After Timeshift received a make-over a few months back, gamers everywhere wondered what would become of the game. IGN managed to catch up with Lead Producer Kyle Peschel to get some multiplayer details, and the game sounds highly interesting with the possibilities they plan to incorporate.

Firstly, maps and game modes are obviously an integral part to any online, and something that Shadowrun sadly got heavily criticised for. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, One versus One and Rocket Arena are all confirmed, with a few more possibly being added as development goes on. There are over twelve maps to play these modes on too, so around fifteen is likely, and no doubt more via good ‘ol DLC.

The time shifting element is also being carried over into the multiplayer, but Peschel points out that it isn’t so easy as it was in the single player:

“The first idea was to have Time Shifting work just like in single player. Sounded great on paper, we even figured out how Slow would be trumped by Stop and Stop by Reverse. Ultimately there were two primary problems… One; it sucks to have 15 people frozen in time while one person runs around; we called it Fun For One. The second problem was what reverse looked like… Lag. Even though the game was doing EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, the other people going in reverse thought the game was lagging out since they were telling it to do something and it wasn’t responding.”

How they do end up getting the balance right will be interesting to see, and become more fun that it is a chore.

As for customisation of the online game, it seems developer Saber Interactive seem to have gone to town with the possibilities. There’s the choice to create your own mode as an example. Within your own mode (there are probably presets too), anything from starting weapons to gravity, armour respawn time to spawn protection, run speed to weapon damage. It means the game can be played the way you want it, and means those that have an annoying way of playing (spawn camping for example) can easily be made null and void by giving people longer invulnerability from spawning.

Check out IGN for the full quotes, although there isn’t a huge amount to read that you haven’t already.