Never let it be said that the games industry isn’t capable of picking up on what’s going on in the real world. Take mankind’s dependency on oil, for instance – with the global supply of the black stuff now starting to run out, what will happen next is a question that governments, industrialists, the man on the street and an array of other factors. But more to the point, it's an issue that the games industry has been openly pondering for a while.
Here in the real world, the general consensus is that in years to come, we’ll all be driving hydrogen-powered cars and living in houses powered by solar panels, nuclear energy or wind power. But as nice and environmentally responsible as that is, it’s not the sort of scenario that works well in videogames. so as ever, the developer community have come up with something altogether more gritty.
Frontlines: Fuel of War gave us a vision of a future where the West found itself fighting Russia and China over the world’s last oil reserves. And now French studio Asobo and British publisher Codemasters have turned up with their own unique vision of the world to come in FUEL.
FUEL is set in a time where the US has been decimated by the effects of global warming, and where oil prices have sky rocketed. With oil such a rare and expensive commodity, you’d imagine such seemingly frivolous activities as motorsport would have fallen by the wayside years before, but not so. Rather, petrol has become the gleaming prize awaiting those who prevail in a new form of motorsport that sees competitors in home-tuned vehicles racing each other all over the desolate wasteland that America has become.
And that’s almost literally true. While Asobo hasn’t been able to quite cram all of Uncle Sam into the game, FUEL’s game world will nevertheless span a gargantuan 14,000 square kilometres (or 5,000 square miles, in old money). Which is pretty big, by any measure.
Obviously with a map this big, you couldn’t get away with simply having the same basic terrain over and over again, so FUEL doesn’t try to. Attempt to cover the whole map, and you’ll find yourself cruising along what remains of the US Pacific coast, negotiating snowy mountain roads, navigating your way through forests, blazing across salt lakes and desert landscapes before arriving at the Grand Canyon.
These landscapes will be connected by an intricate road network, and players will be able to move about by helicopter to save time. But make no mistake, you will be able to drive pretty much anywhere – and with a draw distance that (weather and elevation permitting) extends 40km into the distance, the lure of seeing what’s over the next hill will be huge.
The key to this staggering technological feat is FUEL’s game engine. Although Asobo wasn’t too forthcoming on the ins and outs of its propriety engine, it did reveal that had it made FUEL using traditional means, it would have required four or five Blu-ray discs to store all the texture information.
And best of all, the gameplay this engine will be powering sounds like it should be good as well. Assuming Asobo is able to deliver on its promises, FUEL should be something akin to a free roaming MotorStorm. Players will be able to select from a host of different vehicle classes, including bikes, quads, trucks, muscle cars and SUVs, and will come in both off-road and road-going variants. A further group, the ‘specials’, are described as being like dragsters, and are used out on the salt flats.
Race events will come in various forms (such as circuit races, point-to-point challenges, etc), and some will comprise of multi-class fields, while others will restrict players to a single type of machine. With the varied terrain and the ability to go anywhere, the tactical possibilities are almost endless. While a road going muscle car may have the edge on a dirt bike in terms of outright performance, the bike can potentially save time by opting for a shorter route that is too narrow and bumpy for the car to negotiate. This is helped by the game’s GPS system, which Asobo says will take your type and class of vehicle into account when showing you the quickest routes through.
A further elements to consider is the weather, which Asobo says won’t just be there as a graphical gimmick. Due to the draw distance, players will be able to see an impending sandstorm or blizzard from miles off, before suddenly finding their visibility reduced to as little as 10 metres when they hit the storm. A day/night cycle will also feature, although the speed of this cycle will vary from event to event.
Nor will players be short of events to sample all this in. The game map is divided up into 19 different camps, with each of which having its own unique style. Not only is this true of the event each offers – such as the salt lake camp offering predominantly drag racing events, for instance – but will also include visual characteristics, based on whatever the camp had been used for previously.
And even once you’ve completed the single-player elements, you’ll be able to design your own events to compete in, as well as taking on 15 other racers online – something which will be made all the easier by a seamless transition from offline to online modes.
With only a brief presentation and an even briefer trailer to go on, it’s clear that FUEL still has a long way to go. But based on what we’ve seen and heard, the potential for a decent game is clearly there. As such, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on FUEL throughout next year.
