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Mission 15 - Design & Production Notes
Mosul - The al Qaeda Connection

Capturing the tactical considerations involved in a cordon and knock operation was the main design goal for this mission. This included many things, and with the help of Kuma’s tactical expert, US Army Staff Sergeant Dan Snyder, we added the necessary gameplay elements. The surroundings provide the basis for the action, and as the events take place on the outskirts of Mosul, there are mostly residential and small industrial areas. This means modeling many rooftops and apartment-type buildings.

How you work inside apartment buildings to search for weapons and enemies is an important aspect of the mission. Most of the firefights happen inside small rooms which usually have a lot of open windows. Stairs and furniture make the search even harder as there are more things to cover and more places to hide. There are also civilians inside the buildings, so you’ll have to double check your targets before firing on them.

The apartment buildings used in this mission are designed to give you a tough challenge and really test your tactical skills. The buildings consist of multiple floors with many smaller rooms full of places to hide. These create a certain amount of tension and feelings of uncertainty as you move through the buildings because you can't be sure what is behind the next corner or door. Also, by combining the tactical challenge with intense firefights requiring good aim and fast reflexes, you’ll get a feel for the multi-faceted, split-decision experience real-world soldiers are experiencing every day.

Because there are so many windows and doors to cover in the mission, you’ll get into situations where you’re inside and someone’s shooting at you. You may not know who and from where. How you handle these high pressure situations is one of the most interesting things in the mission. Will you panic or execute good tactical moves based on your training or previous experience? Noticing your reactions in the described situations is something you should be keeping track of.

The placement of enemies is very important to create atmosphere and to balance the difficulty of the mission. Having buildings with small rooms and open windows made the balancing even harder because it is possible to shoot through the windows. After planning and testing many different enemy placement options, we chose the positions that worked best for enemy lookouts, patrols, and ambushes.

And finally, you’ll have use of a shotgun in this mission. It provides you with extra stopping power in tight quarters, which makes up most of your gameplay in Mosul.