The Rise and Fall of Soldier of Fortune

obscene lyrics not to mention the wholesale impact of the internet and all that's contained within but of all the worries and materials swirling about out there Grand Theft Auto 3 one of the most popular technically sophisticated and graphic video games ever designed may have given our generation of adult something new to worry about during the 90s and early 2000s few other pastimes were scrutinized more for their violence than video games spurred on by the bloody excesses of titles like Mortal Kombat and doom a generation of lawmakers politicians and parents took it upon themselves to highlight the medium seeming depravity and try to hide it from developing minds to them the thematic content that the video game industry explored was bad enough on its own but its willingness to sell this subject matter to children warranted immediate action soldier of fortune was one such series that came under this scrutiny developed by Raven Software in collaboration with the mercenary magazine of the same name soldier of fortune garnered controversy around the globe for its intense level of gore which at the time offered one of the more graphic depictions of bodily dismemberment ever seen in any first-person shooter series a product of Ravens custom made ghoul modeling system yet underneath the gore enos of its modeling system it also provided those that actually tried it with a polished gameplay experience one that kept its player based thoroughly entertained well after the initial shock of seeing enemies blown to pieces wore off it wasn't utterly revolutionary in the way that contemporary shooters like half-life or halo work but it showed Raven to be more than capable of balancing both style and substance and left its fans appropriately distraught when it faded into nothingness this is the rise and fall of soldier of fortune [Music] in the pantheon of noted first-person-shooter developers Raven software is uniquely long-lived founded in Wisconsin in the late 80s by brothers Brian and Steve raffle Raven burst onto the scene in 1992 with black Crypt a pen and paper inspired role-playing game for the Amiga at a time when Fantasy titles that featured Dungeons and Dragons as trappings were a dime a dozen black crypt distinguished itself from its peers with vibrant graphics and special effects earning itself rave reviews and its creators sufficient motivation to remain in the industry after this raven developed a second role-playing game called shadow caster before a chance occurrence brought the studio to it'd software's attention at the time the famed first-person shooter developer had set up camp a stone's throw away from ravens headquarters and was in the middle of developing what would become Wolfenstein 3d eager to network both parties met up in person and immediately took note of each other's strengths with it finding Ravens art duly impressive and Raven likewise finding its work on Wolfenstein absolutely stunning one thing led to another and the two began working together supplying each other with all manner of assets technologies and advice on a frequent basis to help further their respective projects it's through this relationship that we're even got his hands on is doom engine and used it to develop heretic in 1994 a first-person shooter set within a dark fantasy world heretic proved Ravens first massive hit while some critics were none too pleased with how similar it fell to its demonic masterpiece its unique premise and high level of polish resulted in it quickly attracting a sizeable following with PC players across the country and this following only continued to grow after Raven released a sequel titled hex in the following year and then hexon - not long after that after finishing up work on an expansion pack to hexan - in 1997 however the studio found itself drifting in a sea of uncertainty in a post mortem published years later on Gamasutra Ravens Rick Johnson and Eric beastmen would recall how the studio had become interested in developing a military game inspired by real world events but couldn't decide on when or where it should be set or who it should follow as it would happen Ravens executives had also become tired of managing the studio by themselves around this same period of time and made the decision to sell their company to Activision the move proved unpopular with some of the studio staff who feared that their new owners corporate culture would gradually consume their sense of identity or proved unable to help them in times of need yet no sooner had raven fallen under the publishers control than Activision presented it with the licensing rights to the Soldier of Fortune magazine's name and logo founded in 1975 Soldier of Fortune magazine had spent the previous two decades providing its readership with all manner of articles on mercenary warfare and culture in addition to coverage of various worldwide conflicts it was a mercurial publication one that had proved popular enough to boast monthly sales of a hundred and fifty thousand copies at its peak yet had also repeatedly gotten into trouble over the years for running gun for hire classified ads that resulted in multiple homicides but after some consideration it became apparent to Ravens staff that regardless of whatever politics or controversies the magazine had previously been embroiled in its subject matter alone offered a unique and flexible thematic Iran which they could focus their fledgling military title instead of being about a rank-and-file cadet charged with storming the beaches of Normandy or sneaking through the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait their game could follow a mercenary for hire recruited to confront terrorist organizations whenever and wherever they popped out this isn't a military operation I can't let you boys go down there does it sound like you have a choice captain all right you win everyone within Raven was in agreement a game about the thrills and perils of being a mercenary was an incredibly exciting prospect as well as something that they themselves wanted to explore and thanks to their relationship with it they already had a powerful engine with which they could make it the quake 2 engine once everyone in the studio sat down and started working to make this game of reality however it quickly became apparent that a long and difficult road was ahead of them in Johnson and Eastman's postmortem the developers would detail how at almost every step of the way the team found itself constantly changing and reconfiguring their project and how any change that was made to one aspect of it would inevitably result in another aspect of it needing to be tremendously overhauled as well perhaps no other component of soldier of fortunes development ended up epitomizing these frustrations better than its story as a result of a mixture of indecision and clashing interests amongst the Raven and Activision's employees soldier of fortune story