I just got off the phone with Matt, producer for the title, and he told me some pretty dope shit. I was thinking about how the readers of this site allow us to lead a truly ridiculous life, and so I thought, hey, maybe they will want to know this stuff.
For one thing, they're only a couple months away from finishing the version they will send to the Army, after which they will make alterations to the game to make it a retail-ready product. When asked what sort of things would be changed, he mentioned that it would mostly be visual touches. Gamers expect a fragmentation grenade to explode with a bit of fire and whatnot, they expect to throw a smoke grenade and have an area be obscured almost immediately. Actual grenades don't have a flashy visual effect to accompany their delivery, and actual smoke grenades can take forty-five seconds or so to fulfill their intended purpose - so while many gamers crave realism, and will probably be given an Army Certified play option should they desire to use it, the default will probably be something more along the lines gamers will recognize.
Though the demonstration I saw of Full Spectrum Warrior did not discuss it, the game most certainly does have some form of Xbox Live support. When pressed on the topic, Matt said that they were leaning very heavily towards full cooperative play through the single player missions, with each player in command of a fireteam or full squad. I don't need to tell you that my heart skipped a beat.
Something else he said that I found very interesting: obviously it would depend very much on how the game was received, but this play concept is something they'd be interested in investigating during other time periods. That might take the form of soldiers in 2010, utilizing technology currently in development whose specifications they've been made privvy to. Or World War II era Stalingrad. Or a Martian Colony.
(CW)TB
