Interview: Call of Duty: Black Ops producer Dan Bunting
Treyarch is no stranger to the Call of Duty franchise, having created Call of Duty 3 and World at War, but, up until it began work on this November's Call of Duty: Black Ops, it was stuck in the past -- World War II, that is. After getting our first look at its take on more modern combat, we spoke with Black Ops producer Dan Bunting to find out what to expect from the series' move into the Cold War and the world of deniable operations. Oh, and zombies -- we had to ask about those.
Joystiq: Black Ops seems to me to be "modern warfare" -- with s lower case "m" and lower case "w." It's a lot different than the Call of Duty games that Treyarch has made in the past. What's it like going from World War II to a more modern setting?
Dan Bunting: It's a completely untapped era; there's been a small number of games that have covered that in the past. It's a really rich time frame to draw inspiration from for creativity. The team is completely jazzed about the theme of the game, and taking more of a special ops angle to it. The Cold War era, there are so many stories there that people don't even know about. A lot of people don't even know what the Cold War is, but there was a kind of birth of these special operations happening during this time frame.
We start with Studies and Observation Group in Vietnam, which was SOG, basically the predecessor to the Black Ops, in a lot of ways. These guys were behind enemy lines to do covert missions. They were given carte blanche; these were deniable operations so nobody really could know. It was classified, so they had free reign to do whatever they needed to do to get the missions done. That means that you can have some really great game design elements and story elements to draw from there. In the beginning it was just an explosion of creativity. We've been working on World War II games for so long, it was just a completely fresh, new era for us.
Joystiq: Black Ops seems to me to be "modern warfare" -- with s lower case "m" and lower case "w." It's a lot different than the Call of Duty games that Treyarch has made in the past. What's it like going from World War II to a more modern setting?
Dan Bunting: It's a completely untapped era; there's been a small number of games that have covered that in the past. It's a really rich time frame to draw inspiration from for creativity. The team is completely jazzed about the theme of the game, and taking more of a special ops angle to it. The Cold War era, there are so many stories there that people don't even know about. A lot of people don't even know what the Cold War is, but there was a kind of birth of these special operations happening during this time frame.
We start with Studies and Observation Group in Vietnam, which was SOG, basically the predecessor to the Black Ops, in a lot of ways. These guys were behind enemy lines to do covert missions. They were given carte blanche; these were deniable operations so nobody really could know. It was classified, so they had free reign to do whatever they needed to do to get the missions done. That means that you can have some really great game design elements and story elements to draw from there. In the beginning it was just an explosion of creativity. We've been working on World War II games for so long, it was just a completely fresh, new era for us.
