Moving Hazard by Psyop Games and Illfonic is a new shooter announced coming up soon and caught a lot of people's eye with an interesting premise. It takes place 50 years AFTER a zombie apocalypse where society has become strictly militarized and fighting over resources to survive. Not only will you have to fight enemies, but also weaponize zombies and enlist them to your side to have them attack your enemies as well. Classic FPS weapons as well as new ones designed to specifically take advantage of zombie controlling technology all make for a new experience in Moving Hazard. We had the privilege of speaking with the game's acclaimed writer Mr. Christian Cantamessa. With iconic games such as Red Dead Redemption, The Crew, Rise of The Tomb Raider and Shadow of Mordor on his resume, Mr. Cantamessa spoke a little on the inspiration of Moving Hazard, and how they decided to take this new approach in the zombie shooter/survival genre.
MB: I have to tell you, there are so many zombie shooters out there nowadays as well as survival horror games featuring zombies. When I first saw the press release my first thought was "Oh another zombie shooter..." But once I saw the details I was surprised how this had never been done before with so many zombie games out there and how unique an idea it is. How did you guys come up with this idea for Moving Hazard as it really sets you apart from the rest?
CC: Uh, yeah well thanks for saying that about the idea and that was kind of the point. There are a lot of zombie shooters out there and survival horror. And while we love Zombies both myself and Marco, the managing director at Psyopp, zombies are like vampires. They are such a part of myth that we enjoy telling stories with them. Alot has been done with them making them the enemy, the ghoul the guy you have to run away from. We kind of wanted to put a spin on it and do something original with them. That's when we came up with the idea of turning the table around and using the zombies as the weapon and giving player tools and devices to kind of manipulate the behavior of the zombies so that it will do its bidding. We created a narrative around that to hopefully tell a good story as well as create a fun game to play in multiplayer.
MB: Initially there was no platform information, but CES saw the announcement of Moving Hazard as a PC shooter. With so many games starting on PC them moving to console and even seeing more players on console than PC, Is it going to stay PC only or do you have plans with it coming to console(s) at any point?
CC: As far as I know right now, the game is going to be a PC game and we're coming out soon on Steam. Personally, I would love a console version as well. A lot of my other games have come out on consoles and I know how easy it is to do these ports with the right people and right amount of time. A version of it on console is certainly not impossible and personally, I think it would be nice to have. But we will see based on how it does on PC. I feel like we created the game for the right platform and the experiences the player would want out of this game. Shooting games on consoles are also very popular and standard these days of course so it would be nice to make that transition in due time.
MB: In the official description, it lists upgradeable hideouts. We haven't had hideouts in FPS games before, so what can you tell us about both their setup and function?
CC: Hideouts are one of the elements that right now we kind of want to keep kind of under the radar. That said, it's interesting that you picked up that detail. The game is a rich manner, so they'll be a lot of possibilities to acquire money and experience and invest what they've accumulated in playing the game with their character and perks. Some of those points, some of that money and experience can go towards the concept of a hideout. What's interesting about the hideout for me personally, is we're going to use it now, I don't want to say how or exactly what we are going to be able to do, but they'll be an opportunity for some story telling, some narrative and learn more about the characters that survive in this world through the hideout.
MB: So far there are 6 multiplayer maps and 3 game modes in TDM, Scavenger and King of the Hill that were mentioned. Will there be other launch modes/maps and what plans, if any, of post launch content do you have planned for maps, modes, weapons etc.
CC: So that's the plan for launch. I think we're going to stick to that. I think it's important for us to balance the maps since this is primarily multiplayer game although there will be single player mode. It's important for us to deliver content on launch that is polished and to the level that we want. On top of that we feel it's a pretty good number. It allows us to have the modes that are fun to play with a good variety of levels that let us reveal a little about the world of Moving Hazard without giving too much away. If the game is well received and we see there is an audience for it then there will be lots of additional content. We have lots of ideas, the story has a lot of possibilities and we will certainly want to expand it.
