We sit down with Army OF Two: The 40th Day Producer, Matt Turner to talk hippos and hand-grenades…

Were you anticipating a mixed response upon the first game’s release?
I don’t think we were anticipating how much it would polarise people. It’s funny – the chief thing that polarised people was the tone of it. Some loved that side of the game; the slapstick, mercenary tale of madness. Some people hated that. That’s what I think separated our critics from our fans. I think it was warranted, I think that reaction was fair and we reacted to it. We definitely took that to heart, and thought about changing it for the better: keeping that kind of humour that people enjoy and presenting it in a way that is more accessible to [a wider audience].

How did EA react to it? Obviously, it came at a time when EA was accelerating and prioritising work on new IP…
We were happy, EA was happy and we had success. The core ideas of the game are very successful. The idea was a jumping off point to make an even better sequel. Army of Two: The 40th Day is a vast improvement on the first one.

What did you think was the most important change to make when it came to working on the sequel? Was there anything specific you were responding to from critics?
We specifically responded to all the criticisms. I think some developers have made the mistake in the past of getting criticisms and then going, ‘well you didn’t get it.’ Sometimes that is the case, but I don’t think it was the case with us. I think a lot of our criticism was very well-thought out and deserved. We took it all in and thought, ‘whatever pops up a lot, we fix them.’ If it’s not fixed, it’s at least addressed. ‘This is what they said, maybe we can do this, maybe we can do that…’ For me, the biggest criticism was that the game lacks [lifespan]. If you were really good, you could kill it in four or five hours. We’ve worked very hard making this experience, for your average player, at least 8-10 hours. If you’re really good? Seven-and-a-half. If you’re amazing, less, if you’re terrible, years [laughs]! Or never! Making the experience rich, long and deep enough that people feel satisfied by the product, that was really important.

The change of setting to Shanghai is probably the most interesting thing about The 40th Day. It seems like, with levels set in visually lavish locations like a zoo, you’re going for the most eye-popping locations possible. Can we talk about that?
Sure. Eye-popping is a good way of putting it. We’re just going for stuff that people haven’t seen before in shooting games, we take players outside of that space and put them in a fresh environment that isn’t conventional. We’re not doing those enemy bunkers, loading docks, all that stuff. We want to do real-world city locations that have been turned into warzones as a result of this catastrophe, and at some points, it’s kind of weird. Using hippos as cover? What the hell is this? It’s an interesting spin on the shooter world.

… continued