Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Thorgeim]

If the range scale is the worst thing in the game, it will hopefully be at least half decent. Although in the last trailer, it shows range 40 for a heavy sniper and range 45 for grenade launcher and an RPG, which does seem strange.

 

[m_s0]

We will just see how it turns out, I will give it a chance as well. If it's shit/mid the next one will bomb, just how it is

Going by that logic we've been in Jagged Alliance bomb territory for well over 20 years at this point, and most have - including the last one. This one has money behind it, though, so at least the devs will probably survive this game if doesn't work out yet again. Also probably won't be a complete bomb, because THQ Nordic has a budget to actually market the thing somewhat.

This looks like the best case scenario for a JA game (that we could realistically expect), honestly. Just remains to be seen whether the combat is actually decent (which is what it's shaping up to be like from all the marketing), and just how horrifying the narrative ends up being, because I'm getting a bad feeling(tm) about that part of the game.

 

[Lord of Riva]

We will just see how it turns out, I will give it a chance as well. If it's shit/mid the next one will bomb, just how it is

Going by that logic we've been in Jagged Alliance bomb territory for well over 20 years at this point, and most have - including the last one. This one has money behind it, though, so at least the devs will probably survive this game if doesn't work out yet again. Also probably won't be a complete bomb, because THQ Nordic has a budget to actually market the thing somewhat.

This looks like the best case scenario for a JA game (that we could realistically expect), honestly. Just remains to be seen whether the combat is actually decent (which is what it's shaping up to be like from all the marketing), and just how horrifying the narrative ends up being, because I'm getting a bad feeling(tm) about that part of the game.

Frankly, I did not play any jagged alliance games after 2, they a looked utter trash compared to them, this looks very much decent.

What I was saying was that, yes, if this one is shit whatever *these devs* will do, will bomb and rightfully so.
Or in other words, it's not the financial success of a game that makes it good, it's the success of the next game.

 

[m_s0]

What I was saying was that, yes, if this one is shit whatever *these devs* will do, will bomb and rightfully so.
Or in other words, it's not the financial success of a game that makes it good, it's the success of the next game.

I got you the first time around, but I disagree. Haemimont looks like it's being run well - with a catalogue this diverse and over 20 years in the business on a consistent work-for-hire basis (JA3 included) I think nothing they do now - within reason - will affect their other games. They're a small, cheap studio the delivers across genres and publishers, meaning this is a case where they'd likely need serious fuckup after fuckup after fuckup to hurt their sales as they probably have a bunch of future projects lined up and externally funded.

Right now they just released their survival game and that seems to be generating positive buzz, and doing well, and with JA3 done and 60 people on staff I'm guessing there's another Tropico in the works by now. Tropico itself is basically a brand and the same publisher as JA3, by the way, so that's looking like a healthy relationship that'd take time or failure far more spectacular than a JA-sized project could ever be at this point to dismantle.

And there's always the excuse that the Jagged Alliance franchise has been strip mined and devalued to the point where nothing they could've done would've mattered, but hey, the still gave it a shot. And that might even be true to a degree.

Nah, I think they'll be fine either way.

 

[raeven]

Paywalled german pre-review

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/jagged-alliance-3-test-steam-review,3397179.html

Looks like they're rating it very positively

 

[Zombra]

I think they'll be fine either way.

Agree. Haemimont has a broad enough body of work that no one game defines them, even in the short term I think. As proof, pop quiz: what even WAS their previous game? You had to look it up, didn't you?

 

[Lord of Riva]

Paywalled german pre-review

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/jagged-alliance-3-test-steam-review,3397179.html

Looks like they're rating it very positively

Yeah, better ignore gamestar or any german reviewers for that matter. Maybe there are some decent german streamers out there but german reviews may not be as political (possibly, haven't checked for years) but they have always been a matter of Fremdschämen.

m_s0 I see, yeah may statement may have been overly generalised, so thanks for the insight regarding the companies position in the industry. In any case, I am still optimistic that I will enjoy the game

 

[Van-d-all]

I think they'll be fine either way.

