Dynamic Difficulty
One thing that's really starting to take off is our dynamic difficulty system. There's been some mention of it on FAQs and whatnot, but nobody's really seen what this thing can do yet. I want to give a big kudorific hats off bow down to our lead programmer Ken Harward for both coming up with the idea for the system and spearheading its implementation.

Now, for the curious, this isn't just a run-of-the-mill autobalancer. This thing is incredible. We're polling statistical data on just about everything: When a player shoots, when a player jumps, how long a player's idle, when a player "uses" something, all kinds of in-game interactions. We'll use some of this to balance the game on the fly to a degree never seen before; that way we can ensure a solid challenging experience for the entire episode.

Playtesting - With a Twist
Where things get really interesting though, is during playtests. We're able to generate a file that the LDs (Level Designers) can pull into the level editor and actually see all the major player actions for a particular run. With that data we essentially have an unbiased timeline of exactly what happened. We can then use that data to further tune the level. It's unbelievable.