Amy Hennig on Frostbite challenges in Visceral's Star Wars production

[EatChildren]

Original article and interview: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/amy-hennig-interview-uncharted-4-leaving-ea-ragtag-star-wars
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/02/amy-hennig-talks-more-about-struggling-with-eas-frostbite-engine/

"So I think Visceral was sort of beset with a lot of challenges. Even so, we were making a game; people have said it was an Uncharted Star Wars. That's sort of reductive, but it's useful because people can kind of visualize something in their head. But what that meant is we obviously had to take the Frostbite Engine, because there was the internal initiative to make sure that everybody was on the same technology, but it was an engine that was made to do first-person shooters not third-person traversal cinematic games. So building all of that third-person platforming and climbing and cover taking and all that stuff into an engine that wasn't made to do that. We did a lot of foundational work that I think the teams are still benefiting from because it's a shared engine, but it's tough when you spend a lot of time doing foundational stuff but then don't get to go ta-da! [laughs] You know, here's the game.

I wish people could have seen more of it because it was a lot farther along than people ever got a glimpse of. And it was good, you know? But it just didn't make sense in EA's business plan, ultimately. Things changed over the course of that time I was there. So you know, what can you do.

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A former dev also stated, RE: Frostbite

"It was missing a lot of tools, a lot of stuff that was in Uncharted 1 ... It was going to be a year, or a year and a half's work just to get the engine to do things that are assumed and taken for granted."

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This isn't the first criticism directed at Frostbite we've heard from devs who've worked on either cancelled or undercooked titles.

Kotaku also reported on Mass Effect: Andromeda's failings, and the team's frustration with Frostbite: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/12/t...ct-andromedas-troubled-five-year-development/

"Frostbite is wonderful for rendering and lots of things," said a person who worked on the game. "But one of the key things that makes it really difficult to use is anything related to animation. Because out of the box, it doesn't have an animation system." (Frostbite was later attached to an animation system called ANT, that source said, but it was full of "duct-taped issues.")

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"Whenever you're trying to do something that fits the engine — vehicles, for example — Frostbite handles that extremely well," the developer said. "But when you're building something that the engine is not made for, this is where it becomes difficult." Designing the large maps of Andromeda's planets became a struggle on Frostbite, where the maximum size of a map was initially 100 by 100 kilometers. The Andromeda team needed their maps to be way bigger than that. Other struggles included the streaming system, the save system, and various action-RPG mechanics that Andromeda needed in order to work.

"It's been painful," said a developer. "The pain started with Dragon Age: Inquisition and continued on with Andromeda as well."

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It's also been noted that BioWare had issues with Dragon Age: Inquisition on Frostbite, namely something as basic as an inventory system and the difficulty implementing this feature into the engine.

It should also be noted, though without source, there's been gossip from some journos (and I've heard myself) that Frostbite is an exceptionally painful engine to work with. It's powerful, gorgeous, generally quite optimised; but the issue is it's primarily built for...Battlefield, basically. While EA brute force developers to utilise the engine and uniform engine use across their studios, the barrier numerous developers have faced is programming absolute bare bones, basic features required for their game into the engine.

While all games require some level of programming of features, the advantage of using middleware is often the engine's flexibility and accommodation for a wide spectrum of game genres and features, alongside thorough, detailed supporting documentation, that allows developers to quickly build, implement, and test essential features of their game design. The implication here is that Frostbite is at times so archaic that it's literally devoid of basic features simply because previous games didn't require them.

So I guess the topic of conversation is in Frostbite; what challenges are developers facing with the engine pipeline, and what production hurdles are damaging titles? What kind of output would we be seeing from some developers, like BioWare, if they were able to continue using engines they were familiar with from the previous generation versus a large volume of development time taken up just trying to implement basic game systems?

 

[SMD]

yeah but CEOs make a lot of money so they must know what they're doing /s

 

[Prine]

So what was it about a 3rd person SP game not fitting with EA's business plan? I mean they green-lit it, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was limited opportunity for microtransactions.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

EA had no vision for producing any game that was not a FPS or FIFA when they decided to instigate their current policy regarding Frostbite.