suffered from a slew of overhauls throughout its development with early drafts focusing too much on frivolities like accruing money or micromanaging a squad and not enough on things that they agreed with truly compel players throughout the game no matter what the team vacillated towards nothing seemed to stick and once a premise was proposed that finally did many of the game's levels that had been built in the interim had to subsequently be reworked or gutted entirely due to them clashing with said premise building up and implementing soldier of fortunes technology proved almost equally taxing while Raven possessed a strong understanding of the engine that had decided to base their game on and was able to use it with relative ease from the project's start the studio decided shortly after things got off the ground that it wanted to replace the engines old modeling system with a new modeling system one that would allow enemies to be torn apart in bloody visceral fashion and offer first-person shooter fans the most realistic depiction of human dismemberment ever committed to polycarbonate this modeling system which would come to be known as the Ghul system would not only prove highly effective at doing so upon being completed but also allow Raven to build height for the game with considerable effectiveness by continually referencing and touting Ghul in interviews previews and other places in the lead-up to soldier of fortunes release the studio was able to hook audiences looking for a buzz word to latch onto and incrementally build up their expectations with each new tidbit revealed about their system's capabilities it was in many ways one of the project's biggest successes in the long run but in the short run actually implementing it into the game proves time-consuming and costly as it prevented Raven from being able to build and test out the game that they were trying to make until said system was at least partially functional a situation that made Activision increasingly nervous the longer it went on and even once goal was implemented actually making enemies bleed as they were supposed to repeatedly presented its own complicated set of problems for the team in the midst of all these difficulties however Ravens staff were able to significantly enriched Soldier of fortunes world and cultivate an extremely amicable relationship with one John Mullins a storied figure Mullins has served in the United States military from 1960 to 1982 before becoming a private contractor to a variety of government and civilian customers around the world after his retirement and before anyone knew it the soldier turned private contractor quickly became the studio's soothsayer for all things related to the military from discussing what sounds one would expect to hear on a battlefield to advising how it is that trained soldiers would realistically react to an attack Mullins provided Raven with everything it needed to make soldier of forces world feel authentic and realistic including giving its staff tours of nearby military installations and the right to use his namesake for the game's protagonist the studio also managed to cultivate a strong relationship with fans online ahead of the game's release keeping in contact with fan sites and other online avenues where prospective Soldier of Fortune players gathered on a consistent basis their support wasn't nearly as influential in the project's direction as Mullins Asst yet they nonetheless helped provide invaluable and rapid feedback whenever Raven made a new demo of the game of online which only hope to improve things further [Music] in the end Raven would spend nearly two years bringing soldier of fortune to fruition the process left everyone involved tired but supremely confident that they had created a fun viable product and when set product arrived on store shelves in February of 2000 almost everyone that played it was hard-pressed to disagree there was little dispute that the game's gourd mutilation effects were gruesomely satisfying to experience and that most of the firefights that interspersed all of this carnage were consistently entertaining substantial praise was also directed at the variety and realism of most of the game's locations as well as its strong sound design and while it would neither prove immensely popular nor offer many game types that shooter fans hadn't seen before many people would nevertheless find plenty to love in the game's multiplayer suite less praise was directed at the game's enemy AI which critics found to be consistently dim-witted and easy to exploit many also noted that for as much as soldier of fortune had been advertised as a sobering depiction of what it was like to put on the fatigues and head into battle its gameplay ultimately evoke quake war than it did operation flashpoint it wasn't overly goofy but it had more than his fair share of camp and hollywood-esque elements such as gigantic firefights that pitted players against an excessive number of enemies a plot that involved Mullins hunting down stolen nuclear weapons from neo-fascist terrorists and a microwave weapon capable of frying targets to a crisp in a 2001 interview with GameSpot Ravens jong-suk would admit after the fact that the first game in their series wasn't a particularly realistic experience yet he would also pause it that this had been due to technological limitations and not because the studio had been secretly attempting to make a cartoonish depiction of warfare right off the bat nevertheless much of the discourse surrounding soul to her fortunes merits and flaws would end up being overshadowed after his release at least partially by news of it being condemned by government organizations for its violence the game was placed on the index list of the federal department for media harmful to young persons in Germany Canada the British Columbia Film classification office decided to label the game an adult motion picture and rate it as if it were a pornographic film for a period of time becoming embroiled in these controversies wasn't something that Raven was particularly proud of but the studio understood that the games gooeyness wasn't something that was going to appeal to everyone and that adults were naturally going to want to be protective of children so much so that Raven made a point of developing a tremendously toned down version of the game titled soldier a fortune tactical non-violence version for more family centric retailers like Walmart to distribute while this version would end up being teased and made fun of by some industry commentators Johnson and beastmen would explain in their postmortem that had helped them reach a fair few more consumers than they would have been able to otherwise and engendered more goodwill from them in the long run Raven would do its best to keep soldier of fortunes burgeoning online community trucking along in the months following its launch releasing a gold edition of the game that offered a bevy of