying the orb. But I do find when I’m playing with the bots, I’m the difference between a win and a loss, and to me that’s great.