In 1996, Tom Mustaine helped launch Ritual Entertainment, which was first known as Hipnotic Interactive. Since that time, Mustaine and Ritual created several titles, including Quake Mission Pack: Scourge of Armagon, SiN and Star Trek: Elite Force II while also contributing to the development of such hit titles as Quake 4, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. After more that 10 years with the game developer, Mustaine left Ritual shortly before the end of last year to start another game studio. In addition, Mustaine joined forces with Cyberathlete Professional League to lead the development of Severity, which is a brand new first-person shooter that is being built from the ground up exclusively for professional gaming competitions.

During the recent CPL Winter Championship, I had a chance to sit down with Mustaine and talk about his new role and how he and the CPL are planning to develop a new game for e-sports. In addition, we talked about why he left Ritual (which was recently acquired by casual game developer MuboJumbo), why SiN Episodes hasn't been more successful and what the future will hold for game developers like himself.

RW: How did you get involved with the CPL and Severity?

MUSTAINE: I left Ritual a few weeks ago and started working with the CPL on Severity. Ritual was pretty good to me. But it was time for me to try something new. When Angel [Munoz, CPL founder and president] decided to start the CPL 10 years ago, I was one of the first people he talked to. We've known each other for years and we talked frequently about the need for a gaming platform that the CPL owns and controls. So we've talked for six years about creating a game specifically for e-sports. I think there needs to be more of a standardized platform that can evolve based on feedback from the gaming community. And the CPL has spent a lot of time and money looking at creating its own game.

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RW: What's the name of your new outfit?

MUSTAINE: Well, we don't have one yet. I hope to have a name soon.

RW: What do you hope to achieve with Severity? What will be different about the game compared to mainstays like Counter-Strike?

MUSTAINE: Primarily, the idea is to raise the bar and get out of the box that e-sports is in. Right now, the focus is on games like Quake III and Counter-Strike 1.6, which are great games but they're getting old. So there are a couple of leaps that need to be made with Severity. Spectation is the key. We've gotten a lot of feedback from e-sports commentators on making a game that's easy to watch and follow. So we're talking about allowing the focus of the game to stay on the action and allow spectators to get a better view of the competition. Another essential target is designing the game so that it can work with a variety of platforms, from DX 7, 8, 9 or 10. There are other enhancements that we're looking at, too, such as better tournament ladders. None of these are rocket science. They're mostly small steps but it will be an aggregate of all those steps and enhanced features that will make Severity a better platform.

RW: Are you getting feedback from the gamers on what some of the steps should be?

MUSTAINE: Our goal is to put the game in the gamer's hands as much as possible. One thing that MMO games do really well is build a strong community, and we want to follow that model. So we want to incorporate as much feedback from gamers as possible to make a game with features that they want. The challenge is getting these guys to move away from some of the older online games and embrace a new one.

RW: What's the most exciting part of working on Severity?

MUSTAINE: It's always been a dream of mine to build a multiplayer game like this. Typically what happens with most games is the focus stays on the single player campaign and any multiplayer features are kind of an afterthought. You do the best you can with those features before the shipping deadline. And adding multiplayer features after the games ships can be difficult; we basically rely on the mod community for those types of enhancements.

RW: E-Sports has grown quite a bit over the last year, but there's still a lot of skepticism.

MUSTAINE: Sure, professional gaming still doesn't feel real to a lot of people, including a lot of gamers.

RW: I think quite a few Tom's Hardware Guide readers would fall into that category.

MUSTAINE: Of course. Some people think it's silly for gamers to be considered athletes, even though gaming is all about competition. But I think the more exposure pro gaming gets and the more people that actually see the events up close, the more people will be convinced that it's a true sport.

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