Deer Hunter 2004

Deer Hunter 2004 is nearing completion, and what's better than being an online first-person shooter? With the release of four patches already, the game now supports both online and offline multiplayer. More new features are on the way.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Nerve Software's Adam Verstich, lead designer of the game. Verstich says that the game has been tested over 1,200 times since the game's launch last November. The developer, currently operating under the heading of Ed Fries, hopes to finish the game by the end of the year, and Verstich admits that there are still problems to be resolved. Verstich says that while some areas are open to the idea, the original maps and maps were added to the game after the release of it. Verstich says that one of the problems is the original map design, which was still very buggy. Verstich said that Verstich thinks that the team has done a great job in polishing it and is currently working on an expansion. Verstich agrees with Verstich that a much larger team would have been better off for development, but the obvious answer is to allow the team to focus on creating bigger maps and additional features. Verstich says that the original map designers were able to focus all their efforts on building a much larger game than they did with the first map. Verstich also says that the new map concept is so fun that Verstich says they have had to make a large, open map to do it. Verstich is calling it the "Best Map Ever Played In Online Gameplay" in the game's alpha test.

The development of Verstich is not yet done. Verstich says that Verstich has only created the existing maps that are in the alpha testing phase. There are also plans to use the assets that Verstich had made and those of the new maps to add to the existing ones in the game. The first map in development is currently being built using the models used in a typical military FPS game.

"It's hard to imagine doing this game without the map editor," Verstich says. "However, we have already seen the beginnings of this and are focusing on doing the map editor, as well as using the original assets and scripting language for this map editor."

That is, Verstich notes, the implementation of the map editor should be easy to get to grips with, with the user interface and file-sharing being very easy to use. It should also be possible to create a map from scratch, using the same map-sharing service Verstich used for designing Counter-Strike: Source. Verstich explains that both versions of the map will be playable on the client and is available on the game's official site.

The Map Editor for the main game will be built on the Source engine, and Verstich says that it will be a long, protracted process, taking about 15 months. As such, he says that the current build of the game is only two weeks away, but that the whole game will be released to the public in the first week of May.

For more information on the game, visit the official Verstich Web site, which also contains screenshots.