new multiplayer content and extras towards the end of the year for free to all that already owned it and this Gold Edition in turn would be followed by a Platinum Edition that included even more multiplayer content as well as ports of the game for both the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 the Dreamcast port of soldier of fortune would be developed by crave entertainment and managed to scrape together decent reviews despite featuring no multiplayer component the PlayStation 2 port on the other hand would come bundled with all of the multiplayer content present in the games Gold Edition yet receive a far more mixed reception with critics finding its graphics and technical performance to be severely lacking when compared to its PC counterparts if Raven software had been any less busy the studio might have taken the time to mourn the latter's lack of polish by the time of the PlayStation ports release however the studio already had its nose to the grindstone working on both Star Wars Jedi Knight 2 and soldier of fortune 2 double helix while Raven had been open to developing a follow-up to soldier of fortune from the get-go exactly what such a sequel could offer only became clear to the studio after John Mullins was brought in to consult on the first game speaking to GameSpot in 2001 John suck would explain how after he joined the team ravens staff realized that Mullins had no shortage of amazing stories about his time on the field of battle and quickly found themselves wanting to incorporate as many of them as possible into soldier of fortune narrative but were ultimately unable to include much more than his namesake due to the project being fairly late in production by this point as a result once work on soldier of fortune ended it was immediately obvious to Raven staff that his sequel devoted to more thoroughly exploring Mullins escapades was next on the docket [Music] once development on this sequel entered full swing the studio likewise made it a priority to try and offer a far more realistic military experience than what it had been able to provide but the first soldier of fortune in addition to swapping out the first game's quake 2 based engine for a heavily modified version of the quake 3 engine Ravan took extensive notes from more hard edged shooters like operation flashpoint and Rainbow six in order to make the game's world feel more tactical and realistic cartoonish weapons like the microwave gun were abandoned dialogue was refined and the series is overarching narrative focus was shifted from the threat of stole of nuclear weapons to the threat of German cyber warfare this increased focus on realism in turn would go hand in hand with substantial improvements that the team made to the game's non playable characters using their second iteration of the ghoul system Ravens staff refined a number of ways that double helixes enemies could be dismembered in addition to reworking their models to allow for far more detail opponents were now able to be blasted apart in nearly twice as many areas but only with more high-caliber explosive weapons instead of any gun in the game and with the help of a couple of artificial intelligence graduates they successfully rebuilt their AI from the ground up and made them far less easily exploitable on top of all this Raven also attempted to deepen the means by which players would be able to interact with said enemies and rework the game's mechanics to allow for a much higher degree of stealth at what was possible in the original soldier of fortune as with all of the other changes and improvements introduced in the sequel the studio hoped that this would likewise increase the game's sense of immersiveness to even greater heights yet when double-helix finally released in May of 2002 most would agree that this inclusion was a bit overzealous while there were moments where being stealthy worked most of the time it was far too easy to slip up and reveal one's presence which would instantly result in a cavalcade of enemies breathing down one snag almost all of the other improvements that Raven brought to double-helix on the other hand were generally well received with players finding the games improved enemy AI particularly impressive many were also appreciative of the games newly added random mission generator which allowed them to generate a wide variety of single-player scenarios to fight through when they tired of the games other offerings even when it produced scenarios that weren't as interesting or challenging as one hoped most agreed that it was still a welcome addition and represented a fantastic value proposition alongside the games ever strong multiplayer component nevertheless in the months and years that would follow public opinion of the game would take a slight nosedive as many players found themselves longing more and more for the original soldier of fortunes over-the-top feel there was no denying that double helixes emphasis on realism was impressive but from these players perspectives the first games exaggerated quake like gameplay simply felt more timeless and did a better job of making its gore and dismemberment effects feel more impactful if there was one thing that all soldier of fortune fans would come to agree on it was that the German version of double helix was a mess in addition to featuring no Gore or bloodshed the regional version of the sequel story took place in a parallel universe that was exclusively populated by metallic gray cyborgs as part of an elaborate effort to prevent itself from being banned it was exceptionally weird and unsurprisingly not a huge seller I thought you'd heard about it well in my defense I've been kind of busy hmm so you have like the original soldier of fortune before edge double-helix would receive a gold edition' shortly after its release that improved its technical performance and offered players a smattering of new weapons and maps to play around with rather than subsequently making the rounds on the PlayStation choo and Dreamcast however double helixes Gold Edition would only go on to be ported to the original Xbox where it received a largely mixed reception after this Ravan would work on a rapid procession of both licensed and non licensed games developing and releasing quake 4 Jedi Academy x-men legends 1 & 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in this span of 2003 to 2006 while almost all of these projects proved both critically and commercially successful they also kept the studio too busy to fit a new soldier of fortune game into his schedule and by the mid-2000s Activision had no desire to wait for this schedule to clear up it only had a few more years before its licensed to the mercenary series last and it wanted to make sure that it got at least one more entry out the door before this happened as a result Activision decided to entrust the development of soldier of fortunes third entry soldier of fortune pay back to a Slovakian based studio called