We recently had the chance to speak to former SOCOM creative director, also former creative director at Ubisoft, David Sears, about his upcoming project, H-Hour World’s Elite, a truly tactical and team-based military shooter that stays true to source material and honors the men and women of the world’s militaries.
Tactical and team-based. Those are words you’ve probably heard time and time again, but can you count on more than one hand the number of shooters today that actually reward tactical gameplay over spray-and-pray or run-and-gun play styles? How many shooters do you now of actually require a team to work-together in order to succeed in a lethal and unforgiving environment?
With H-Hour: World’s Elite, Sears and his team at SOF Studios have set out to deliver a statisfying experience to fans who crave authentic gameplay that rewards smart-thinking and those who work as a cohesive unit the same way special forces do in their real-world operations. You’ll be able to find out exactly how they’re going to do that and more in our interview with him tomorrow.
At one point, however, we asked Sears if he could offer up some of his advice to today’s current popular, fast-paced, action-packed, AAA military-inspired shooter. Is the genre destined to continue in its ways, achieving bigger and better things, or is it on course to crash and burn, making way for a new type of military shooter?
“I would say that our current trend towards bigger and bigger and bigger theme park ride versions of military shooters is unsustainable,” Sears explained.
“It’s time to reach out to the military community because nobody knows authenticity like the people who have lived it everyday, their entire careers. I think it’s time to include these men and women in our teams and make them part of the design process, rather than hiring them as temporary consultants whose advice and opinions can then be discarded because it doesn’t fit the direction of production.”
“I think it’s very important to honor the contributions of our military and, actually, the militaries around the world. You know, these people get shot at in our defense, in defense of the country, and I think it’s time to look closer at the people who have inspired the runaway success of military shooters in the last 10 years and stop worrying about, ‘can we sell enough units to legitimize and rationalize these gigantic budgets?'”
“Why don’t we make a meaningful game that has great gameplay and honors the men and women of our special forces and our military forces. Players will totally like it.”
However, Sears knows that “… authentic doesn’t always necessarily mean fun, and we win when we treat fun as the most important thing, but we’re never going to do anything stupid or disrespectful because our source material is sitting at the desk to our right.”
Currently, David Sears is gathering funds for his next project for the PC and PlayStation 4, H-Hour: World’s Elite. Check out his kickstarter campaign here and be sure to stay tuned tomorrow for our full interview with him.