I think he might have had something to do with that." We might have asked him for ideas for weapons. Whether we actually consulted him about where to place cover or anything like that, no. "We were pushing so-called realism at the time, so there were conversations about how this would actually work in the real world. "He certainly was a marketing thing, but he did come out to the office a couple of times," Dan replies. John and the credibility he lent to the game as a result of his real-life experience as a soldier was front and centre of the game's marketing, so it would be fair to question to what extent he actually had an impact on the game's development and to what extent that was all just marketing fluff. "Once we had that person to focus on, it kind of built a character that we could say 'OK we can make a game around that,'" says Dan. It was incredible to be able to sit down and just listen to him speak." "He came to Raven and spent a good deal of time with the team discussing his career, and sharing how people react in combat situations, how they trained, the best way to approach a situation – you name it. "It was the Soldier Of Fortune magazine team who recommended John as a consultant," Soldier Of Fortune project coordinator Eric Biessman says on how Mullins became involved. "What really solidified it, gave us some direction, was when we found out about John Mullins." We wanted to make something we were proud of."ĭan tells us that the team went through a couple of iterations in the early stages of development, swerving from a more traditional shooter approach to something inspired by the then recently released Rainbow Six, where players would have to plan a squad's entry to a building, before changing courses again. We were keenly aware of that, but Raven has a lot of pride in the work it does and so we were not about to just, I'll say 'shit in a box', because that was the expression we used, and then send that out to the stores. "You make a crappy game and then slap a licence on it and hope it sells, was how they were viewed. "Licensed games had a bad reputation," Dan recalls.
Nevertheless, the team was determined to make it work.
A print magazine? We're like 'How does that even translate into games?' It was a surprise." If any of us had even heard of it, all we had heard was it was a magazine. Quite honestly, I don't think any of us really knew what to do at first. One day, Brian Raffel came in and told us that Activision had acquired the Soldier Of Fortune licence and that we were going to make a game. "If I recall, Raven were wrapping up Heretic II and were looking at what they were going to do next. Dan Kramer, who worked on Soldier Of Fortune as assistant programming director, reveals that he and many of his colleagues were bemused when they found out they would be making a game based on a mercenary magazine.
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