Gray Zone Warfareis an upcoming tactical FPS from MADFINGER Games that focuses on creating realistic survival and combat experiences for players. Stepping into the shoes of ex-SEAL or Special Forces hired security, players join one of three Private Military Companies as they investigate a mysterious Quarantine Event in the hostile, open-world landscape of Lamang Island.Gray Zone Warfareis an online MMO experience supporting co-op, complete with PvE and PvP gameplay, enabling players to squad up in their tactical explorations and fight for survival.
In a recent Game Rant interview,Gray Zone Warfarecreative director Marek Rabas revealed more about the game’s past and future, including the studio’s crossplay plans. While a unique IP with its own identity, Rabas also talked about the various inspirations behindGray Zone Warfareand much more, including the influence of the renowned Strugatsky brothers' bookRoadside Picnic, a book that also inspired theS.T.A.L.K.E.Rvideo games.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What inspired the creation ofGray Zone Warfare?
A: It’s a long story because it wasn’t like we were going around like, “Oh, I want to make this game.” We were a mobile studio and were thinking about what our next game would be. We did some research about what we should do. We knew that big guys were coming to the mobile space because of the success stories ofPUBG,Fortnite, andCall of Duty. We started to make a little bit of a unique design, which was mostly focused onPvE plus PvP.
Then, we made the design so sophisticated that we found out it wasn’t possible to do it for mobile—it would be a disaster, basically. We were playing a lot oftactical games, like hardcore games. In the past, I was the lead programmer onHidden and Dangerous 2, which was a tactical game about SAS soldiers during the Second World War. So, I was very close to the subject. Then we said, “Okay, let’s do what we want,” you know.
I am also a big fan of the book namedRoadside Picnic, written by the brothers Strugatsky, by which theS.T.A.L.K.E.R.games are inspired.S.T.A.L.K.E.R.borrowed a few things from this book but set the story in Chornobyl. There is alsothe movieStalker—very famous, but very difficult to watch. I was thinking about how to make the game around this book, and this is what we ended up with.
We then started learning about PMCs, private military companies, and how they work and operate. We managed to work together with an excellent advisor; his name is Dr. Sean McFate. He is an ex-paratrooper from the 82nd division, and he was also working for PMCs. Now, he’s a consultant to the US military, among others, and also a professor—teaching about PMCs and strategy at university. Then, we found out these companies are seldom the good guys and that they are becoming more and more known, causing problems in our world because they are creating war to have business basically.
Maybe I’m going off-track a little bit because there are too many things that led to this game, you know? First, we were like, “Hey, let’s create some tactical FPS, which will be fun.” Then we started to learn about the PMCs,the war in Ukrainestarted happening, and things were tense.
We chose the nameGray Zone Warfarebasically because of this. The Gray Zone is between peace and war, but it’s definitely not peaceful.Gray Zone Warfareis basically a word for new types of hybrid combat. It’s like what’s happening in Ukraine or with China and Taiwan. Everybody who is rich can hire their own private military companies, so it can lead to some really stupid stuff.
We won’t have a Macho action story because, when we are getting older, we don’t trustgames where you are always saving the world. You know, you’re the big hero who saves everybody. This is good for the young guys, but when you are getting older and older, you just don’t trust it anymore.
We won’t have a heroic story. We want to have a more realistic story; we want to have more realistic combat. We want people to have real consequences for their deeds. They’re really thinking about all this. One of the good things about several games is that you’re thinking before you press the trigger because the consequences are really big, and we want to have this. It should not be fun like inCall of Duty,where you are shooting lots of people randomly, and it doesn’t matter. Everything is like a slot machine, everything is ringing, and you’re getting rewards or whatever. It feels like a slot machine, you know? We don’t want to have this, so this is what led toGray Zone Warfare.
Q: Could you talk more about the lore and background of Lamang Island, as the setting of the game and its mysterious quarantine event?
A: The country is ruled by a dictator, think Pinochet. It’s a really bad country, and he’s doing really bad things there. It’s not a good country to live in.
Then, something happens that nobody really understands. InRoadside Picnic, we were visited by super-advanced…I don’t want to say aliens, but a civilization that was basically traveling somewhere. They stopped on Earth and made a real mess there. In the book—I really recommend reading it, by the way—the point is it’s aboutan extraterrestrial eventthat makes a big mess and creates the Zone. There are artifacts, anomalies, and whatever. The humans don’t understand it, they don’t know what it is. You really don’t know what this is.
