Nuclear Union Interview

Nuclear Union director of game design Julia Rumanova took some time out of her day to chat with Rock, Paper, Shotgun about the recently announced post-apocalyptic RPG. This has to be one of the few times that a publisher-backed project became a tactical RPG rather than the shooter it was originally intended to be:
RPS: Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to make Nuclear Union? What decisions led to it? Why make an RPG instead of an RTS?

Romanova: Having released Men of War and getting to know that 1C was going to release several add-ons developed by their internal studios, we decided to take a break from the WWII topic. At first we were inclined to go back the Soldiers: Heroes WWII style a small group, sabotage operations, but with more attention to the tactics. Hence we got a tactical simulation of a group, that we created using Gem2. The engine kept on evolving, we got new perspectives and possibilities, and we started thinking of introducing RPG elements into the game. Later on our programmers considerably increased the graphics level, and we became all hyped to make a shooter (latest Call of Duty was just released around that time, and the majority of our team were playing this one a lot). But the will to make a tactical RPG overcame. And when 1C suggested a plot and setting, we simply could not reject such a tempting offer to make what we can call a reconstruction of possible future of our country and make it possible to explore a whole new and highly interesting world.

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RPS: How are the three characters controlled? Is it something like Mass Effect 3, or is it more direct? Can you manipulate individual inventories and so on?

Romanova: The player will control the party members by assigning orders. It is possible that we will add some combat tactics commands to the HUD. But these are just plans. The group will be using one inventory. And the player will be taking care of it.