Agree. Haemimont has a broad enough body of work that no one game defines them, even in the short term I think. As proof, pop quiz: what even WAS their previous game? You had to look it up, didn't you?

Stranded: Alien Down, a 3d Rimworld clone, I own it in early access. Honestly I think they're just cutting coupons. Since they made Tropico 3 they've been milking the franchise, and other than that, their recent games are just clones of current trends. Surviving Mars is just another Mars builder. Victor Vran is a generic hack & slash. There's some quality in their games that differentiates them from generic shovelware, but should they be able to produce a JA remake that stands out from all the previous lousy attempts (failed almost as much as XCom remakes) I'm not so sure. Still, I hope they will.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Dev Diary 14 - A Look Back

Hello and welcome to our last DevDiary before release! We thought it would be best to do something special this time, so you are getting not just one one, but two Boi(y)ans interviewed, as we are celebrating our upcoming release by taking a fond retrospective look at the great games that started it all. We are Boian Spasov and Boyan Ivanov, co-creative directors of Jagged Alliance 3 and today we will be talking about our fond memories of Jagged Alliance 1 and Jagged Alliance 2 and the way these memories impacted the development of the sequel!





Question: Let’s start with an easy one – for how long have you wanted to make a Jagged Alliance game?


Boyan Ivanov: I’ve been fascinated with Jagged Alliance ever since I chanced upon JA2 in the early 2000s. I played it constantly for an entire summer. I’ve been wanting to try to make a game inspired by Jagged Alliance ever since my junior designer days more than a decade ago.

I’ve reached out to Jagged Alliance for inspiration multiple times over the years while working on other projects. Now having the chance to actually make the third installment of the series is still a bit unbelievable and overwhelming at times. The series is very near and dear to my heart.

Boian Spasov: There is a story that my colleagues love telling around but it bears repeating. When I applied for a game designer position at Haemimont Games way back in 2006 I was asked during my job interview to name any three existing games that I would love to work on if I ever get the chance. That question turned out oddly prophetic – one of the three was Tropico, a game series that Haemimont Games successfully revived and is famous for right now and another was Jagged Alliance - our most ambitious project yet.

So, for me quite literally Jagged Alliance 3 is a dream come true! I am incredibly grateful and humbled to have this opportunity not only because I always wanted to work on a sequel as a developer, but also because for many years I really wanted this game to exist as a fan of the series.

And no, I am not telling you what the third game I named on the interview was just yet – I might jinx it!




Question: What do you remember about Jagged Alliance 1, the game that started it all?




Boian Spasov: I remember that in my eyes there was no other game quite like it. There were not many tactical games back then in 1995, but Jagged Alliance was not just a tactical game but an unique genre hybrid – there was a strategic element to it, an RPG element, as well as a humongous cast of fully voiced player characters, something unseen at the times!

Jagged Alliance 1 was not the expansive and refined beast of a game that Jagged Alliance 2 turned out to be few years later, but it was a special, quirky game with its own charm identity. One thing I particularly liked was how distinctive each merc was – all of them had hidden traits and distinct personalities and hidden mini-mechanics. For example, the old mercs lost stats instead of gaining them with experience, the native guides often reveled useful information for each particular area, some mercs couldn’t swim well, others were kleptomaniac, struggled with phobias or had hidden abilities and interactions...

It was unpredictable, at times even chaotic and I loved every minute of it - the game felt very different on each playthrough just depending on whoever you picked on the team.

Boyan Ivanov: I became a fan of Jagged Alliance mostly through the second game but I do have some fond memories of playing JA1. Mostly of Tex and Ivan and their voice lines, mercs bantering with each other, but also of the whole team management aspect. Hiring mercs, managing their equipment finding new nifty items to use like the extended ear or the metal detector.

