Into the Lion's Den Interview

Two months ago SAS: Into the Lion's Den was finally released to the public, after being in development for over three and a half years.

The first release of this counter-terrorism Unreal Tournament 2003 modification was smooth and offered some challenging gameplay, combined with extensive content, detailed graphics and sound effects. Now that SAS has marked its spot in the Unreal Tournament 2003 scene and a first patch is under development, we decided to ask the team some questions about their modification and their plans for it.

Assault9 was kind enough to answer our questions and even threw in some exclusive screenshots of the next SAS update!

First, tell us something about yourself and what role you fulfil within the SAS team.

I’m Assault9, the project leader of the team. Beyond that I do a few smaller things to help out on sound, making bad maps and some odd jobs here and there.




For the readers who haven’t heard of SAS: Into the Lion’s Den, give a short introduction to the game.

SAS is based on the British Special Air Service, plus their Australian and New Zealand counterparts. It's a Special Forces unit that performs multiple roles around the world from gathering intelligence, to operating behind enemy lines, training indigenous troops in foreign countries and counter-terrorism. The first release of the modification focuses on the counter-terrorism aspect since it was a much easier role to do for a streamlined release instead of trying build a mod based around small scale military operations that might include a large number of vehicles and support equipment. In a nutshell it's Team Deathmatch for the first release but later releases will shift the focus to other roles the SAS perform.

SAS took quite a while to be released. Any specific reasons why?

SAS on the Unreal Tournament engine was in development for about 2½ years before we finally called it quits. There was a great deal of work done but not enough to warrant a stable public release, so we decided to start freshly with a new team working on most of the concepts from the Unreal Tournament project. The planning phase for the 2003 version of SAS began in late December 2002, with actual work starting in mid January of 2003 and the first release on December 19th 2003.


How many people are currently working on the game?

Around twelve or so people right now. Some team members have come and gone over the last year and we certainly appreciate all their contributions that helped with the release. Soon after the 1.1 release we’ll be looking to expand the team in a few areas to start work on beta 2.


When you decided to publish SAS: Into the Lion’s Den for Unreal Tournament 2003 did you keep working on the game with the same team or did you choose a new line-up?

The Unreal Tournament project had a number of people coming and going on it throughout the 2½ years. Basically we took a headcount at the project’s end of who wanted to stay on for the 2003 version and looked at the areas that needed to be filled in order to get the job done. I’d say only a small fraction of the original team that first founded SAS on the original engine were left to commence work on the 2003 project, with everyone else being either new members or joining during the last few weeks on the original project.

SAS: Into the Lion's Den was well received by the community. How do you feel about the game’s popularity?

We’re certainly happy that people enjoy playing it, we were somewhat apprehensive about how it might be received given it was a streamlined release that didn’t contain a great deal of unique features to make it stand out, but in the end the mod has found an audience that likes it even without those features.


Why do you think people prefer SAS over the many other Unreal Tournament 2003 counter-terrorism mods?

I can’t say for sure, it all depends on their individual tastes. Some may want a faster blend of action/realism; others want a slower more tactical variation. It could be that the mod is based on a real military unit that has earned a reputation for being the best of the best in counter-terrorism operations, among other things, around the globe and that players can make a connection easier to a real unit rather than a fictional one.


Do you consider the upcoming Strike Force modification as an opponent or do you think both games can each have their own loyal players?

Not really, they still have their loyal audience that has enjoyed the Strike Force brand of gameplay for several years and we’re starting to develop ours. It all comes down to what people want to play, if they want to play the style of gameplay that Strike Force offers then they’ll play that, if they want what SAS has to offer they’ll play that. If one mod had the ability to dominate the entire gaming community then Counter-Strike would be the only mod on the Half-Life engine that people played, instead of the other popular ones like Day of Defeat, Natural Selection and Hostile Intent.

SAS : Into The Lion's Den

What are the plans for SAS in the near future?

We’ll be adding more game types that are objective based, possibly bringing in vehicles that the SAS use for different missions, such as heavily armed Land Rovers, helicopters and the like. More pieces of equipment to select from such as tear gas to clear rooms and whatever else the team and the community can come up with that will fit with the SAS/Opposing Force theme.


Could you give us an idea of what to expect from beta 2?

At this point it's still in the very basic planning phase, a few features discussed here and there but nothing tangible just yet. Since the light machine guns probably won’t make the 1.1 patch we’ll include them in a beta 2 release, the Sabotage game type should be another beta 2 feature, more player models on the Opposing Force side to balance them out, more maps for the different game types, etc.


When are you aiming to release beta 2?

Is tomorrow good? :D I can’t say for sure since none of the real work for it has started yet. We still have to finish up 1.1, add some more team members and start drawing up the beta 2 roadmap before commencing work on the content that will be needed. We’ll be shooting for smaller sized releases this time around so that they take about three to four months to make, so the community will have something new every few months instead of having to wait long periods of time between releases. Each release will be considered a phase so you might end up with something like phase 1 of beta 2 has four or five features while phase 2 has another four or five features and on down the line.

We wish the wish Assault9 and his team the best of luck on the development of their modification!