Kehei is the most popular model among Shanghai Steel’s product lines. The series has become the staple of the armed forces of the People’s Republic of Da Han Zhong. Yung’s Kehei 35, a variant optimized for close-range combat, is the DHZ Army’s main frontline fighter. The Kehei is regarded as one of the most widely used wanzers in the world alongside the Zenith and the Frost. Shanghai Steel’s design philosophy wavered greatly in the Kehei’s early stages, developing a high-powered machine with complete disregard to mass-productivity in one entry, then suddenly switching gears and creating an affordable low-end model in the next. However, in recent years, the manufacturer has managed to strike a good balance between cost and performance, and the newer Kehei are said to be both reliable and effective.

My name is Lindsay Orndorff and I’m a Visual Effects Artist on Front Mission Evolved. As most of my colleagues mentioned previously, the opportunity to work with Square Enix on Front Mission Evolved was very exciting. For the Visual Effects department, this meant the opportunity to evolve from some of our previous games and create an effects heavy shooter with lots of weapons, explosions, and unique visuals. I focused mainly on wanzer effects and a large majority of the weapon effects.

Unlike film, which has visual effects viewed from a fixed perspective, our job is to make dynamic effects that take place in real time and look good from any angle. In addition, our goal is to ensure we have exciting combat effects without taking away from the player’s experience. One of the challenges we faced with the creation of Front Mission Evolved was allowing the player to shoot multiple projectiles without the graphic performance dropping due to too much processing. Most mech-based games try to accomplish this by having slower paced gameplay. However, with our wanzers having the ability to skate, we had to plan for the possibility of both the player and enemies shooting multiple projectiles at once. This was especially crucial with multiplayer. One way we achieved the large amount of weapon fire was to create custom weapons systems such as our missile trail system. Additionally, we would create animated textures that were used on a few particles and blend them together with full screen effects to really give you the sense of fighting in an active warzone. Some of my favorite weapon loadouts include the two handed bazookas and the shoulder rocket/missile turrets – their big powerful explosions effectively convey a sense of scale while piloting these large wanzers.

Along with weapons, our development was spent realizing Square Enix’s vision for E.D.G.E. mode, which plays a large part in the game and story. We originally created some visual mock-ups for E.D.G.E. and through discussions and experimentation, arrived at what you see today. We have succeeded in developing something that hasn’t been seen in other games before, but still fits within the Front Mission universe. Working alongside our talented engineers, we created custom graphics shaders that are applied to the non-player wanzers. Once that was in place, a lot of time was spent creating full screen effects to effectively transition in and out of E.D.G.E. mode and give it a unique presentation when using it. I hope you enjoy seeing it as much as we did working on it!

Front Mission Evolved was very different from anything I had worked on before, but I enjoyed the challenge of filling the world with new effects and making something that I enjoy playing, especially the multiplayer!

We are proud to announce that FRONT MISSION EVOLVED will be available in Europe on October 1st so save the date! And while your at it go out and preorder the game and get yourself two extra wanzers on day one!

Calm: A wanzer that has long been a part of the FRONT MISSION series. Although its appearance is far from intimidating, this war machine is unmatched in melee combat as well as long-range firefights when equipped with the appropriate weapons.

Rexon: As in previous FRONT MISSION titles, Rexon is a skilled sniper-type wanzer. Once equipped with a rifle, it becomes a threat to anything that crosses its line of fire.

These wanzers will only be available if you preorder and only at the following retailers:

Play

Amazon

Game

HMV

Gamestation

ShopTo

Don’t miss your chance for these powerhouse wanzers!