BIOGAMER GIRL: Tell us a little bit about Psyonix and how it got started.
JEREMY DUNHAM: Our studio founder, Dave Hagewood, originally owned a pretty successful web hosting company, actually. His real dream, though, was to work in game development so he took the money he had earned in his previous job and get into the games business. Dave and Psyonix then spent several years building and solidifying its relationship with Epic Games as we steadily became experts with the Unreal Engine.
Onslaught Mode in Unreal Tournament 2004, Burnt Rubber in Gears of War, those were the sorts of things we built and worked on with Epic before branching out to take on full projects. The new Square Enix multiplayer game based on Legacy of Kain called Nosgoth, is our most recent high-profile title, but we also did the multiplayer in Epic's Bulletstorm, developed the original Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, and more.
BIOGAMER GIRL: The company recently announced Rocket League for PS4. What was the driving force behind this title?
JEREMY DUNHAM: We might sound like a broken record, but the fans are what really drove us to do this one.
It's really very rare, especially on consoles, to find a dedicated online gaming community that will stick with your game for more than six years. But our fans have done that. Battle-Cars came out in 2008 and it's now 2015, but you can still find people playing Battle-Cars on our multiplayer servers even now. Our community still visits our message boards on a daily basis, they still make awesome gameplay super-cut videos, they still do a lot of the things that tells us that they loved our game -- we wanted to thank them and follow up on that by giving them the improvements they've been asking for.
BIOGAMER GIRL: Rocket League is not just a sequel but an improvement on Battle-Cars in regards to physics, gameplay and visuals. What other improvements have been made to get fans excited for the upcoming release?
JEREMY DUNHAM: Those are all big ones, but there are definitely other improvements on the way as well. We have dedicated servers, skill-based matchmaking, and we're bringing private matches back. We're introducing a Season Mode that will our fans play through an entire season against different teams with different tactics. We'll have leaderboards, we're bringing back split-screen 4-player, we have a ton of car customization that we didn't have before, and we have an in-depth replay editor that lets you import entire games into a visualizer to rewatch them from any angle (which is great for PlayStation Share). There are all sorts of other surprises we have in store as well, but we're saving those for closer to release.
BIOGAMER GIRL: Gamers will be able to create their own custom replays from any angle they want with Rocket League's replay feature. What prompted the addition of this feature and what can fans expect?
JEREMY DUNHAM: We had two inspirations really. First, the functionality behind PlayStation Share is really great, and we wanted to be able to give players some cool content that they could use in conjunction with PS Share to make some awesome video clips. Second, and more importantly, is our video-making community. There are some really talented Battle-Cars video editors out there that love to put their videos up on YouTube. We wanted them to have more freedom to see what they could come with, because we love watching their videos around the office.
Basically, we're fans of our fans. It sounds corny, but it's true.
BIOGAMER GIRL: What else can you tell us about Rocket League and can you give us any hints on some of the new items that will be available?
JEREMY DUNHAM: We've covered a lot of the game here already, but we definitely have some cool things coming up that folks have no idea is coming. When they find out what it is, we think there are going to be a lot of surprised (and hopefully happy) faces out there.
To learn more, visit the official Rocket League website.