This is why the book is calledRoadside Picnicbecause it’s similar to humans having a picnic somewhere in the forest and making a big mess. After they leave, the animals are going around and thinking to themselves, “What the f*ck is this? Why is there some rubbish or whatever?” We are these animals.
In our game, something happens, and the premise is that bad things are happening because of unknown elements. Tthe country starts thinking about what to do. They are arguing, for example, at the United Nations about what to do with it, but not everybody wants to wait until they make a decision. Some countries or some very rich people hire Private Military Companies to scavenge it sooner. The United Nations prohibited access to this area to everybody, but some didn’t wait and hired companies to go there to be first and scavenge anything valuable sooner and use it for their own profit.
The players are the employees of these companies. They’re like Ex-Seal or Ex-Special Operation Forces. They’re hired basically for security, and the company is not telling them the truth about why they are there. They’re just hired. They’re doing some jobs there, and over time, it’s revealed that there is something more behind it. Then, they start to work with other NPCs, which are some locals or other guys, but we don’t want to reveal everything.
Players can then start to make their decisionsbased on their morals or other things. “I want to work for the PM. I want to help the others. What will I do with the stuff I find? Should I give it to the PMC for money, or don’t do it as a good deed for somebody else?” It’s a lot like that.
It’s also a big sandbox. It’s 42 square kilometers, and Ground Zero is in the center. You should not go there immediately; you will die. You need to do some stuff beforehand. There are a lot of locations that you need to visit first to get better loot, learn a lot about the game and the story, and so forth. You are then able to visit Ground Zero and get something there. There are a lot of hidden things there that we don’t want to reveal, even in interviews. It should be on the players to find out.
There are, of course, no cutscenes. It’s more likea sandbox game, and there is a lot of environmental storytelling. You should find out what probably happened there—the story is like that. You are just like the one guy hired by a PMC for the security stuff, and then you are revealing that it’s not all what it seemed to be at first glance. You are, for example, helping one girl. She’s working as a mechanic because her father was in opposition to the dictator. Then, the dictator did something and he vanished. You are trying to help this girl with what’s happening through the story, for example, and at the same time revealing some story behind Lamang. It’s a bit complicated; it’s not a typical linear game, you know?
Q: And you mentioned Lamang Island is 42 square kilometers big?
A: Ah no, the country of Lamang is definitely bigger – the place where we are playing is like 42 square kilometers.
Q: How open world, big, and changeable is the island since it’s described as ‘a persistent and living world’?
A: When you start to play the game, you join some server. The server is running for a very long time, and it’s different based on what the players are doing and where the AI is. It will be different in early access and will be much more substantial in the final game. In the final game, we want players to have the ability tochange the game world. Currently, it will not be like that because it’s the early access of the initial release.
It will not be changeable too much, but there are several areas that we call areas of interest. These are huge areas around at least one square kilometer like a town or an army base with an airport.
There is a big location which we call the resort, which was founded by the dictator and was mostly full of VIP guys and foreign politicians. For example, he invited some from the US there, and he bribed them and spied on them, so there is a lot of dirt that these guys are interested in getting back.
There are a lot of side quests about what to do with this intel and how to gather it like video tapes. Around them, there are several bandit camps, and the players can take over these camps in the future. This is for the future. It will not be part of Early Access, but we wanted a world that is changing based on the players’ deeds and what they are doing. Again, it’s like it’s alive.
The AI will do their own jobs for their own faction. You can follow them and see what they are doing, and their behavior should make sense. They won’t be just standing around or going around in circles.
Q: You touched on this when talking about the story, but what kind of quests can players expect and what kind of choices might they get to make in quests?
A: Of course, the player has the agency to fulfill the quest as they want through shooting or through stealth. They can also get stuff somewhere or get it from somebody else, for example. There is a huge variety. We have quest lines that are for the PMC faction, but then there are a lot of side quests for the other NPCs.
I think the journey of the quest is the most fun. It’s not that you take something; it’s what happens during the time to get it. There will not be quests, for example, like in other big games which guide you by hand, like “go here and press this.” That will not be there. It will be more of a mission description like in the real world, like “You should go to the building, there should be something somewhere, and you need to figure it out.” It’s going to be very hard to reach, and you have to think about it. Sometimes, you will have to find the key for it, and the key could be somewhere else.
