Tex R. Colburn - professional actor, cowboy, stuntman and mercenary comes back:

DevDiary 3 - Making a Mercenary

Hello and welcome to another DevDiary for Jagged Alliance 3. My name is Boyan Ivanov, and I am the co-Creative Director of Jagged Alliance 3. Yes, another Boyan no to be confused with my dear friend and college Boian, whom you already know through the first DevDiary.

What made Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 so special was the cast of unique and quirky mercenaries under your command. There were many memorable personalities, and every player had his favorites. Some of mine are Barry, Fox and Tex from the first installment.

We knew that to make a great Jagged Alliance sequel we had to have a big roster of mercs, and we had to get them right.

Tex – Cowboy of the Rising Sun

Speaking of Tex, while he was a bit too busy being a B-list movie star in Jagged Alliance 2, he’s back in action in Jagged Alliance 3. 

To tackle the challenge of recreating the old mercs like Tex we need to do our research. We began by creating a profile document for each merc with their background and story or at least what was known about them.

We then extracted all the voice lines from Jag 1 and 2 to get the vibe and feel of the character. Combing all of those for additional information and character quirks and idiosyncrasies. Like Tex calling enemies rustlers and asking you if you prefer Clint Eastwood or John Wayne.

We knew we wanted to advance the timeline only by a couple of years and we wanted to reflect that in some of the characters. For Tex things weren’t going all that well in Unfinished Business (the expansion to Jagged Alliance 2) and as B-list action movies fell out of fashion he had to don his six shooters once more and sign back up with AIM.

[...]

Thanks Henriquejr!

Ian Currie was interviewed by Gamestar about Jagged Alliance 3 - here's the translation:

Ian Curries Jagged Alliance 3 Interview

Recently Ian Currie had a brief interview about Jagged Alliance 3 with the German-speaking outlet Gamestar.de and we thought you guys would be very interested in what was asked and more importantly what he said..

Your official title is writer, but what’s your exact part in the team?

My role was to help ensure that the writing was high quality, both creatively and technically. This meant reviewing all the writing done by others and of course, producing a lot of new text (which included everything from dialogue to non-spoken text). Part of the role was to ensure consistency regarding grammar, culture, etc., but also with the JA franchise in general. In a nutshell, my job was to make certain that the writing was of the quality that fans of JA would expect. Working with the team, I also gave feedback on many things that weren’t writing related, but I think that’s just part of being a game developer.

The last installment of Jagged Alliance 2 is over two decades old, so a big part of today’s strategy gamers didn’t play it, or even don’t know it. As a writer, how do you reconcile these JA rookies and the veterans?

Well, that task goes beyond just the writing of course, but I think from a writing perspective you want to be able to reward veteran players without confusing new players. An analogy might be how Pixar can make very entertaining movies that include humor only adults will understand without diminishing the entertainment value for younger viewers. So perhaps we might reference something that only players familiar with JA2 may pick up on, but do it in a way that still works fine for new players.

JA2 offers dozens of mercs who are way more than just characters with certain skills shown in numbers: everyone has a background, strengths and weaknesses, is commenting what’s going on. How do you develop the old mercs further in JA3, and how do you bring new characters like Livewire to life?

Well of course that was one of the main goals of the JA franchise: to create interesting (and hopefully memorable) characters. To accomplish this in a strategy game setting was an interesting challenge and in order to make 40 different mercenaries unique we leaned on ethnicities, attitudes, interesting backgrounds, accents and of course good voice acting.

With each new installment in the franchise one of the challenges is keeping it feeling fresh. From a character perspective this involves balancing the addition of new mercs with old favorites. As designers we can also try to imagine how some of the returning characters might have evolved.

You must build a squad of six JA2-mercs. Budget doesn’t matter. Whom do you choose, and why?

Hmm, let’s see. I’d probably go with Scope & Reaper for their magnificent marksmanship and attitude. Nails for his explosive ability while still being strong in other areas. Vicki is my go to mechanic. Dr. Q is a great medic and Gus as a tremendous well rounded, very experienced who can serve as a second medic.

