The Crossing Q&A: When Nicole Kidman does FPS

“Fusing single-player with multiplayer.” That’s what they say. “The first cross-player-FPS ever.” Ok, fine. But what the hell is it exactly? Valve Studios’ The Crossing has caught the interest of a lot of people, and most are still in the dark about it.

The latest “Games for Windows” magazine issue has a very informative Q&A section with Valve Studios’ producer Raphael Colantonio and art director Viktor Antonov. Although we’ve just given you a bare-bones summary of what it’s all about, what about the transcript itself? Here’s just an interesting excerpt we’ve taken to explain things better:

GFW: In terms of story, without spoiling things, to what extent can you explain that setup and how the cross-play starts happening?

Viktor Antonov: Perhaps you’ve seen the movie “The Others” with Nicole Kidman, which is about a haunted house and ghosts. The ghosts and humans are both invisible to each other. They coexist in the same space. At one point, the ghosts become more visible to the humans and vice versa, and everybody’s a ghost from the perspective of the other person. So at one point, they collide. The worlds start becoming more apparent. There are strange artifacts and events. Unexplained accidents, phenomena — and ultimately, one of them will have to shut down to restore normality. So it’s two dimensions that start conflicting in the same space.

It sounds like what happens in a lot of those “time warp” games like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Doing something in one dimension affects things in the parallel one. Or something like that… In any case, if you can’t grab yourself a copy of the latest GFW issue, click the “Read” link and check out 1Up’s full transcript of the Q&A.

“Fusing single-player with multiplayer.” That’s what they say. “The first cross-player-FPS ever.” Ok, fine. But what the hell is it exactly? Valve Studios’ The Crossing has caught the interest of a lot of people, and most are still in the dark about it.

The latest “Games for Windows” magazine issue has a very informative Q&A section with Valve Studios’ producer Raphael Colantonio and art director Viktor Antonov. Although we’ve just given you a bare-bones summary of what it’s all about, what about the transcript itself? Here’s just an interesting excerpt we’ve taken to explain things better:

GFW: In terms of story, without spoiling things, to what extent can you explain that setup and how the cross-play starts happening?

Viktor Antonov: Perhaps you’ve seen the movie “The Others” with Nicole Kidman, which is about a haunted house and ghosts. The ghosts and humans are both invisible to each other. They coexist in the same space. At one point, the ghosts become more visible to the humans and vice versa, and everybody’s a ghost from the perspective of the other person. So at one point, they collide. The worlds start becoming more apparent. There are strange artifacts and events. Unexplained accidents, phenomena — and ultimately, one of them will have to shut down to restore normality. So it’s two dimensions that start conflicting in the same space.

It sounds like what happens in a lot of those “time warp” games like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Doing something in one dimension affects things in the parallel one. Or something like that… In any case, if you can’t grab yourself a copy of the latest GFW issue, click the “Read” link and check out 1Up’s full transcript of the Q&A.