Brothers in Arms has built up a strong following of First-Person Shooter fans in just a short time and Wii owners have been eagerly awaiting the Nintendo version of the franchise to appear, following the release of the DS game a few months ago. Now the developer has spoken out on various aspects of the title.

Talking to IGN Wii, Stephen Palmer was thrown head-first into the deep end, being quizzed on why the game has not been seen much lately and about how many believed the game to have been cancelled. In response all he had to say that he was unsure why the rumour had even started and that “we can assure you that it’s 100% false!” The game is purportedly “very much alive” and will appear on store shelves in the very near future.

As for whether or not Brothers in Arms for the Wii is a brand new game or a port of an existing title, apparently it is a tricky point to establish, since this Brothers in Arms Wii “is a collection of the first two games in the Brothers in Arms series”. The team’s goal was to “introduce Nintendo customers to the series of games and get them caught up with what happened in Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30 and Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood.” For them to achieve such a goal, the team had to go through the process of recreating both these titles from scratch and tweak the code considerably to make it first of all work properly on Wii, and then make good use of the Wii motin control system. This was all done in an effort to give Wii owners the best Brothers in Arms experience to date.

On the matter of the controls, IGN asked for details and got the following response:

IGN Wii: “How do you control the game and what types of sensitivity/customisation/layout options will you make available to FPS purists?”

Stephen Palmer: “We’ve created two major control layout options that are built around two fundamentally different principals. The default layout will be familiar to those that enjoy and are comfortable with the vast majority of FPS Wii titles - the Wii remote is used for both aiming and view rotation, while the nunchuk controls strafe and forward-back movement. The alternate, or “expert” configuration as we are calling it, is where we’ve tried to innovate a little bit. One of my biggest complaints with Wii FPS games is the burden placed on the player to continuously point the Wii remote at the television, or else risk staring at the ground if you just want to rest your arm for a minute. The expert configuration decouples the view rotation from aiming - your Wii remote only aims the weapon, and the nunchuk turns left-right and moves forward-back. To strafe, you will hold the Z button on the nunchuk to essentially enable a free-look mode. This is my personal favorite, but it won’t be for everyone. Beyond these two major control scheme options, there are a few more adjustments for pointer sensitivity that are accessible to the player.”

IGN Wii: “Have you played Medal of Honor and Call of Duty for Wii? Where do you think the control setup for BIA ranks among the these games?”

Stephen Palmer: “We played (and played and played) every existing FPS during development, and worked hard to set a new standard for Wii FPS controls. I think gamers will appreciate the effort we put into it, both FPS purists and casual gamers that haven’t played every FPS out there.”

As for whether or not Gearbox was “exploring the option of utilising a version of Unreal Engine 3″ for the Wii version of Brothers in Arms, Palmer sadly conceded that he was not “allowed to comment on that at the moment, but that sure does sound like a fun challenge, doesn’t it?” In terms of the amount of levels on offer and the locations available in-game, it was revealed that there are thirty-five missions spread across the two games, Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood, meaning there the variety in playing environments is vast, stretching across the Normandy region of France. There will be “farmland criss-crossed with hedgerows, idyllic towns and villages, gothic cathedrals, industrial complexes”, in other words a little something for everyone in the game.

The game is all about real squad tactics and using them to despatch the enemy and…

“…The environment provides cover for you and your squad while also presenting the player with challenging tactical puzzles to solve as you maneuver to outflank the enemy. Along the way you’ll have the opportunity to use fixed-place machine gun to repel strong counterattacks, but you’ll also have to face tough dug-in enemy artillery, like mortars and 88mm cannons. The environment is your best friend and sometimes your worst enemy!”

IGN Wii: “Many war games use scripted sequences to great effect. How are you doing this in BIA to enhance the atmosphere and presentation?”

Stephen Palmer: “One of the hallmarks of the Brothers in Arms games is that they tell a rich story with compelling characters in a historical context. There are tons of very cool scripted events that the player will witness and even experience throughout Road to Hill 30 and the sequel, Earned in Blood.”

Palmer goes on to state that the game features all combinations of progressive, interlaced, normal and wide-screen aspect ratios and will run at a solid thirty frames-per-second. He continues by saying that with Wii there is “a learning curve. What’s fun about developing for the Wii is that there are things to learn about doing the most with the hardware, but there’s also a lot to learn about the controllers.” He believes that “as developers get more experience with the Wii, you’re going to start seeing better and more clever use of the controllers. I think we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible with the Wii’s unique input.”

Finishing things off, IGN ponders why people should choose Brothers in Arms above other similar Wii games and Palmer reckons it has to be the storytelling that lifts it above others, but also the team is “really proud of the graphics of the game. The games are really beautiful on the Wii.” His closing remark was “we hope that people like the control implementation we created. It’s a ton of fun ordering your squad around using real hand gestures.”

Stick around for more updates here on Nintendo…