By the time they came a crop of these issues, the sunk cost fallacy hit them hard and they stayed the course.

Now they feel it's too late to back out of that decision after pouring so many resources into the engine's development. And here we are.

 

[Nooblet]

It's known at this point, the engine has fantastic rendering and great for FPS but try to do anything else with it and it doesn't work and the support for it needs to be jury rigged which causes further issues.

It seems like when EA made the decision to use Frostbite across the board they didn't ask DICE to generalise the tools so that anyone can pick it up and use it like Unreal Engine 4. No matter how good the engine looks if the tools aren't there then it will suck...everytime. Why did UE3 dominate last gen so much despite there being engine's capable of pushing even more rendering effects? It was cause UE3 had a fantastic tool set and UE4 had only built upon it.

 

[Vgtomo]

Any chance you can put in a link to the original interview, please? https://www.usgamer.net/articles/amy-hennig-interview-uncharted-4-leaving-ea-ragtag-star-wars

 

[ItIsOkBro]

BioWare had issues with Dragon Age: Inquisition on Frostbite, namely something as basic as an inventory system

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Designing the large maps of Andromeda's planets became a struggle on Frostbite

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im given to understand that they opted to use this for anthem

are bioware masochists?

 

[RoKKeR]

EA trying to show-horn Frostbite into all of their games as a dumb marketing gimmick looks to have been a complete disaster. It's great for BF and just about nothing else.

 

[MorshuTheTrader]

That sucks, but hopefully it gets better as time goes on and more games are developed with it. The interview even mentions that teams are probably still benefitting from the shared tools developed for the star wars game.

 

[Asbsand]

"Didn't make sense in EA's business plan".

Major middle-fingers to EA management. Such a shitty company. I'm like 100% sure that's why we got Anthem and not a more traditional BioWare-like game too. Screw all the statements BioWare has said, we know EA has been pushing for all this multiplayer-only crap.

 

[Deleted member 1759]

im given to understand that they opted to use this for anthem

are bioware masochists?

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I don't think they were given a real choice in the matter.

 

[Sotonian]

im given to understand that they opted to use this for anthem

are bioware masochists?

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I dont think they have a choice

 

[illamap]

3rd person climbing and cover mechanics are hardly an engine feature.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

It really shows how out of touch management is regarding how to make games at all.

So what was it about a 3rd person SP game not fitting with EA's business plan? I mean they green-lit it, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was limited opportunity for microtransactions.

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It was greenlight under previous management. I remember a report saying that the current CEO of EA isn't to keen on the whole Star Wars deal:

 

[Gevurztraminer]

EAs decision on this has always been puzzling, did they think it would become a 'household' name like source or decima or any other well received engine? It smells of a suit seeing battlefield Fidelity and thinking it could be applied to all projects just by using the engine. And I agree op, makes one think what this gen if ea games would have been had they not been forced to use it. Andromeda is the most egregious example, it could have been really nice

 

[Deleted member 198]

Frostbite seems like such a hindrance

 

[Max|Payne]

So EA demanded Frostbite to become their unified internal studio engine but didn't consider to maybe form a dedicated studio to develop it into a more generalist engine like UE4?

 

[Deleted member 8561]

It's kinda amazing how shitty EA has become in the last decade.

I can't think of a single game they have published that makes me go "yea, that was a classic"

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

That's a shame, I guess the engine is catered more to the original developers rather than those they share with. CryEngine, Unreal Engine 4 and Unity has users in mind when it comes to development, I'm just surprised that DICE hasn't given it much thought in supporting or enhancing the engine for others.

 

[Dictator]

I read the Amy Hennig thing right now and I am a bit perplexed. Usually having to code and program your own very specific gameplay loop and systems is expected for a game project, right?


Like, even in UE4 which has tons of example blue prints for a variet yof games, you would want to fix and fiddle and make it your own and maybe move it out of blue print.

3rd person climbing and cover mechanics are hardly an engine feature.

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I read it a lot like you are I think. This sounds, normal?

