Jagged Alliance 3 – Ian Currie Interview

We recently learned that Ian Currie, the original mastermind behind Jagged Alliance, was working on the latest installment in this legendary series. Following that announcement, he apparently had a little chat with GameStar, a German gaming website, the translated version of which is now available on the Steam page for Jagged Alliance 3.

The interview touches on the man’s exact role in the production, the challenges of introducing a new audience to the genius of Jagged Alliance 2, the series’ colorful cast of mercs and the new ways of bringing them to life.

Check it out:

Recently Ian Currie had a brief interview about Jagged Alliance 3 with the German-speaking outlet Gamestar.de and we thought you guys would be very interested in what was asked and more importantly what he said..

Your official title is writer, but what’s your exact part in the team?

My role was to help ensure that the writing was high quality, both creatively and technically. This meant reviewing all the writing done by others and of course, producing a lot of new text (which included everything from dialogue to non-spoken text). Part of the role was to ensure consistency regarding grammar, culture, etc., but also with the JA franchise in general. In a nutshell, my job was to make certain that the writing was of the quality that fans of JA would expect. Working with the team, I also gave feedback on many things that weren’t writing related, but I think that’s just part of being a game developer.

The last installment of Jagged 2 is over two decades old, so a big part of today’s strategy gamers didn’t play it, or even don’t know it. As a writer, how do you reconcile these JA rookies and the veterans?

Well, that task goes beyond just the writing of course, but I think from a writing perspective you want to be able to reward veteran players without confusing new players. An analogy might be how Pixar can make very entertaining movies that include humor only adults will understand without diminishing the entertainment value for younger viewers. So perhaps we might reference something that only players familiar with JA2 may pick up on, but do it in a way that still works fine for new players.

JA2 offers dozens of mercs who are way more than just characters with certain skills shown in numbers: everyone has a background, strengths and weaknesses, is commenting what’s going on. How do you develop the old mercs further in JA3, and how do you bring new characters like Livewire to life?

Well of course that was one of the main goals of the JA franchise: to create interesting (and hopefully memorable) characters. To accomplish this in a strategy game setting was an interesting challenge and in order to make 40 different mercenaries unique we leaned on ethnicities, attitudes, interesting backgrounds, accents and of course good voice acting.

With each new installment in the franchise one of the challenges is keeping it feeling fresh. From a character perspective this involves balancing the addition of new mercs with old favorites. As designers we can also try to imagine how some of the returning characters might have evolved.

You must build a squad of six JA2-mercs. Budget doesn’t matter. Whom do you choose, and why?

Hmm, let’s see. I’d probably go with Scope & Reaper for their magnificent marksmanship and attitude. Nails for his explosive ability while still being strong in other areas. Vicki is my go to mechanic. Dr. Q is a great medic and Gus as a tremendous well rounded, very experienced who can serve as a second medic.

At the end of the great Legacy Trailer you say there are some things you wish you could have done in Jagged Alliance 2, and now you can do them in JA3. Can you give us two or three examples?

The first things that come to mind would be anything that helps convey the merc’s personalities. The more they come across like real individuals, the more attached the player is to them and that has multiple benefits. In JA3 mercs have a lot more opportunities to speak and react to things, which is one of the ways we learn people’s personalities in real life. Some of these opportunities include conversations with NPCs but there are times when they might just chat with each other – make small talk, etc.

Another thing that comes to mind is the depiction of the characters while in the sectors (e.g. exploration and combat). Instead of a simplistic and vague figurine, the mercs have all been uniquely modelled. The team has done an excellent job with this.