I don’t want to use other games for this example, but some quests could take you days to complete if you are not lucky. Some quests can be fulfilled immediately if you know where to go. You basically talk with an NPC, he will give you a quest, he will tell you objectives and some description, and then you will need to figure it out. Then, when you complete it, you’re able to go back to the NPC and look at the result. All of the other NPCs can also ask you, “Hey, I know that you’re working for him, I heard about it. If you give it to me, then you will get a different result.”
For example, somebody you think is the good guy will say, “You should not do it because those are bad guys.” These are basically the decisions that you are making, you will maybe receive less money or different rewards, but you have to choose. We still need to figure out if there are going to be changes in the value of the rewards because we want to give the players a choice but not motivate that choice strictly through rewards. They should make some kind of decision like, “Hey, this is the better to do for these guys,” and this will open another, for example, branch of the quest. It’s very hard to say because there are not so many games that are doing this stuff like we are doing.
Some of the stuff will be, for example, you get a quest to kill some criminal guy who is planning to commit some atrocities or whatever. You need to figure out where he is, how to get there, find the place where he is, and figure out how to kill him. You can decide if you are bringing full power or going alone, if you’re sniping him, if you will find him somewhere else, so it feels like in real life.
Q: Can you talk more about the three private military company factions that players can choose to join?
A: Okay, so they are completely fictional. They are not real. These three companies have different names, different logos, and different descriptions, but right now, they are basically the same. Maybe later we will change them. It doesn’t matter which one you choose. We didn’t want to have the player thinking, “Should I choose the red or yellow?” or whatever. We just wanted it so that it doesn’t matter. Maybe later we will change it, so they have certain NPCs, maybe different quests or whatever, so it will be more interesting. But we didn’t want the players to feel confused about who they should choose or if they will miss something. It’s like A, B, C.
Q: You touched on this by talking about the bad guys and the AI factions - are there mainly bad groups or are there any other moral spectrums?
A: Practically all the civilians were evacuated. There is the army, which used to help the dictator, so they’re also blamed for the really bad deeds. Then there are the leftover criminals and some guys left from the evacuation, for example, who are just living there and are scavenging. There are several groups of bandits,organized crime groups, or whatever, who are there to loot. For example, they are trying to get all the weapons from the country and smuggle them to the black market. These are the kind of guys there. There are only bad guys left trying to scavenge and get stuff for money. The army is there because the dictator has some stuff there that they are guarding like his wealth, intel, and whatever.
There are three different sections of the AI: the army, different organized groups of bandits trying to scavenge and become rich, and leftover criminals.
Q: You mentioned players can help these bad guys, or they can fight against them?
A: They are fighting against them; they are mostly enemies. We’re trying to find ways why the PMC should kill them, so there is a real reason.
These guys are, of course, enemies thinking about their own stuff, so they hate the player because they should not be there. The player may have to go somewhere inside where they are, or they need to go through them. They can avoid them, but you know, sometimes they just tell them “Get the f*ck out,” and if the player doesn’t leave, they will attempt to kill them. It has some kind of timing; they are not immediately shooting, or at least, not everybody. Some guys are so pissed off that they will see the player and immediately try to kill them, and some are just like “Okay." But mostly they are enemies.
Q: Could you talk more about how the intuitive health system works and how it adds to the game’s focus on realism?
A: We did a lot of research about how current games are working, how the firearms work, and how far we can go with the simulation, so it’s still computed properly and it’s still fun because sometimes realism is not fun. We have a really deepsimulation of ballistics, the flying of the bullets. Every bullet has a different start and is working a little bit differently. We are simulating a lot of parameters.
Then, we are doing terminal ballistics, which is the interaction with different materials like your body or some wood. We found out, of course, that it’s different when entering sand, if it’s entered the water, or if it’s entered some harder surface. We’re trying to simulate that and simulate the different densities of the bullets. For example, armor piercing bullets have different capabilities than full metal jackets or hollow points.
We even simulate the cavities inside the body, so it works differently. It’s not just some kind of line going through your body, but it’s making a cavity and injuring your organs. For example, we don’t have HP, like health points. We have the body parts and organs. If the organ is destroyed, you die. If you survive, there are some kinds of big consequences. We call them symptoms and effects, and you may then, for example, bleed out.