 

[VariantX]

Wtf?? So these guys were basically told to use frostbite by the higher ups, but EA never set up anything in its development to help allow these other devs to make other kinds of games with it? They were essentially forced to waste their own time and budgets to do it on their own. The results aren't exactly glowing even after all this time later.

 

[SageShinigami]

So is BioWare not good with game design, or are they hamstrung with Frostbite and waste precious time getting it to do basic things?

 

[Kain]

It doesn't take a bad engine for BioWare to fuck up an inventory system though, they are experts in the matter.

 

[Calverz]

yeah but CEOs make a lot of money so they must know what they're doing /s

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Well said.

 

[Dussck]

I won't be surprised if EA's studio's will be developing in Unreal Engine for most of their games going forward. Frostbite will still be used for Fifa and Battfield/front ofcourse.

 

[toad02]

3rd person climbing and cover mechanics are hardly an engine feature.

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I am sure she meant the tools to build all things surrounding it, like levels, animations and such and maybe the engine has poor tools for this.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

I don't think they were given a real choice in the matter.

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I dont think they have a choice

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i feel like that contradicts some 'EA did not force bioware to use frostbite' article I've read in the past but i may be mistaken

 

[Deleted member 8561]

im given to understand that they opted to use this for anthem

are bioware masochists?

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Bioware: "It was our choice to use Frostbite and it wasn't forced on us"

 

[Ausroachman]

It's amazing how many franchises ea were willing to throw under the bus just to use the engine .

- need for speed
- mass effect
- starwars

And now anthem . Feel sorry for all the devs who have to constantly shoehorn in basic features but still have the clock ticking on there own game .

Then those tools get reused by other studios but then any new features they need also need to get built from scratch.

Imagine how much easier it would have been just to license unreal 4 .

 

[Haze]

This always seemed to be the case. Andromeda reeked of a project in which the developer completely struggled with the engine.

Making Frostbite their big marketable tag for all their games just because it works so well for BF was a horrible idea.

Bioware: "It was our choice to use Frostbite and it wasn't forced on us"

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Lmfao.

Anthem's been in development by the A team for a while now hasn't it? I could see BioWare not really knowing the extent of the issues the engine would cause since Andromeda was being developed alongside it.

 

[Com_Raven]

EA had no vision for producing any game that was not a FPS or FIFA when they decided to instigate their current policy regarding Frostbite.

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The first-ever non-Battlefield game to fully run on Frostbite was Need for Speed. Which would kinda go against this notion.

 

[Blackbird]

yeah but CEOs make a lot of money so they must know what they're doing /s

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[Deleted member 4044]

Glad to see more reports coming to light about how Frostbite is destroying EA's studios. This is a lost console generation for them purely because of their insistence to make sure everybody is on the same engine, which was not built to handle a myriad of games.

Great example of how poor decisions by senior leadership can really hamstring a company.

 

[Deleted member 8561]

yeah but CEOs make a lot of money so they must know what they're doing /s

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Reusing an engine like it's a hammer saves lots of money when games are the nails!

 

[Dictator]

I am reading this again a second time and its seems further bizarre to me as a slight against frostbite or something, because they would need to code this kind of thing anyway even if they had their own custom engine, right?

Like, or was there some already made 3rd-person-star-wars-game-engine-that-exactly-fits-amy-hennig's-vision-for-graphics-and-gameplay in existence?

 

[KoolAid]

Stop trying to make Frostbite happen, it's not gonna happen

 

[Amauri14]

So what was it about a 3rd person SP game not fitting with EA's business plan? I mean they green-lit it, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was limited opportunity for microtransactions.

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I don't get why couldn't they just asked the team to include a multiplayer portion for the game, that way they could have all the microtransactions they want without killing it.

 

[Baccus]

"bUt enGineS aRe jUsT aN aLmOsT iRrElEvAnT dEv ToOl whIcH iMpAcT oN hOw A gAmE wOrKs Is oVeRrRaTeD!!"

Sorry but this tells us first hand, from one of the industry veterans, one really big conclusion: Engines are definitely both a resource AND a limitation on game development, something that say, EA and Bethesda, should /really/ take a took into as it's been an obvious source of their development and reception problems.