MB:. As a shooter, there are always factions like terrorists vs. FBI or cops vs. criminals. What is the faction setup in Moving Hazard being a militarized society?
CC: So, yeah. I'm just going to take a step back from your question and widen it just a second. As you said, the world of Moving Hazard is post apocalyptic where zombies over run. The twist we've decided to apply to it is generally these follow a few survivors, they're a rag tag team often ill equipped. The military takes a quick exit to these stories and I can't really think of any movies or comic books that really focused on the military and showed us what's happening to them. So, the world of Moving Hazard is militarized society. It's a world where the zombies originated from the zombies. They created them as a weapon that's why they can control them. They have tools and devices to control the zombies but they lost control of it in our metaphor of the Manhattan project. You create these weapons but when you go and use them you lose sight of what's going to happen and then you have a doomsday scenario. The nuclear holocaust here is applied to the zombie apocalypse and society is overtaken by a zombie virus. What happens is that the militarized creates these city states to enclose their citizens and themselves. In the game, we get a glimpse of three of these separate societies. There is the Texan confederation, North Cal Protectorate and So Cal Republic. Those are sort of the three factions that we decided to explore in the game because we are focusing on a geographic area in southern California and in general, the Amerian Southwest.
These three factions, one is built - the North Cal faction is built around the military Presidio , the one in So Cal is built around Camp Pendleton and the Texan is built around Fort Biggs I believe. So, three separate city states at war with each other for resources with zombies literally caught in between as the third side.
MB: So almost like The Walking Dead but with the different residential communities those would be military almost?
CC: Yeah that's a good example. Of course The Walking Dead is a wonderful TV series and wonderful comic book series. If you do anything with zombies today, you have to pay respect and be attentive on what's out there. The Walking Dead is certainly a major player in that world. We were inspired, respectively, by one of the battles between Rick's team and the governor. Whenever there was a shootout, the very epic one at the prison, it seemed to us that the zombies were stuck in the middle, attacking either side and creating havoc. To us, it kind of inspired an idea that we can make a Counter Strike type game, shooter game, Call of Duty type game with zombies in the middle, but with the ability for each side to weaponize them and use them in the fight.
MB: There seems to be a lot of ways to manipulate the zombies for your team. For those who may not have heard, how will we be able to use the zombies in battle against our enemies? We also noticed in the most recent trailer that the drop resembling a COD care package is actually a crate containing zombies. What can you tell us about this as well?
CC: So, in addition to your normal weapons that you use in battle, rifle, shotguns and machine guns that sort of good stuff. The player comes equipped with a few specialized weapons to control the zombies. Some of these weapons allow the player to move the zombies in a direction. Others allow protection from the zombies and others allow to weaponize the zombies to attack the enemy. So, those are the three different generic actions we can expect the player to take. To give you an example, the PAM, the Pheromone Attractor Molotov is fundamentally a molotov with a cocktail of chemicals that work on the parasites inside the dead bodies of the zombies. Players can throw one of these molotovs on the zombies themselves and you'll be able to turn the zombies that are hit, able to frenzy them and have them attack an enemy target within range for a certain amount of time. The effects wear off eventually and zombies return to their desheveling as always. We have another weapon called the Templar. It's deployed and emits and a combination of chemical and electrical waves. What that does is allows a cone or sphere around you so that you're safe of zombie attacks, again for a certain amount of time. Any sort of stationary attack that's prolonged in this game is very difficult to pull off because of the zombies. Like camping. While players might be sitting ducks and you can hit them and if the zombies see or hear you they're gonna come. So if you're camping, they're gonna come. Which is good because nobody really loves campers in multiplayer shooter games.
MB: That'll take like 80% of the people that normally play shooters. (laughs)
CC: (Laughs) Yeah, but with something like the Templar we give the players opportunity to create a little area of peace for themselves for a little time so it's fair so they can try to become a sniper or they just want to hold a point and not have any zombies nearby. It's up to the players to decide what to do with these tools we give them and ultimately they'll be a variety of strategies that will come out as people play the game.
MB: Do the zombies start off the same initially or are there different types that will only be affected by certain things? Also, how do we tell which zombies are ours or enemy's ?
