Medal of Honor devs reflect on the glory days: 'We were a bunch of immature f***s'

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002) is widely considered one of the great precursors to the modern first-person shooter genre. Featuring a film-like (for its time) cinematic experience and influential designers like Vince Zampella and Adam West, the game fundamentally shaped the FPS landscape.

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Credit: Electronic Arts

In a recent interview on the Old Dogs podcast, former Medal of Honor: Allied Assault developers Nathan Silvers and Benson Russell sat down to discuss their time working on the famous shooter. They didn't mince words on the chaos, long nights, and outright absurdity that went into developing one of the most influential FPS games of its era.

"We were all a bunch of immature ****s. There was no calm discussion - it was just, '*** you, man, that's a stupid idea!'" Russell laughed. "Looking back, it was hellacious, but it shaped us. I'm glad we grew past it."

That passion, while sometimes leading to heated clashes, also fueled innovation. With limited resources and hardware restrictions, the team constantly had to find creative workarounds-sometimes leading to hilarious, unintended results. For instance, they described a bug turned a bush into a fully functional AI enemy:

"One of the artists copied the bush from an AI, replaced the model reference, and... it became an AI," they recalled. "It could shoot, take cover, everything. Mackie was on it, and he got to debug it, and I just remember him shouting, 'From where?! From where?! I can't figure this thing out!'"

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Credit: Electronic Arts

Another prank nearly made it into the final game. During a lighthouse mission, a truck mysteriously started making explosion sounds, so a developer added the Chariots of Fire theme for comedic effect.

"Vince [Zampella] came in furious: 'Take that s*** out! It's gonna ship by accident!'"

Between the laughs and impromptu games of hacky sack in the parking lot, they also described the brutal but passionate work culture of early 2000s game development. It was a time before rigid game development pipelines, when studios had to figure things out as they went.

"The industry being as young as it is, there were hardly any role models to go off of. We were pioneering how to make a freaking game just as much as every other studio at that time."

Despite all the chaos, the team walked away with a game that helped define a generation, and friendships to go with it.

"I could take any person from that team and call them a friend. There was camaraderie there, more so than any point in my career after that."

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