 

[janusff]

I wish people could have seen more of it because it was a lot farther along than people ever got a glimpse of. And it was good, you know?

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This breaks my heart. Fuck

 

[Deleted member 4044]

I am reading this again a second time and its seems further bizarre to me as a slight against frostbite or something, because they would need to code this kind of thing anyway even if they had their own custom engine, right?

Like, or was there some already made 3rd-person-star-wars-game-engine-that-exactly-fits-amy-hennig's-vision-for-graphics-and-gameplay in existence?

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I think the key quote is this:

"So building all of that third-person platforming and climbing and cover taking and all that stuff into an engine that wasn't made to do that"'

I don't think they expected it to be present in the engine; it was that the engine itself was not designed in a way to accomodate custom-developed, third person mechanics in a similar manner as other engines (such as Unreal)

 

[elenarie]

I am reading this again a second time and its seems further bizarre to me as a slight against frostbite or something, because they would need to code this kind of thing anyway even if they had their own custom engine, right?

Like, or was there some already made 3rd-person-star-wars-game-engine-that-exactly-fits-amy-hennig's-vision-for-graphics-and-gameplay in existence?

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It's a weird subject to engage in because a lot of people here seem to be very well versed in how game engines work, how production is staffed for AAA games in general, how royalties work, what Frostbite and Unreal do and do not come with, the benefits of using one versus the other, what work needs to be done to adopt an engine for a particular project, and so on.

And one cannot really say anything as nobody outside of EA has used Frostbite, thus anything positive said about it would be seen as a heavy bias.

 

[Taffy Lewis]

So what was it about a 3rd person SP game not fitting with EA's business plan? I mean they green-lit it, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was limited opportunity for microtransactions.

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Change in leadership often means the business gets refocused. This is what happened at EA.

 

[eddy]

An "inventory system" is not an engine feature, not at this level (maybe if it was AGS it would be). I think I get the gist, but somewhat confused article and commentary.

Maybe they had trouble building large maps for ME:Andromeda, but ultimately that wasn't the problem with the product, was it.

 

[Kerotan]

Fucking frostbite. If only EA wouldn't force the engine on everything.

 

[nasirum]

The first-ever non-Battlefield game to fully run on Frostbite was Need for Speed. Which would kinda go against this notion.

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How was that NFS, anyway?

Oh, right it was terrible.

 

[Baccus]

I am reading this again a second time and its seems further bizarre to me as a slight against frostbite or something, because they would need to code this kind of thing anyway even if they had their own custom engine, right?

Like, or was there some already made 3rd-person-star-wars-game-engine-that-exactly-fits-amy-hennig's-vision-for-graphics-and-gameplay in existence?

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Are you gonna argue about game development with Amy Fucking Henning there pal?

 

[Bishop89]

Honestly thought it was a state of the art engine that was capable of anything.
Read lots of positive stuff in the old forum.

Guess it has a few weaknesses

 

[Haze]

So what was it about a 3rd person SP game not fitting with EA's business plan? I mean they green-lit it, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that there was limited opportunity for microtransactions.

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IIRC the new pres wasn't a fan of the Star Wars deal that was already present when he took over

 

[Deleted member 8561]

This always seemed to be the case. Andromeda reeked of a project in which the developer completely struggled with the engine.

Making Frostbite their big marketable tag for all their games just because it works so well for BF was a horrible idea.

Anthem's been in development by the A team for a while now hasn't it? I could see BioWare not really knowing the extent of the issues the engine would cause since Andromeda was being developed alongside it.

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This is probably an accurate representation of what would happen when the Andromeda team came out of their year+ crunch hole and the rest of Bioware saw them for the first time.

 

[SantaC]

That's a shame, I guess the engine is catered more to the original developers rather than those they share with. CryEngine, Unreal Engine 4 and Unity has users in mind when it comes to development, I'm just surprised that DICE hasn't given it much thought in supporting or enhancing the engine for others.

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DICE is not in charge for this engine since 6 years ago...it is a seperate team.