cauldron HQ founded in 1996 cauldron had risen to prominence within its home country through a mixture of puzzle and strategy games before making a splash on the international stage in 2003 with chaser however the studio's subsequent few titles which included an action-adventure take on Conan the Barbarian and a sequel to Starbreeze Studios Knights of the temple have repeatedly failed to receive the same level of accolades leaving the studio's reputation in an awkward place expectations were stacked against it and unfortunately while cauldron would try its best to break these expectations with the Soldier of Fortune license developing payback ended up being difficult the window that it was given to bring the game together was short its resources were strained by the fact that it also had to develop the game for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and it didn't get a chance to consult with Mullins on the game setting a narrative as Raven had been able to do with the series first two titles all of this resulted in a game that struggled considerably to earn the so a fortune communities favor when it launched in November of 2007 those that picked it up found its single-player campaign to be a massive chore with many chastising its enemy AI for being considerably dumber than what had been featured in double-helix and it's level design for being aggressively linear as well as overly reliant on cheap combat scenarios to try to kill the player longtime fans would likewise be deeply critical of the game's story which replaced John Mullins as character with an unremarkable new protagonist called Thomas Mason and embroiled him in a paper-thin revenge plot against a no-name terrorist organization you're going to let me live weak American what our situation reversed I would not hesitate to put a bullet in your head good point while the sum of all of its components didn't make for the worst single-player campaign to ever grace the videogame industry there was almost no disagreement that the game had little of value to offer fans of the series let alone non-fans the only parts of payback that would be positively received would be its graphics and gore enos while not utterly stupendous most players agreed that they looked decent enough for the game they were built around and made some of its rougher moments more bearable but not by much [Music] after paybacks launched cauldron would release a mix of fantastical and historically based first-person shooters before shifting over to developing Cabella games the latter series would be in turn the only thing that cauldron would work on until 2014 when Bohemia Interactive quietly announced that it had acquired the studio staff and facilities and integrated them into a new branch of the company called Bohemia Interactive Slovakia Raven on the other hand would attempt to close out the 2000s with a Wolfenstein reboot a video game adaptation of x-men origins Wolverine and a science-fiction themed shooter called singularity players generally found something to enjoy in all three games but in the end their returns proved lackluster and forced the studio to lay off a sizable number of its staff eager to nip this loss in the bud Raven would subsequently refocus its efforts and start devoting itself entirely to the Call of Duty franchise aiding Treyarch Infinity Ward and sledgehammer games in the development of every single mainline entry in the series after modern warfare 2 from the outside it seemed as if both soldier of fortunes time and ravens time as a developer of its own original properties was truly over and yet no sooner had Raven committed itself to Call of Duty then word broke out that a new entry in this series was on its way there was only one caveat this new entry wasn't soldier of fortune for it was a spin-off titled soldier of fortune online and it was coming exclusively to South Korea developed collaboratively by Activision and Korean developer dragonfly soldier of fortune online promised a free-to-play online centric experience on the vein of other dragonfly produced shooters like quake Wars online and special force albeit with the soldier of fortune series iconic gore and dismemberment after being made available to the public via open beta in April of 2011 however this promise proved fairly short-lived with the game vanishing a year and a half later to little fanfare exactly why it had such a short shelf life is unclear but it's highly likely that much in the same way that titles like fear online died due to a lack of interest soldier of fortune online simply didn't have the player base that needed to secure its developers continued support it's also possible that the game's ultraviolence proved more of a turn-off than a selling point and prevented it from garnering as much interest as dragonflies more sanitary artists today it's hard to imagine a realistic future in which soldier of fortune makes a comeback in a 2014 retrospective article on us gamer Brian rifle professed to wanting to develop more soldier of fortune sequels when he and the rest of the team got the chance and that they had been just too busy to plan out doing so Raven is still alive and well today but it's involved more than ever with call of duty and doesn't appear to be getting ready to kick off from it compounding things further is that even if Raven was willing and able to work on a soldier of fortune revival Activision would have to sign off on such a move as well and as it stands Activision neither has much to gain for bringing soldier of fortune back into its portfolio nor has it shown much of an interest in reviving its old properties it also doesn't help that Soldier of Fortune magazine is no longer in print having gone digital only as of 2016 while the magazine's popularity or lack thereof never had a gigantic influence on how Raven and Activision handled its video game adaptations its decline in brand awareness has likely only made the prospect of a revival all the more daunting for them like so many other shooters from the 90s and early 2000s soldier of fortune was abandoned not because it had met a catastrophic gut-wrenchingly bad fate but because both the developers and the circumstances that led to its creation have moved on soldier of fortune payback didn't help matters much but even if the threequel hadn't happened it's unlikely that the series would have survived that much longer after double helixes release let alone into the present day given where Activision Raven and the soldier of fortune brand all headed [Music] thank you for watching our video our documentaries are crowdfunded and made possible by your continued support for us we'd like to thank by name the generous patrons who have pledged to our highest rewards here Caleb she's keifa CH mu movies.com jefferson dos santos Olivera Maktoum saeed al maktoum timur to to spake off if you enjoy our content please consider subscribing to our channel and joining us on patreon thank you

