Mercenaries 2 Interview

Bale Fire | August 10, 2007 | News | PC Playstation 2

Its been 2 years since we kicked ass on the Mercenaries game. Now here comes round 2. PRO-G sits down and talks about details for Mercenaries 2 with Senior Producer Jonathan Zamkoff. He talks about how Mercenaries will distinguish itself from other sandbox games, how the game will be perceived by controversial anti game activists and the focus of the gameplay

Mercenaries 2 is Pandemic's follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2005 original, and this time the destruction is going up a notch. Coming to next-gen, PC and PS2, we spoke to senior producer Jonathan Zamkoff about blowing stuff up.

Pro-G: The open world/sandbox genre is now consistently busy. What is it that distinguishes Mercenaries 2 from other games set in a similarly open world?

Jonathan Zamkoff: We think we are the only game out there taking the hill between military and civilian. The clearest metaphor is Mercs 2 is Tarantino (zany characters, ridiculous scenarios, dark humour) meets Bruckheimer (great action, huge explosions, lots of car chases). Plus no sandbox game out there even comes close to the level of Boom-Boom destruction that we're pulling off in Mercs 2.

Pro-G: How have you balanced the topicality of Mercenaries 2's connection with news headlines and the over-the-top, tongue in cheek attitude the game has?

JZ: We dropped Mercs in the midst of a modern day ripped from the headlines: a potential oil conflict in Venezuela. From there we wrote the entire cast of characters into a purely fictitious story using the backdrop of Venezuela as our setting. So yes, the game takes place in VZ, but no we are not trying to create parallels with any real people or news events taking place in the country.

News Story attached to:

Mercenaries 2: World In Flames [PS2, PC, XBOX360, PS3]

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sten mk II | August 10, 2007

I can't wait for this game, they said it's going to be four times bigger than both of the maps in the first game connected!

That's HUGE. I love how there's airstrikes etc. in Mercenaries, it makes the gameplay great.
0 thumbs!
JJBDude | August 11, 2007

It was great news to find out this game will be coming to the Xbox 360. I never had the chance to play the original because I jumped to the 360 console and had no desire to go back to next gen to play. I heard great things about the original though so the aniticipation of this sequal is there for me.