On the other hand I loved the strategic aspect. Going through the island sector by sector and claiming all the fallow trees (your source of income). Advancing time day by day and managing your mercs over a long period of time.

There were a lot of experimental games back in the 90s and JA1 felt like a very unique blend of genres. It didn’t fully click with me until Jagged Alliance 2 but I definitely have some fond and not so fond memories of the original title. Oh my god it’s full of eels!






Question: Did any of these JA1 quirks and features find their way into Jagged Alliance 3?


Boyan Ivanov: Definitely not the eels. The cast of unique mercs is of course the most important aspect to carry over. However, I think our approach to building the world, narrative and open world nature has its origins in JA1. We carried on with the tradition of setting the game in a fictional war torn country. A world map divided into sectors and the freedom to move through this world as you wish. Managing time and money as you pick which merc contracts to extend, when to hire new mercs and if you should let go of someone that’s too expensive to keep.

Boian Spasov: One important aspect that was inspired from JA1 was the uniqueness of the mercs and the sense that each of them brings something distinct and irreplaceable to the team, enough to perhaps prompt you to start a new game just to explore new player characters.

Of course, as 25 years have passed, this couldn’t work exactly as it did in Jagged Alliance 1 but it was an important design goal and the main drive to iterate on character personalities and relationships as well as their Quirks and unique personal perks.




Question: Let’s move on to the most emblematic game in the series - Jagged Alliance 2. How would you describe it to a person that hasn’t seen it yet?


Boian Spasov: JA2 is a turn-based tactical game and one of the most realistic and entertaining combat sims at the time, but also so much more! It has this big and immersive sandbox world, rich with surprises and moral choices to make that I associated with RPG titles. Despite being primarily a tactical game, in my eyes JA2 often felt closer to the early Fallout games than to XCom.

The strategy/money management component was deepened and more developed as well – it was almost like an entire other game on top of the tactical battles.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for games that try to do things in their own way, breaking genre barriers and pushing the boundaries of game development ever further and to me JA2 is a prime example of this!

Boyan Ivanov: *epic trailer voice improv* In a world ruled by a tyrannical queen, one man - Enrico, will come to you to free the people of Arulco from his angry wife. Form a team of unlikely heroes. Hear them quip, cheer and bicker with each other as they mow down an entire army of red shirts.

Join the vastly outgunned rebels and hear Ira complain as she misses every goddamn shot. Capture and operate gold mines to fund your small private army and don’t forget to do some online shopping. You need that extra scope for your M14 after all.

Paint the map green as you capture sector after sector until you give up in Meduna as those tanks and rocket rifles are just too annoying. Also don’t forget the aliens – genetically engineered insects – slay their queen and smear her jelly to make your armor stronger – yuck!



Screenshot courtesy of Lilura1, cRPG blog





Question: What is your favorite feature or piece of content from JA2?


Boyan Ivanov: *slap* Elliot! You Idiot! Definitely the “meanwhile…” cut-scenes make me chuckle every time I play JA2 again. And the fact that Elliot’s face gets worse and worse it really shows the attention to detail.

I love many of the side quests – the chalice of chance/hope, the one with the American tourists even the hicks near Cambria.

There are also many memorable locations like the military base at Alma, Tixa prison, San Mona. All of them presented a different challenge to get through and had enough interesting characters to be memorable and unique.




Boian Spasov: Oh, so hard to pick… If I have to settle on just one, it would be the custom merc character and the I.M.P. webpage/test used to create it. It was such a silly, yet entertaining way to create a character and I never once skipped it in all my years of re-playing the game.

Honorable mention goes to sending flowers to Deidranna – this little moment always manages to make me smile and remind me that the primary product of game development is simply “fun”.




Question: You guys worked on many games through the years. Is there a Jagged Alliance trace or homage in any of these titles?


