C'est lors d'une partie multijoueur sur TimeShift que j'ai reçu un message de Matthew Karch, qui n'est autre que le directeur et fondateur du studio de développement Saber.

Matt ayant été lead designer de TimeShift, j'en ai profité pour faire un petit Q&A avec lui :

Who are you? How long have you been working for Saber?

Hi! My name is Matthew Karch and I am the studio head and one of the founders of Saber. I have been working at the company for seven years and was the lead designer on TimeShift.

Can you give us a presentation of Saber? The studio's games, its location, how many employees, etc?

Saber’s trademark is fast-paced, furious shooting games. We completed our first title Will Rock in 2003, leveraging the strengths of dual offices based in New Jersey, USA and St. Petersburg, Russia. For TimeShift, we’ve continued to ramp up our team size and departments up to and after launch. We currently employ over 80 developers across the world, in addition to a small legion of outsourcers and co-developers.

How has your experience been to work with Microsoft and the Xbox 360?

We’ve had a long, successful relationship working with Microsoft dating back to the original Xbox. In fact, development on TimeShift began on Xbox 1 before moving it to the 360, and all throughout the process of learning the hardware and managing the process Microsoft has been a stellar partner. They have been very supportive of us as a team and they see the potential that we bring to the table with our technology and approach to game design as well as our ability to deliver great games on time.

What are TimeShift sources of inspiration? How did you come up with this idea of using time as a weapon?

After finishing up Will Rock for the PC, everyone in the studio just brainstormed ideas for what we would do next. And after polling everybody’s ideas and concepts, the idea of using time as a weapon in a shooter kept coming back up. It wasn’t long before everyone started coming up with ideas on how to implement it into a game and how to make it work, and at that point we knew we were on to something.

How long has TimeShift been in development?

Pre-production on the game began shortly after finishing our previous title Will Rock in 2003, so its release this year puts it squarely at the four year mark – which is a long time to be working on the same project! Still, the history behind TimeShift’s development is an epic story in its own right, from the initial deal with Atari to the transition to Sierra, to the infamous extra year of development that saw the game completely rebooted from scratch.

Are you planning on releasing additional content on Xbox Live, such as maps, multiplayer game modes?

We’ve got a healthy serving of downloadable content on the menu. Actually, as soon as we wrapped up work on the game itself we started building out additional maps and testing new game modes. Hopefully we can unveil them to the public soon! My hope is to have at least 5 new maps (if not more) out this year.

TimeShift is one of the few games on the 360 to offer dedicated servers. What are the pros of an Xbox 360 running as a dedicated server? What made you take this decision and why do you think other developers don't offer this possibility that is common in the PC world?

An issue with adding additional functionality to multiplayer console games is that while PC-savvy gamers are familiar with all the options you may encounter, a console gamer may not be as aware. For TimeShift, since we historically come from a PC gamer background, we wanted to include as many options as possible while still remaining clear to a more casual player. So, decisions like including dedicated servers appeal to the more hardcore demographic who can set up their dedicated server for their friends, while a typical console gamer just won’t notice the option at all. It was an easy choice for us, and ultimately the gamers get more possibilities out of the game for having it.

What would you say to somebody who can only swear by Halo 3 to go and try your game?

Halo is a great game; there are tons of great games out there. The thing about TimeShift is that it offers a certain kind of multiplayer experience that you just can’t get anywhere else, whether it’s our unique Time Grenade mechanic or the wealth of customizations you can do. It also revives an “old school” feel that few games on the console have been able to emulate. In other words, TimeShift feels more like a PC shooter than most do on the 360. There’s nothing wrong with liking any given game, but by branching out and seeing what else can be done with the genre you can only increase your appreciation of the work that goes into creating a videogame.

Is there any question that you wish I had asked and I did not?

Well, there is one thing that I would like to say about the game and its release time. We know that there are other great shooters out there this season and it is very very hard to enter the market with a new game in a genre that is as competitive as the FPS. TimeShift is the first of what we hope will be a franchise that we an build and improve upon. However, without the assistance and comments of the gaming public future installments will not be nearly as good as they could be. So we really do welcome comments from your readers on the game and on how we can improve upon it. Feel free to send us comments and post your thoughts on the forums. We do take feedback very seriously.