PAX Report: Brink Customization Preview

During our visit to PAX East 2011, I got to sit down with Ed Stern, Lead Writer at Splash Damage.  The team are putting the finishing touches on Brink, their new FPS published by Bethesda.  Brink has a ton of innovative things going for it including a total convergence of single player, cooperative and multiplayer modes, SMART movement technology and a wicked art style.  Of course the lid has been removed on most of this so decided to get the info on the less discussed creative aspect of the game: character & weapon customization.

We will start off with character customization.  Originally, Brink was going to have a full face and body editor on par with Elder Scrolls and Mass Effect but they ultimately scrapped it due to their specific character designs making it difficult to manage without everyone turning really ugly.  So instead they made a large number of archetypes.  Archetypes are predefined bodies with specific faces and builds.  These are your starting point in the character creator. Once you pick an archetype, you can adjust skin tone.

After you get this far, you will then be able to select from a wardrobe to clothe your awesome dudes (Sorry ladies but there are no female character models in this game).  As you play the game and unlock challenges, level up through experience and get achievements, you will open up new items for your character.  The clothing has a range of options to change including color and sometimes even fabric or texture. A large, yet not exhaustive list of categories include undershirts, jackets, pants/shoes, hair, head gear, masks, scars and tattoos.  Once you pick a tattoo or scar they become permanent to your character.

Don't worry about wanting to change your look though.  Brink will be giving each player will get 16 character slots in the game.  These slots do not function as save games, but more along the lines of a Call of Duty custom class slot.  You can delete them and create them at will to offer many choices of play style and abilities during play. And to top it all off, Splash Damage took a page out of Bungies' book and shows off your characters in the games cutscenes.

Its all well and good that we can make a cool looking player character but what about the guns?  This is a FPS after all.  Don't worry because Splash Damage has you covered.  This game has one of the deepest weapon customization setups in recent history.  They give you an excellent base weapon list.  Only certain body types can use certain weapons.  Only heavys get LMG's, automatic shotguns and grenade launchers and miniguns. Thats right...get to the choppa!

You can unlock weapon modifications of all sorts.  There are many well known offerings like red dot scopes, sniper scopes, grenade launchers, fore grips and silencers.  There are also some new tools for the trade like a quick sling that improves weapon swap speed, muzzle brakes that actually change the shape of the muzzle flash and a large number of different magazines.  Extended, box, drum, banana... you name it and it is probably in the game.

All in all, Brink is looking to shape up into a pretty awesome experience.  It is coming out for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on May 17th, 2011.