We have a lot of pools. One pool is, for example, the blood. We have around five liters, I don’t remember exactly. If you are losing the first 15%, almost nothing is happening except it’s painful, of course. From there, various symptoms start to emerge. When you lose around 40-50%, you basically enter a coma, and you slowly die. You have to stop the bleeding, and then you can use an IV blood bag.
You have to really care for yourself like in real life, so do the right operations or right actions at the right time. First, you have to stop the bleeding, and then you have to care for some other things. Of course, we have to gamify it because it’s not possible to be completely realistic with these kinds of injuries. For example, you are still able to do surgeries in the field. You can repair your heart, for example, or brain. It sounds silly, but it’s necessary. Of course, we are also still balancing some stuff.
The goal is to fight a little bit longer. Of course, if somebody shoots you in the head the right way, then you die, but you may survive the headshot if it’s in a lucky spot. Maybe you are out of the combat and you have to take care of yourself, but you can still survive it. You can still survive a few hits to the stomach, and if you act fast and care for it or somebody else cares for it, then you will survive.
We did some research on the past. Soldiers are not dying at crazy rates now, but they are dying mostly through their injuries. Combat health care today is so good that it’s not so easy to still die.
It’s not only like there is only shooting then you die, but it goes a little bit further. If you are injured, you need to do something or youmake some tactical decisions. If you are in the squad, you take care of him, or you are forced to solve the problem then you take care of him.
We went really far with the metabolism. We have stamina, so you are getting hungry, but you don’t die from hunger or dehydration. When you are hungry, we add more details like stamina is depleting faster. The metabolism will also change when it is raining a lot. It will then work a bit differently, so people have to adapt and this kind of thing. We’re trying there, but it’s not frustrating. You don’t need to care about it every five minutes to not die.
We have a lot of detail in the game. For example, recoil is completely calculated based on the gun, and it uses some kind of simplified algorithm for calculating the real recoil velocity using the weapon mass. It also depends on what kind of stuff you have on your gun. For example, if you have a small gun like some kind of revolver and you are shooting the first bullet from the magazine, the recoil is different than the last bullet because you lose the weight. It works differently if you put a silencer on the gun because then the pistol is heavier, and it’s recoiling less. A lot of things are influencing this. Of course, if you’reaiming for a long time, then your hands start to shake. If you run and your stamina for running is low, then you breathe faster, and the gun is moving according to your health.
There are so many things influencing these behaviors. I think it’s pretty funny because you see you have to behave differently in the game. We don’t want players just playing against each other, just moving, shooting, and waiting for who will die first. This is not what we want. We want it to feel like everything is meaningful; every movement and every action is meaningful.
Q: When helping other players inCall of Duty, you can just rez somebody, right - can you help other players in any way or can you just only help yourself?
A: You can definitely help them, even if they’re in a coma. You can help them back with the right steps. You can heal others, you can drag them somewhere to a calmer place. We wanted people making squads where somebody is more skilled in healing and can do healing stuff. When somebody is injured, they can take care of them.
If you die, you die. There is no resurrection. If somebody falls into a coma, I think you have two minutes to get them back. When they die and the body is there, they can guard the body, and the player can come back and get their stuff back like their weapons and their gear. Alone, it’s more difficult, as others can loot him also. The part that others can heal you is very important for us.
Q: Will you come back into the map in the game, like after a certain period, if you die?
A: Your body will stay there for one hour. If you can find it, you can get some loot back. If not, somebody else can take it of course. If you come later, then the body, of course, is gone.
Q: Is that one hour of real-time?
A: Real-time.
Q: How has Unreal Engine 5 been beneficial for the game’s development?
A: Of course, it’s a great engine, but not everything works as we need it. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s not perfect for us. We had to develop new tech, which we call Skalla. This is our proprietary technology for rendering the world, for the vegetation, the wind, for the rivers, water, and other things. It’s like our own technology, which ispushing the Unreal Engine to the limit. Because of that, we are able to have this kind of density in the jungle. We can have millions of trees or vegetation. We have very high detail in the terrain, a lot more than is possible in Unreal. It’s a really cool thing, but we have to develop it by ourselves to be able to achieve what we want.
