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“Multiplayer brings a whole other energy to a game’s campaign.”
Jagged Alliance 3 has detailed how it will support two-player online co-op.
Haemimont Games programmer and designer, Vlad Abadzhiev-Jahn, explained how the co-op system will be implemented in a new dev diary posted ahead of the highly-anticipated RPG’s threequel release next week.
“Multiplayer brings a whole other energy to a game’s campaign. It allows you to explore tactical differences with your partner and devise strategies together, experience and discuss the story side by side, and it also adds replayability,” Abadzhiev-Jahn explains (thanks, PC Gamer).
That said, it seems “translating the single player experience as closely as possible while accommodating two people frictionlessly was a challenge both technically and design wise”. Consequently, Haemimont confirms that Jagged Alliance 3 will allow one player to be designated as the host, whilst the second will be the “partner”.
It’s up to you to decide if you want to invite a partner into your main campaign or set up a new one for your co-op adventure, and you can save your progress at any time, regardless of whether someone’s playing with you or not. You can also continue in the same game even if your buddy drops out.
Furthermore, both players can also load any of the saves – whether auto-save or manual – created during co-op gameplay and continue them in singleplayer.
“We found that in co-op games it is important for both players to be aware of what’s happening in the moment-to-moment gameplay,” Abadzhiev-Jahn continues. “We implemented a system where conversations with NPCs are controlled by the player who initiated them, but both players observe the conversation happening in real time. The non-controlling player can even offer suggestions for conversation options.”
That said, adding co-op functionality has brought “compromises” elsewhere.
“For instance, both players can only explore the same sector in tactical view. Splitting up to tackle Grand Chien separately might sound appealing, but the majority of missions take place on multiple sectors and it can get disorienting,” the diary explains.
“On top of that, there’s the issue of how time advances when one player is engaged in combat in a different sector. It would be tedious for one player to spend 40 minutes in the Satellite View waiting for their partner to finish their tough fight with the Legion. Considering the technical challenges as well, having both players on the same sector made the most sense.”
It’s been an extremely long wait for Jagged Alliance 3 – series fans have been patiently twiddling their thumbs for almost 20 years at this point – but finally, the turn-based tactical RPG sequel will be launching for PC on 14th July.
Haemimont is touting an “open RPG structure” for Jagged Alliance 3, along with a wide range of weaponry and equipment to switch in and out of arsenals, and special perk customisations.