Boian Spasov: One game in particular comes to mind – Omerta: City of Gangsters. It was a small tactical game we released just before the resurgence of the genre with the new XCom series. Although the core gameplay was very different, our approach to creating the characters was very Jagged Alliance inspired, even if limited by the small budget of the game…

Boyan Ivanov: Oh yeah, do you remember that Omerta even had a test for creating the main character loosely based on the I.M.P. test?

Even if Omerta was a small and humble title, we learned a lot from it and in a way it was our pilot title within the tactical genre. In a way it paved the road for our current, much more demanding, work on Jagged Alliance 3.




Question: How did the legacy of Jagged Alliance impacted the development of JA3 specifically?


Boyan Ivanov: It was a bit nerve-racking initially. There have been many that tried to take on the Jagged Alliance series and none have succeeded so far. Being fans of the series, we knew that we wanted to keep the third installment close to the originals and keep the core intact - the unique blend of open world RPG aspects, tactical combat and strategic team management.

We also wanted to capture the unique atmosphere – the light hearted and fun band of misfits that have been hired to do a seemingly impossible task. The more somber and unpredictable aspect of chaotic firefights with bullets flying everywhere. The feeling that you can explore the world as you see fit and that every playthrough can offer something new.

Boian Spasov: The most dramatic impact was simply setting our ambition for the title. One thing was certain for day one – we wanted to create a true sequel and not just another game in the same franchise and that immediately set very demanding expectations for our scope and features.

The pillars of Jagged Alliance 3 represent our interpretation on what made Jagged Alliance 1 and especially Jagged Alliance 2 special – deep and realistic turn-based combat, a large cast of unique characters and strategic gameplay in a sandbox open world.

Have we succeeded in doing justice to this legacy? The players will be the ultimate judges of that, but God knows that we tried!

 

[Baron Dupek]

til that character on the JA2 cover is a woman (according to the files)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14JcHKZscRWZ5onz2O_4hWE-K-_tHFPYtig4ppovH2n0/edit#gid=0

mercs and arsenal

 

[Nelka]

I don't want this game to success because my backlog is long enough and I have never played JA2 before.

 

[Sacibengala]

Reviews when?

 

[Jinn]

produce a JA remake that stands out from all the previous lousy attempts

You can tell just from watching a bit of gameplay footage that this is better than all those other attempts.

 

[Alienman]

Paint the map green as you capture sector after sector until you give up in Meduna as those tanks and rocket rifles are just too annoying.

Boyan Ivanov is right about that!

 

[Raghar]

I don't want this game to success because my backlog is long enough and I have never played JA2 before.

Play JA2 without mod, and it's quite fast. 60 hours later you'd finish your ironman and get into JA3.

 

[Raghar]

produce a JA remake that stands out from all the previous lousy attempts

1. JA was a game about drug making and distribution. Thus they need to introduce these hard to repair narcotic factories.
2. JA was a game where merc could be killed easily. Thus they need to introduce a system that allows merc replacement, and autocreation of new characters. (at least low ranked mercs)
3. JA was a game where people tried to solve a compromise between turn based and real time model. Obviously either they would be able to do proper compromise, or they have to go for real time model which is currently easy to simulate on modern PC.
4. Add hordes of weapons and ammo. After creating LOGISTIC HELL, make most repair parts, and ammo nearly imposssible to get thus making 97 percent of these weapons usable by more than one two mercs.
5. Have main villain leader of the country who is better at democratic principles than these assholes who are mercs. Observe the moral dilemma caused by decision between wining JA game, or failing on purpose and keeping the country intact.



Basically, it's about if people are fans into weapons, and if they have a clue how these military operations look like (for example from direct experience like Strelkov). Game development is mostly about extracurricular education. Otherwise stuff isn't looking right.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I don't want this game to success because my backlog is long enough and I have never played JA2 before.

that would be understandable if not for all these previous, numerous attempts at creating decent JA2 successor
so

 

[bobocrunch]

I expect the game to be competent at the least, but all of the devs' previous games were the definition of soulless. Hopefully Currie writing can help stem some of the ESL stodginess

 

[mikaelis]

I think they'll be fine either way.

