Shack: How significant are differences between the DX9 and DX10 versions of the game? Are there any actual gameplay distinctions?
Cevat Yerli: For single-player the difference is only in visual quality, there are no gameplay differences. Visually the imagery has more depth though 3D post processing, looks more cinematic through motion blur systems interacting and surfaces are more crisper in detail and 3D. The lighting and post processing goes through an extended next-generation HDR rendering system.
In multiplayer when you qualify for very-high settings, that is high-end DX10, you will experience tangible gameplay improvements that actually make tactical difference and lets you feel like you play single player in terms of cinematic experience.
Shack: Generally, successful multiplayer is fairly low-req in order to allow for the largest possible userbase. How do you feel about the prospects for your multiplayer mode in the face of the numerous heavy hitters releasing this fall?
Cevat Yerli: We see multiplayer in two extremes. One is the low, medium, high version that scales games low and high in regards to your PC spec, offering you a certain fixed gameplay. We try to be as good as we can there without losing the low-spec gamers.
But with very-high you will need high-end DX10 to qualify for an experience that is essentially the future of multiplayer games, but now. This means you will also get gameplay experience that pushes options, emergent gameplay through more advanced simulations and graphics that define and impact gameplay. Examples of this are breakable geometries, soft-vegetation that interacts with characters, battledust that is synchronized across users to change the atmospherics, day-night cycles that can change tactics completely as you play.