Channel: GVMERS

Views: 445,593

Rating: 4.9387522 out of 5

Keywords: Soldier of Fortune, Soldier of Fortune 2, Soldier of Fortune 3, Soldier of Fortune Double Helix, Soldier of Fortune Payback, Raven Software, Soldier of Fortune 4, John Mullins, Magazine, Documentary, Gameplay, 4K, German Censored

Id: RRpjtesBTzc

Length: 29min 12sec (1752 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CombustionEngine]

I've been playing through 1 again. It reminds me so much of a modern COD but with more old school gameplay. Dramatic story with a MC that looks like Captain Price. Load outs before missions. Multiple missions where you can fail if you kill too many civilians or friendlies. And every mission being in a different country. I wish Raven could at least make their own COD nowadays

[u/TheKozibear]

Hey, GVMERS' main writer (and the writer on this video) here. Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this!

[u/RoyalCities]

I honestly think I played that multiplayer demo of SoF 2 to death when it came out. Like even after it was released for many months.

What a fun game.

[u/presspo57]

I remember many summer nights staying up all night long playing SoF2 with my buddies on PC. Good times.

[u/NightmareP69]

Played both to death as a kid, was always disappointed how no other devs for years and years ever put any effort into their blood and gore system as much as Raven did in SOF1 and 2, until Killing Floor 2 came out which had a goal surpass it.

Having a good blood,gore and animation system when killing something in an FPS adds so much extra satisfaction to the gun play, i really don't understand why it's often so ignored. I'm not that big of a gore hound, it doesn't need to be over the top but if you put a good amount of effort into it, it enhances the shooting so much.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/Zioman]

I still remember when the gaming magazines put the SoF demo on their CDs, bragging about it on the covers. Played that demo so many times, mainly because of the shotgun induced dismemberment.

[u/DrDrew86]

I remember tricking my mom into buying SoF for me, saying it really wasn’t that violent as it appeared on the box cover. Then I went home and blasted people’s guts out.

[u/hombregato]

I applaud Soldier of Fortune for making points of dismemberment as exciting for technology as points of articulation had been for action figures. Although the toned down violence in Soldier of Fortune 2 disappointed me, I still appreciated the story and have ever since been perplexed that a Soldier of Fortune 3 never happened...

only to find out now that there was a Soldier of Fortune 3 from Eastern Europe, and a free multiplayer Soldier of Fortune 4 exclusive to Korea.