Q: What do you thinkGray Zone Warfarekind of adds to the popular FPS military shooter genre?
A: Some people feel we’re just using something from other games and trying to mix it. We are, of course, inspired by several other games and several features which are very good. However, we made one decision to try and improve everything that we are using from others or what we are inspired by. Almost every feature is like the move to the next level.
We were thinking about the trading system with the vendors. We said everybody is doing this, so let’s try to find new stuff on how to do it. We made a new window, which we are using for trading. For example, we say like, “Okay, so everybody is using premade messages, chat channels, you know, whatever," and we say, “Okay, how do we make it better?” We created a messenger inside the game. We have something like Whatsapp in the game, which is used by the NPCs, by the game, and by the other guys who make PMs. You can make PMs, you can chat there. The NPCs can send some information, so it’s like one window which is collecting everything.
Everybody is usingskill points or some kind of other system, so we said “Let’s try to enhance it or make it fresh.” We created a new system for skills. I don’t know if it will be part of the Early Access, but it’s like the certification in schools after someone finishes their training. They’re visiting several different schools, and they’re making the certifications, for example, focusing on medic aid, healing recognition, or whatever. We made something like that.
If you improve a skill, that means that you are really good at it. It’s not about doing it forever, and you’re raising the bar or investing points. If we play it and I see that you have the certification in sniper level three, then I know that you are a really f*cking good sniper. It’s not only about repeating one thing. If you are really good at some stuff, then you receive this certification. This is what we want because it’s skill, right? Of course, this skill will give you some kind of buff which will make your life simpler or even better, but you have to deserve it, you know what I mean?
It’s like that for everything. The skill is you do some kind of action; the sniper is like the best example. You will take several shots with the sniper rifle from some range, and the NPC will say, “Hey, we found out there is some potential in you, so maybe you can visit this kind of school and they will give you a quest.” The quest will be, as just an example, to kill five guys at 300 meters while they’re running. When you do it, you will receive this certification, and then it will give you some kind of buffs like longer stable breathing or something. You have to deserve it, it’s not like a skill point. It’s not like doing stuff forever, but you need to prove that you did it. There will be a lot of these kinds of skills, which are even fun to do. They can be long-term, but they’re also showing that you’re capable of doing it. It’s not like “Hey, you are a sniper because you just sniped somebody."
This is how we’re trying to enhance almost every step that is in the game, includingthe health system, the ballistics, or the AI. In the future, the AI will be doing their own thing. We developed AI that has emotions, at least we call them emotions. It’s based on some kind of psychology research where humans have the same kind of emotions which are the same but they’re opposites.
For example, you can be happy and you can be sad, but you cannot be together at once. It’s basically the opposite. We use that withhow the AI is workingand how they are making decisions. When they become angry, they start to attack you. If they start to feel fear, they flee, for example. The values are moving up and down, and based on this, they are making decisions. They are reacting to the combat. They may see that their friends are dying and they are losing, so they can behave differently.
That sounds really interesting.
Well, we will see how it works, and it’s like a long-term plan. I hate when somebody says, “This is a blank copy of something.” We are not a copy of anything. We’re trying to push everything that’s possible to make a unique experience - that is our goal.
Q: Have you any plans to bringGray Zone Warfareto consoles withcross-play supportin the future?
A: We are planning it, you know. We want to support consoles. We won’t do it immediately because we need to stabilize it first. We need to do everything on the PC, do the first updates on the PC, and if the game will be suitable to put on consoles, we will do it. Even during the Early Access, we will try to do Early Access on the consoles. Because I love consoles, I play a lot on them. I think it’s a big space there. There are not so many tactical shooters there.
Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add or tell our readers?
A: Just to wish list [laughs].
We want to go to Early Access because I’d love to develop the game with the community. If the community is engaged, if they are happy, of course, it means a lot for the developers. It’s like making you work better. You think more about the game, and you want to entertain the people. This is best when you have the audience, right? I hate working six years on something in the office where you cannot share it, and then you release the final product.
This is why we are going for Early Access because we really want to work with the community and listen to them. Of course not about absolutely everything - we still have our vision. But we want to work with the community. The more people, the more community, the happier we are, and we want to work together to make something really cool.
[END]
Gray Zone Warfareis currently in development and is due for release in 2024.
