Medal of Honor

Engine Room: We visit EA headquarters to meet the team behind the brand new Medal of Honor.

"This is a reset - a re-invention of the franchise."

Greg Goodrich, Executive Producer of the just announced Medal of Honor reboot is very passionate about his job, and about the opportunity to update one of EA's most popular franchises. "WW2 has always been the place where Medal of Honor has lived," he goes on to say when we first meet him for a preview and walkthrough of where the game is at prior to its release late next year. "But not anymore."

But what hasn't changed are the game's core values. "Medal of Honor has always been about respect for the soldier, about honouring the soldier. It's about what these guys do. It's not a game about policy, or politics, or wars, it's just a story about a handful of guys - the Tier 1 operators."

Real Modern Warfare
The franchise's reinvention has lead EA to set the game in Afghanistan, during the war that lead up to the fall of the Taliban. It's a real war, and one that's still being fought, which brings with it a host of difficulties - and some rare opportunities.

"Movies have always been the first media to tell a story to a wider audience," said Sean Decker, ex DICE guy and currently General Manager at EA. Saving Private Ryan was the first film to try and tell the story of World War 2 veterans in a particular way, and the first Medal of Honor took a lot of inspiration and cues from it. "But," Sean points out, "Games are the entertainment medium of the modern generation, and they can be just as important. So we thought that we could be the first to tell the stories of these men and women fighting in a very difficult war."

Medal of Honor, as a franchise, has always been about getting the right consultants to work with developers to deliver, if not a truly authentic experience, then at least one as authentic as it can be. For the game's reboot, EA's managed to secure unprecedented access to real special forces operators - called Tier 1 Warfighters in US military parlance. Players will be taking on the role of these specialists in-game, so getting the real deal to tell you what an actual Afghani village looks like, or how they really talk while on a mission, is an incredible advantage.

Game on
You'll take on the role of Army Rangers for some levels, but for the most part you'll be one of the Tier 1 Ops. These are the literal best of the best, the guys who call in airstrikes, make contact with warlords, and go on what are essentially kill missions. But the devs are keen to show how what they call the 'big army' integrates with and relies upon these operators, and how these operators could not possibly succeed at their task without some serious back up to call on

 "Big army will be represented by the Rangers," says Greg, who's obviously very fond of his subject matter. "Tanks, choppers, all that stuff. The game's about the Tier 1 guys, but they cannot operate alone, and vice versa. What we're trying to show is the relationship between the sledgehammer and the scalpel."

"The tier 1 guys will have the ability to do things," Greg enthuses. "They'll play different, have different gear, and generally operate on another level from the Ranger characters you play."

By time of print, the game is technically complete. But, curiously, Greg is embarrassed by what he was able to show us. "This level, 12 weeks of work, 22 people... and it doesn't look good," he says as he loads up a demo, but he's smiling. "We get the game done early so the artists and designers can get in and find the fun. In my opinion, the Gardez level just doesn't look very good - it's about 40 per cent done. We're spending the entire first half of next year to make the game look good, and really mining out all the fun stuff."