At the end of the great Legacy Trailer you say there are some things you wish you could have done in Jagged Alliance 2, and now you can do them in JA3. Can you give us two or three examples?

The first things that come to mind would be anything that helps convey the merc’s personalities. The more they come across like real individuals, the more attached the player is to them and that has multiple benefits. In JA3 mercs have a lot more opportunities to speak and react to things, which is one of the ways we learn people’s personalities in real life. Some of these opportunities include conversations with NPCs but there are times when they might just chat with each other – make small talk, etc.

Another thing that comes to mind is the depiction of the characters while in the sectors (e.g. exploration and combat). Instead of a simplistic and vague figurine, the mercs have all been uniquely modelled. The team has done an excellent job with this.

Thanks Henriquejr!

Ian Currie is a part of the Jagged Alliance 3 dev team:

Jagged Alliance 3 - Official Legacy Trailer

Redglyph spotted the first devdiary of Jagged Alliance 3:

Welcome to the first Jagged Alliance 3 DevDiary!

The DevDiary is a place where we can discuss specifics about the game, share some insights about the development process, and offer perspective on what game-shaping decisions we make and why. We’ll do our best to talk about cool, interesting topics, of which we’d love to hear your feedback! Hearing your suggestions will help us make the best game we can, and also understand what our fans care about. 

It was really hard for us to keep silent for so long, since there is a lot we want to share about Jagged Alliance 3. It may go without saying, but thank you for all the love and patience, we really appreciate it!

Jagged Alliance 3: Our Vision

Hello and welcome to the first DevDiary of Jagged Alliance 3 in which we will present our vision for Jagged Alliance 3 !

Since many of us in the dev team are lifelong Jagged Alliance fans it is easy for us to assume that many readers of this article will also be intimately familiar with JA1 and JA2, however we will try to avoid this trap and present the information in a way that is accessible to newcomers as well.  Overall, our goal is not only to introduce you to our game, but also to the principles that led us through the years-long development journey. We don't plan to focus on details just yet, there will be time enough for this in upcoming DevDiaries down the road.

Ever since the first pitch document we wrote we were certain about one thing - there was a particular feeling from Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 that made them special and we wanted to recapture it in our sequel - a unique combination of simulative turn-based combat, colorful characters, strategic management and the exploration of an open RPG-inspired sandbox world. A true sequel should rely on all of these pillars in order to recapture the charm of the first two games, so let's visit each of these points in turn.

[...]

In Conclusion

To recap all of the information above, here are the pillars of Jagged Alliance 3, as our team sees them:

• Deep turn-based combat that takes a realistic approach and allows a fine level of control
• A large cast of quirky and unique mercenaries
• Strategic gameplay on the satellite view map
• A vast handcrafted open world to explore and shape with your decisions

We hope this article answered some of your questions about our vision for Jagged Alliance 3 and planted the seeds for many future DevDiaries! What aspect of the game excites you and resonates with you the most? What would you like to read about next?

Boian Spasov

Lead Designer 

Wccftech give their first impressions of Jagged Alliance 3 from a presentation at Gamescom:

Jagged Alliance 3 Impressions – Returning to the Past

There's little doubt that Jagged Alliance as a series has faltered, or more accurately, it never really managed to follow the high of Jagged Alliance 2, released in 1999. Having gone through many publishers and developers, THQ Nordic has been the owner of the IP since 2015, then publishing (under the Handy Games label) Jagged Alliance: Rage! Last year, they finally announced Jagged Alliance 3.

If there's one thing worth saying, developers Haemimont Games are the most experienced team to have worked on the franchise, having created titles like Tropico 4 & 5, Omerta - City of Gangsters, Victor Vran and Surviving Mars. While I couldn't get hands-on with Jagged Alliance 3 at Gamescom, I was shown a presentation and asked a few questions while at it. The inevitable question is what I thought about this first look at Jagged Alliance 3.

[...]

The question will be if Haemimont manages this. We won't honestly know until some unrevealed time in the future. THQ Nordic isn't pressuring Haemimont, letting them get the game right. I can't say if this will be a true Jagged Alliance; it was a thirty-minute presentation. My first impressions are that Jagged Alliance 3 is on the right track, but only time will tell.

