Meeting the Operators

On what drives them to excel, and what makes them tick:

PANCHO: It's something you're born with. It's a feeling of never being satisfied with who you are - you want to shoot faster, shoot more accurately, and you're always looking for ways to get there. So you join a SEAL unit? What then? You want to be around people who have the same thoughts, the same drive.

It's like having an appetite, and never be able to fill it.

On the mental challenge:
COOP: As you go through the door of these units, the screening process itself cuts out a lot of people. All that stuff that looks sexy, but it's not that much fun. It's uncomfortable. And you end up living in a fishbowl, closed in like any tight group - what's odd to other people is everyday to you. I go to work, and all of this training makes these people your brother, and that process of brotherhood takes you higher - you don't want to hold your team up, be the slowest or last. It's like the fiercest competition you can imagine, but a good one, that forces you to lift, and helps you get to the right level.

You forget you're doing all this cool stuff - jumping out of planes two or three nights a week... It gets routine, even when things go wrong.

VANDAL: The candle burns brighter. You begin to realise that home is right here, the guy next to you. He knows more about you than you probably know about yourself.

On being confident:
VANDAL: Nuclear proliferation is a threat, so who do you want kicking the door in? Some guy who questions themself, or a very confident, capable man. I am an instrument: what happens to me is my reputation, my work ethic, and my skill, and that what drives me to succeed. I believe in everything we're doing, and it's noble and just.

On working with EA:
COUP: Ultimately, the game's coming out anyway; but this way we get to have our hand on the tiller. We can have some say in the product.

PANCHO: Greg and his team have been real good at respecting our thoughts, and doing the right thing by the spec-ops community.

GREG: It's important to EA at all levels.

VANDAL: You see in other games or movies... all this made up dialogue, but the language and communication between us is very surgical and methodical; but it's boring. So we need to work with the designers to keep it real, and still entertaining.

Medal of Honor will be available on all platforms in the spring of this year.