A few days ago we already gave you a heads up about upcoming content for Resistance: Fall of Man, the best selling Playstation 3 title to date. That information was given by Phil Harrison, but since he’s just the Vice President of SCEE, he didn’t have that much detailed information available.

Apparently Resistance is pretty popular online and developer Insomniac felt that they had to expand on that. IGN asked a couple of question about the upcoming content to multiplayer team leader Eric Ellis, gameplay programmer Peter Kao, and CEO Ted Price. Two updates will be released, the first one on the European launch date of the Playstation 3 and the other one’s coming out in May. They felt it was a good idea to give the Europeans something special at launch, but not all the new content at once, because players should give the original maps a shot first. Not only did they implement new maps, a bunch of other features have been added as well, like new game modes and server side upgrades.

IGN: — The new modes added in the March update are Team Conversion and Assault. What can you tell us about them (especially Assault)?
Peter Kao: Team Conversion is the same game mechanic as Conversion except that you play as a team. Both teams start human and have one life on each side. Assault is a mode based around the concept of attrition; wearing down an opponent’s defenses before destroying their base. Each team has a base node that they must defend, and the goal is to attack and destroy the other team’s base node. In addition, each team also begins the game with a set of base defenses and satellite nodes, which power those defenses. At the beginning of each round, a player can chose to spawn at their main base or any of their team’s satellite nodes.

As is the case with the base node, these satellite nodes can also be attacked. In keeping with the attrition concept, the main base and satellite nodes are considerably stronger than in other modes. Satellite nodes also do not regenerate after taking damage, and cannot be captured by the opposing team. Once defeated, a corresponding portion of the team’s base defenses are shut down. In addition, defeated nodes become neutral, allowing both teams to spawn at them. This rewards the offensive team with a forward spawn point while still giving the defending team a means of spawning outside of their main base.

IGN: Are there any other modifications/ adjustments that are being made for the March patch?
Ellis: Spectators can now join custom games and observe from the player POV and use a free-roam camera. We’ve made fixes for just about every glitch or collision hole in the game. We’ve made matchmaking even quicker and more reliable. We’ve brought back the old radar as a new custom game option for our nostalgic players. We’ve done some small tweaking to the weapons to improve balance even further.

IGN: Rumor has it that there’s a storyline that centers on these new maps as well. Since these are multiplayer maps, how will that story be told, or are these additions for the offline game?
Price: The story is told as an extension of the backstory presented on the Resistance: Fall of Man website. We went to great lengths to flesh out the Resistance: Fall of Man universe beyond the in-game experience, and we’re continuing to do that as we move forward with building the franchise. We will share the additional storyline details as we get closer to the maps’ actual May release.

IGN: There will be a major server change in May to go along with the map pack. It goes global. How will this change latency and match-making, and are you going to have regional leaderboards, competitions, etc?
Ellis: Since the beginning of development on Resistance: Fall of Man, we were constantly running international demos. In fact, during European and Japanese events last year, we were running 40 player games off of US servers with no lag. Because of that, we are confident that this game will play well for international games. That said, we will be giving players the option of restricting to play only with players from their home territory. We have an interesting design for this that we think will encourage people to be open to international play, because in the end, everyone benefits from having more potential opponents and friends in an online community. Leaderboards on www.myresistance.net will be filterable by region, and each territory will retain the ability to make announcements and hold events that are targeted to their players.

IGN:After these next few updates, how much longer do you anticipate supporting Fall of Man with patches, downloads, etc before leaving it as is before focusing on future projects like Ratchet and Clank?
Ellis: Growing to support more than one franchise simultaneously has been part of Insomniac’s long-term plan, and we are effectively doing that now with both Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet & Clank Future Tools of Destruction. We are totally committed to growing the Resistance universe for the long-term, and keeping the online experience fun for our players. It will always be a priority for us to ensure that Insomniac’s games are a great online experience long after we ship.

Price is finally asked if they’re already working on Resistance 2 since Resistance: Fall of Man is a part of a bigger story. He says that Insomniac has neither confirmed or denied it, which we can probably interpret as that they’re doing a sequel if sales numbers from the first part allow them to. Price wants to add that they’re putting tremendous support behind the game and there’s a ton of fun stuff heading our way.

Thanks to nofear360 for submitting this news.