Thanks Redglyph!

The showcase trailer for Jagged Alliance 3.

 

They took our home, our dream, our president! It's time to take it all back! In Jagged Alliance 3, you hire a team of unique mercenaries to rescue the president of Grand Chien, who was kidnapped by a paramilitary force known as "The Legion". Engage in intense battles and spend your action points wisely in strategic, turn-based combat. Use the environment and the strength of your mercenaries to gain an advantage over your enemies. Loot and customize an arsenal of weaponry and get the most out of your special perks to win the battle against "The Legion". Jagged Alliance 3 is coming to PC.

Jagged Alliance 3 is back:

Jagged Alliance 3 - Announcement Trailer

loading...

 A true successor to a beloved franchise - Jagged Alliance 3 is coming soon to PC.

Grand Chien, a nation of rich natural resources and deep political divides, is thrown into chaos when the elected president goes missing and a paramilitary force known as “The Legion” seizes control of the countryside. 

In Jagged Alliance 3, select from a huge cast of mercenaries, all with their own unique personalities, quirks, and backstories to find the President and bring order back to the country.

loading...

GameStar received word from Akella that they're "no longer working cooperatively with Strategy First on Jagged Alliance 3" (transl.) Publisher Strategy First still holds the rights for Jagged Alliance 3, but Akella won't be developing the game. Whether or not another developer will take over is unclear.

F3 Games' Andrew Kazakov has been interviewed at RPG Vault about Jagged Alliance 3:

Jonric: What circumstances and reasons contributed to the selection of a Russian-based studio to develop this title?

Andrew Kazakov: When choosing a team to develop a project of this type and scale, it was obvious that we needed Russian developers, the same people that created games with similarities to Jagged Alliance 2, both in genre and the time setting. I'm referring to releases like Silent Storm, Night Watch, Brigade E5 and others. Such projects have not been created in western countries for a long time, which can make development more difficult.

We haven't covered Jagged Alliance 3 for a while but with two new articles out today, it seems a good time to check in on the title.  First, StrategyCore has an interview that goes all the way back to E3:

SC: Tell me why JA3 will be the best game in the Jagged Alliance series?

AK: First of all, it’s now in full 3D. It's an evolutionary step from the previous series. Since we are working with Strategy First and the original designer of the series, Richard Therrien, this helps us a lot to make steady improvements. Also, the Silent Storm engine allows good destructibility of everything so we can demolish buildings and blow up cars which were not possible previously. This also helps in tactical situations where you can destroy a wall to get into a building from different points. Also, it’s more dynamic, more battle and combat oriented. There is less emphasis on micromanagement than the previous series. The player doesn't have to train troops or hold mines. What the player mostly does with the mercenaries is fight. The player commands a special squad, a special team, not a small army.

...and GameSpy has a very short preview that demonstrates the confusing heritage of this development, since they still list MiSTland South as the developer instead of Akella and didn't realise Strategy First is the NA publisher.  Here is an excerpt:

In Jagged Alliance 3 you'll have up to six mercs in your squad at a time. We got a chance to play an early level with Shadow, Scope and Malice. The game sports a new 3D engine which is sharp and a definite step up from the previous games which were never really all that pretty to begin with. JA3 won't win any awards for looks, but it is easily the best-looking game of the franchise. The interface is definitely improved, and we found commanding our squad to be easier than ever. The large strategic country map is back, only this time rather than having the land divided up in a grid the land will be broken up into more natural-looking territories. Also returning is the Action Point system from the previous games, so JA vets will feel right at home. 

Jagged Alliance fansite The Bear Pit has a summary of a Jagged Alliance 3 interview with new developers F3 garnered from a Russian print mag, titled Game World Navigator.  It seems this attempt at JA3 will be built around a modified version of the Silent Storm engine -- head here for more.

Thanks, Maximous!

After canceling their arrangements with MiSTland South, Strategy First has turned to Russian game house Akella and developer F3 Games  for the development of Jagged Alliance 3 according to this Russian press release.  A rough translation can be found on the RPG Codex forums.  Akella is already working with Strategy First, of course, on Disciples 3 (via developer .dat).