By Craig Pearson on March 8th, 2012 at 5:00 pm.
The man in this video had ten different customised weapons waiting for him at any time, so remember that if you choose to mock his overly-dramatic presentation of Ghost Recon Future Soldier’s Gunsmith capabilities in the comments: he probably has a ‘snotty internet jerk’ config that’ll make the Windows key on your keyboard garotte you. The plug and play aspect of the arsenal in Ubisoft’s future shooter means there’s a gun configuration for ever day of the week, plus 19’999’993 more days after that. Such configuration is essential if you’re in the hunt for The World’s Most Dangerous Man. I’m not sure if the video is hinting that Osama will be in Future Soldier, but I don’t think it fits in the time frame. Not that they really care about realism: X-ray guns? If they have those then they’d clearly have a mecha Bin Laden.
Oh, it’s out on May 25th. I actually do like co-op future soldier shenanigans, and the final few seconds have set out how I’m going to play the game: I’m the guy with the pet UAV.
08/03/2012 at 17:14 Shooop says:
It’s the new rule of shooters: afraid your game isn’t going to be “different” enough to attract CoDers? Add more guns.
08/03/2012 at 17:47 jezcentral says:
At 1:30, they seem to be gunning down a UN soldier. Well, at least that’s a new take on the enemy-that-the-US-must-face-down-to-save-the-world, i.e. everyone else.
08/03/2012 at 17:59 Mad Hamish says:
Sounds like the perfect evolution of plot for these type of games. In the future the rest of the world are evil commies and need subjugating by you know who.
08/03/2012 at 19:34 wodin says:
Add Mechs!
08/03/2012 at 17:17 Anarki says:
My maths says this means there will be 4000 different guns with 4000 variables for each one. My maths may be wrong.
08/03/2012 at 18:09 iteyoidar says:
One gun with a reflex sight with 32-bit adjustable color dot. That’s over 4 billion gun configs right off!
08/03/2012 at 21:32 immerc says:
At about 35 seconds in they show the customization categories:
muzzle, side-rail, underbarrel, gas system, optics, camo pattern, trigger group, stock, magazine
So, with say 3 different muzzles, 2 different side-rail options, 5 different under-barrel options, 3 different gas systems, 10 different optics options, 10 different camo patterns, 3 different trigger groups, 5 different stocks and 5 different magazines, that’s:
3 * 2 * 5 * 3 * 10 * 10 * 3 * 5 * 5 = 675,000 options for a single weapon.
Those are wild-ass guesses for how many different options there are for certain categories, but you know that for certain categories there will be lots of different options (optics and camouflage for example) and others will be more limited.
08/03/2012 at 17:17 KDR_11k says:
More importantly, how many of them are actually different? Just a bunch of hitscan weapons won’t get you anywhere.
08/03/2012 at 21:39 immerc says:
Some of the customization categories are probably completely aesthetic (camo pattern for example). Others will affect what you see when you’re aiming (scope), how many rounds you can fire before reloading (magazine), still others will affect what happens when you hit the trigger button (trigger group (burst, auto, semi-auto).
Even if, once the trigger is depressed, the guns are all the same in terms of hitscan calculations, surely some of the customization will come into play before you even press the trigger.
A better question might be: “will there simply be worse vs. better options in each category?” For example, is bigger always better when it comes to magazine size? Is there a drawback to having a really powerful scope? Does a lightweight stock allow you to carry more, or move faster? Does a lightweight stock result in a less stable weapon when firing? Or is the stock purely a decoration?
08/03/2012 at 23:07 Baines says:
But you can go back to “How many of them are actually different?”, or more specifically “Are they different enough to matter?”
You can easily inflate your combinations with things that do have different impacts, but the impacts remain very minor. You might have something that makes a gun more accurate, but a 1% increase is much more negligible than a 10% increase. You could have larger clips increase weight and slow the player, but if the decrease in speed is only 1%, then it may be considered negligible.
08/03/2012 at 17:22 sneetch says:
Bah! Twin gatling-cannon Hitler could kick mecha Bin Laden’s ass!
Anyway, I wonder how much of a difference most of this tweaking will make to the way the guns operate. Surely that’s what’s relevant I mean, do the different stocks or handles actually affect anything?
08/03/2012 at 18:24 westyfield says:
Zombie Bin Laden with the forces of the briny deep at his side could kick Hitler’s ass any day
08/03/2012 at 18:42 Shooop says:
Sure maybe mecha-Ladden, but what about lobster-Ladden?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-february-22-2012-bruce-bartlett
08/03/2012 at 17:22 The Malkavian Bear says:
Bin laden pre-order dlc?
08/03/2012 at 17:31 linzhanpo says:
http://15.cc/3zal8
08/03/2012 at 18:49 reggiep says:
It can’t be out on May 25th. Games always come out on Tuesdays. 22nd then?
08/03/2012 at 17:37 Fumarole says:
Chest high walls, hooray.
08/03/2012 at 17:43 Vinraith says:
A series of small walls!
08/03/2012 at 18:27 lijenstina says:
Chest high walls in 4 000 000 different configurations.