CC: There is an indicator for the zombies that have been weaponized. It shows up differently whether it's the player that did weaponize them or a player on the enemy team that's being attacked. So you'll be able to tell the difference. You'll also be able to tell when zombies you had weaponized are no longer under the influence of them and could also turn around and attack you. There's also that possibility.
Yes, there's different type of zombies. We don't want to reveal too much right now, we want to have some surprises for people that buy the game. That said, I can tell you two types of zombies. One type is the more traditional, sort of shambler. It's not overly aggressive and not doing an exceeding amount of damage. But it's there and it's useful if you weaponize it. The second type of zombie is more aggressive and harder to take down. In terms of the world that we've created, zombies are not just dead bodies walking around decayed. Since our story takes place 50 years after the outbreak and so, at some point you'd start thinking "How long can these dead bodies last before they fall apart?"
MB: (Laughs)
CC: So, the agent that created the zombie as a weapons, we call compound Z. It's not just a virus. It's a combo of a viral element and parasitic element. The parasites in the body, are the guys that are kind of in charge of keeping the body together and keep it growing back. So, if a zombie loses an arm or leg or both legs, there's this growth that comes out. As disgusting as this sounds, it's kind of similar to something like cancer, like cancerous growths. That's because the parasite doesn't know how to replace a functional limb, arm or fingers with anything other than flesh. So, it just plugs the hole and continues growing. So some of our zombies, especially the older ones, are covered in these boo-boos that represent the various injuries that they have sustained and also the rate of decay they have gone through and regrowth that's been applied. So, they look different. This sort of aspect gives each zombie different growths, and they can also be a little tough.
MB: Moving Hazard is a unique game not only in setup, but as far as your own personal experience as well. Writing games like Red Dead Redemption, Rise of The Tomb Raider and The Crew, along with Writing and Directing Shadow of Mordor have stories and setups much different than Moving Hazard. What was it like and what were some of the difficulties if any in working on a game like it?
CC: Every game is unique. Every story is unique and that's what makes it fun. I've been very lucky to work on so many different types of games and different types of stories from westerns to driving games to Lord of the Rings. Moving Hazard was no different. We approach it with the idea of creating a world that's unique and interesting. Doing something original about the material. We started out this conversation saying there's so much story telling with zombies and we all agree, we just wanted to put our own spin, do our own take. That's always fun because it's a challenge and everyone likes a challenge. Moving Hazard also brings with this whole idea of weaponization and creating weapons and losing control of these weapons. To me, it was interesting to explore that side of the story because yeah, the game is a shooter but the focus is to make the game fun. There will be no cut scenes in the game. The story will be told in different fashions. Like you said, the hideout will be one and we're coming up with other original ideas as well. There's a huge world underneath, and what's interesting is to explore how we created this weapon, how we lost control of it and how it looks like 50 years after the fact. So, that was fun and was challenging and I enjoyed that part. Obviously working with a great team at Psyop and another great team at Illfonic the game's developers. So, certainly working with them was a privilege.
MB: Anything that we may have missed about the game that our listeners should know about?
CC: You were pretty thorough with the questions, I appreciate that. I can say the game is coming out in February on Steam. I don't know if they said the date yet so I'm not going to say anymore. I'll invite everybody to keep an eye out for it. It's going to be early access, so it'll create that fantastic conversation between players and developers so that we can see what the community responds to. We can give them more of what what they like. I'd say add that. Please keep an eye out for when it comes out on early access so that everybody can start playing it and giving their feedback.
MB: Well, from what we see so far it looks very impressive and we can't wait to get our hands on it. Mr. Cantamessa thank you for joining us today we really appreciate it. Best of luck with Moving Hazard
CC: Thanks so much for having me on the show and hope to talk to you soon.
We'll let you know more as soon as we hear it about Moving Hazard so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can follow the game on their official site, Movinghazard.com, for all the official news as well. Thanks again to Mr. Cantamessa as well as Illfonic and Psyopp for taking the time to speak with us.
