We have just a few more weeks left before we finally get our hands on Konami Digital Entertainment's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and the home stretch of the waiting period is killing us. To keep you preoccupied, we decided to feature some of the key characters of the game on a weekly basis to freshen our memories on their roles in the series. This week, we'll shed some light on the mysterious Patriots.

Are you familiar with the logo above? In case you haven't heard yet, that is the new name of development studio Kuju Sheffield. The group decided to change its image in preparation for its specialization in Epic's Unreal Engine 3 and creation of World War I video game title To End All Wars for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Aside from sporting a new name, the development studio recently moved to new premises in central Sheffield as part of its aggressive strategy to expand. Chemistry Studio Head Simeon Pashley commented:

We've decided to specialize in Unreal Engine as it's clearly an awesome next-gen toolset that frees our staff to focus on bringing their creative talents to bear without worrying about the low-level nuts and bolts. It's also perfect for our future plans as it allows us to look forward without worrying about technology stability.

Speaking about future plans, there is still no information known about To End All Wars except that it will be published by UK-based company Ghostlight and fans will get in sometime in 2008. Aside from this, Chemistry also mentioned that it is currently developing a still-t-be-announced title.

For sure. When Microsoft seemed bent to advocate Live Anywhere to game developers in order to connect console thumb-flippers to PC twitchers on what might have been the modern gamer's World War I, they probably didn't expect to be stopped dead cold by Infinity Ward's two-lettered dumb-founder: "No." Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ain't going Live, says Infinity, and that's that.

 

But Infinity Ward's Grant Collier did reveal in an interview with IGN that CoD4 (for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) was not going to be a sandbox destructive game. Instead, they've put more focus on producing better frame rates on the game than creating a world that's "totally destructible."

And according to Collier, full destructibility is just another fad in the shooting genre that could end sooner than later. While everyone is else is requesting for such a feature, Infinity Ward doesn't feel that it delivers fun in any of the games that are being designed with that concept in mind, like EA's Battlefield Bad Company. He added:

I think it's a buzzword, it's a badge, it's a bullet-point option, but a lot of games they get in there and they try to do that and then they're like 'okay we have the sandbox, now why don't we try to make the game fun'. And total destructibility, you can really ruin the gameplay. ... So I think right now it's a fad, and the fad will pass, we're not going to be bite on in it - we want the game to be fun first, and destructibility comes second.

Oh and Price is coming back. Again. Revived for the modern era, the lovable Brit is going to get new shoes to fill, with arch-nemesis Zakhaev. Collier said that a foiled assassination attempt has your paths cross with Zakhaev and Price and much of their history gets revealed through flashbacks set in Ukraine.

And even though facts have been tossed around that Call of Duty 4 was set in present-day Iraq, it actually revolves around conflict touching the four corners of the modern world. And enemies aren't under-equipped, cowardly Guerrilla types; they've got the technology and the tactics to take you and your band of brothers (circa 2007) out.