I think that the game developers will soon realize that they should focus on the real heroes. Sentient chest high walls are the next logical step in the genre.
08/03/2012 at 19:51 Hoaxfish says:
You play as a chest-high wall. You can move but only when no humans can see you. Your task is to position yourself in the best possible way so that when the “heros” turn up, you offer the best tactical advantage compared to all the other chest-high walls in the same area.
08/03/2012 at 20:09 PodX140 says:
Hoax, you just made my day. Is it bad that I’d actually love to see a prototype of that game?
08/03/2012 at 21:18 lijenstina says:
They could call it
Wall of Duty
Modern Wallfare.
08/03/2012 at 22:06 Strange_guy says:
So a puzzle game based around arranging the environment, especially chest high walls, so that the heroes can win against whatever evil bad guys? Sounds interesting.
08/03/2012 at 17:42 Brun says:
20 million guns combinations sounds like a crude attempt to force depth into an otherwise shallow game.
08/03/2012 at 17:42 thedavehooker says:
Yay phallic symbols!
09/03/2012 at 01:29 Axeman89 says:
“My weapon is me” isn’t terribly subtle.
08/03/2012 at 17:42 jezcentral says:
So this game will be (20 million / 87 bazillion) as good as Borderlands?
Is this some new way to objectively measure how good games are?
08/03/2012 at 17:43 Roxton says:
If there really are 20 million combinations, and if those combinations actually have any meaningful impact on gameplay, then we’re looking at the mother of all choice paralysis.
08/03/2012 at 19:02 Max.I.Candy says:
tell me about it!
give me any more then 5 options and i get a glazed look in my eye and end up staring at the screen for half an hour.
08/03/2012 at 21:45 immerc says:
All 20-million options will be in a super long list sorted by manufacturer serial number.
….
3,827,494: AK-47, Wooden Stock, Iron Sights, 24 round magazine, Flashlight under barrel
3,827,495: Desert Eagle, Forest Camo, Dot Sight
3,827,496: AK-47, Wooden Stock, Dot Sight, 24 round magazine, Flashlight under barrel
3,827,497: AK-47, Folding Stock, Iron Sights, 25 round magazine
…
08/03/2012 at 17:50 Eukatheude says:
He surely sounds excited about the game.
08/03/2012 at 18:11 Fumarole says:
Mack is just excited about weapons in general.
08/03/2012 at 18:01 Brosepholis says:
52 choose 6 = 20 358 520
So if each gun has 6 different variables, they only need 52 separate choices to have that much (superficial) variety.
Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it?
08/03/2012 at 18:10 sneetch says:
Especially as 40 of those are probably unlocked camo schemes.
08/03/2012 at 18:18 Brun says:
More likely something like this:
8 guns, 6 customization slots per gun, 11 options per slot. This gives:
8 choose 6 = 28
28 choose 11 = 21,474,180
Of course, that means that a substantial number of those gun combinations will be either totally or partially unmodded.
08/03/2012 at 18:27 westyfield says:
THAT IS NOT HOW X-RAYS WORK
08/03/2012 at 18:54 Dances to Podcasts says:
http://cdn2.hark.com/images/000/003/974/3974/original.jpg
08/03/2012 at 18:41 Orija says:
Watching this in mute makes the baldy look as if he’s rapping in slow-mo.
08/03/2012 at 18:50 reggiep says:
Can’t be out on may 25. Games always come out on Tuesdays. 22nd then?
08/03/2012 at 19:36 Khemm says:
So, when is the PC version coming out? Will it be delayed a bit or come out on the same day as the console versions?
08/03/2012 at 21:42 Chandos says:
I love playing FPS games as much as the next guy but the glorification-marketing is starting to make me feel very uncomfortable.
09/03/2012 at 09:32 Bluepixie says:
Yeah me too. I feel the use of the Bin Laden operation as an example of how customising your gun makes a difference, extremely bad taste.
Is that just me?
08/03/2012 at 23:04 MordeaniisChaos says:
Too bad it’s not 80 gazilllion, might be impressed if it was.
08/03/2012 at 23:08 sinister agent says:
Still can’t get my head around that name. It just seems like something randomly generated from a preset list of approved words. Next in the series: Ghost Recon Soldier Mission Future Order Classified Elite.
09/03/2012 at 00:23 MattM says:
Shadow Warriors: Elite Echelon.
Future Mission: Front Order Soldier
Rogue Ghost: Pandorian Soldier
09/03/2012 at 10:03 grundus says:
Why is Locke from Lost walking across a tank’s driveway really slowly? He’ll be late for dinner. Not that it matters because I seriously doubt his ability to use cutlery with one hyperactive arm and one completely dead one.
I would be interested in this game if it came with a Ghost Recon 1 difficulty with authentic (note: not necessarily realistic) bullet physics, but that will never, ever happen. That game was the Best Recon.
09/03/2012 at 10:51 cafe says:
X-Ray Weapon, Throwing Tracker, taking down Osama with sluggish gamepad.
Fail… just fail.