GameSpy: What new features will be available for the game?
Brad Pendleton, Lead Engineer: A major goal for the team was to add more interactive and realistic environments. Not only can you hide in the shadows to avoid detection but you can create them by unscrewing light bulbs. You can open file cabinets, turn water faucets, flush toilets, and ring wind chimes. Many times, this interactivity will alert nearby enemies, but some of it is just for fun and realism.
The AI is more realistic, as well. They make their own decisions based on hints in the level, so scripted scenes in the game are less necessary. The engine also has been enhanced to give us 30x more detail than we had in NOLF. The worlds look even more realistic with the addition of environment mapped bump mapping, cubic environment maps for reflections, projected shadows, falling snow and waving grass. Our sound support has also been updated to support hardware acceleration and EAX 2.0.