Agree. Haemimont has a broad enough body of work that no one game defines them, even in the short term I think. As proof, pop quiz: what even WAS their previous game? You had to look it up, didn't you?

While they don't have an iconic hit-smasher, they built the reputation to make excellent games early on that can be considered classic and unique:

Tzar (Age of Empire clone with more options) - was amazed as a kid about more resources, but never made it to AoE standard for me.
Celtic Kings (AoE evolution to cRPG - underrated RTS/cRPG predating Spellforce 1!) - never played it, but cosidered. Looks good on paper.
Imperium Romanum/Grand Ages (again, unique take on strategy games - not my cup tea due to EU type of games)
Omerta: City of gangsters - I tried it and liked it in the beginning. But ultimately it failed its attempt on JA formula - too shallow
Tropico - I never cared/don't know - reviewed in many places as good/competent.

So, I give them a benefit of doubt for creating unique JA experience.

But, I expect it can be a failure (though not of great proportions, I would think).

 

[raeven]

produce a JA remake that stands out from all the previous lousy attempts

1. JA was a game about drug making and distribution. Thus they need to introduce these hard to repair narcotic factories.
2. JA was a game where merc could be killed easily. Thus they need to introduce a system that allows merc replacement, and autocreation of new characters. (at least low ranked mercs)
3. JA was a game where people tried to solve a compromise between turn based and real time model. Obviously either they would be able to do proper compromise, or they have to go for real time model which is currently easy to simulate on modern PC.
4. Add hordes of weapons and ammo. After creating LOGISTIC HELL, make most repair parts, and ammo nearly imposssible to get thus making 97 percent of these weapons usable by more than one two mercs.
5. Have main villain leader of the country who is better at democratic principles than these assholes who are mercs. Observe the moral dilemma caused by decision between wining JA game, or failing on purpose and keeping the country intact.



Basically, it's about if people are fans into weapons, and if they have a clue how these military operations look like (for example from direct experience like Strelkov). Game development is mostly about extracurricular education. Otherwise stuff isn't looking right.

With all respect, I honestly cannot figure out what it is you are trying to say here.

 

[Elthosian]

Reviews when?

Really hoping to see some soon, it's just three days left to grab it with the nice discount. I mean even seeing a couple of these dumb journos bitch about the game being too difficult would be enough to make me buy it

 

[Zombra]

With all respect, I honestly cannot figure out what it is you are trying to say here.

He made up a real-time tactics game about drug dealers attacking a democratic country for some reason, with randomly generated soldiers and Borderlands style gun lottery where every gun breaks after a few shots and you have to throw it away and get a new one, and no ammo fits into them anyway. Not sure why he put it in this thread but I hope he gets a good response on Steam Greenlight.

 

[m_s0]

Reviews when?

Really hoping to see some soon, it's just three days left to grab it with the nice discount. I mean even seeing a couple of these dumb journos bitch about the game being too difficult would be enough to make me buy it

It's odd, because we have the one review out in the wild... sort of, so even if there was an embargo surely it'd mean nothing at this point? The 'someone broke it, so might as well run ours as well' type of deal?

So, is this a global exclusive for that one outlet, and there still is an embargo in place (which this close to release never makes anything look good), or does no one care to review it after the previews released a couple of months back? Even in July? Jagged Alliance is pretty much the one niche game you don't want to keep people in the dark about prior to release, unless your intent is to swindle everyone. Again.

I expect the game to be competent at the least, but all of the devs' previous games were the definition of soulless. Hopefully Currie writing can help stem some of the ESL stodginess

Based on the samples we got it's safe to assume we're not getting any of this magic back:

Which in itself is a tragedy.

 

[Modron]

Have they answered the most important question yet? Is Calvin Barkmore in the game?

 

[Abu Antar]

One day left...


Edit: I'm on vacation. My sense of time is messed up. Two days left. I thought today was the 13th of July. Oops.