Zero Point Software have released the second co-op campaign map for their game, Interstellar Marines, earlier today, thereby significantly expanding the co-op offerings of the game. The new scenario tasks players with using stealth gameplay as they face off against an unscripted AI; players need to infiltrate the heavily defended Starcrown Aerospace industrial-military base to retrieve vital research data.

Speaking about the new update, Zero Point Software said,

“Our first co-op campaign map propelled players into the Interstellar Marines universe. We want the Assault on Starcrown Aerospace mission to expand on that, grabbing players’ interest and immersing them ever more in their role as an Interstellar Marine.

“Starcrown is all about stealth – using your brain, not just your trigger finger – to secretly and surgically infiltrate an industrial research base. As an Interstellar Marine you do not know what the research is you’re after, but I can tell you it has profound implications for co-op missions we will release in the future”

Be sure to download it, and let us know what you think!

So far 2,810 backers have pledged $85,411 of the $600,000 goal in the past six days. With 21 days left to go, it shouldn’t be too hard for Zero Point to hit it’s goal. Considering the talent on display, which includes sci-fi author Jacob Smith, and Terri Brosius who voiced the legendary rogue AI SHODAN in System Shock 2.

Even though, “$600,000 is a lot of money” the team feels that with their security, they will “be able to take Prologue from its current prototype stage to the finished game, while offering you a unique chance to join us in the Open Door Development. It’s a recipe we’ve been fine-tuning for years so rest assured that we will spend every dollar wisely on building the best game humanly possible, in collaboration with you!”

Interstellar Marines has reached over 67,000 registered/premium members. The official press release is below:

The world’s first truly independent AAA first-person shooter, Interstellar Marines continues to make progress in 2011. Since the mass release of Running Man and our holiday special, thousands of new users have signed up to take part in a dream to publish a game free of the shackles of big corporate developers.

So far three games have been made available online, and are playable in a browser on their community website www.interstellarmarines.com: An interactive 3D tour called The Vault featuring several of Interstellar Marines’ characters; the advanced shooting range Bullseye where players test their skills against various targets aboard the military space shuttle AIV Kitty Hawk; and finally Running Man, a true first-person action experience where players face an onslaught of combat robots while training to become an elite marine.

To celebrate this new milestone, the team at Zero Point Software has lovingly assembled a new video that explains the concept of Interstellar Marines and AAA Indie development to all newcomers, along with a selection of screenshots to enjoy for fans anxiously awaiting the next big release.

GB: Interstellar Marines is being developed in a unique and highly interactive way, making use of web browser playable ‘chapters’- how did you come up with such an original idea?

Early 2009 we’d just finished pre-production on Unreal Engine 3, with a publisher demo and a small competitive multiplayer in place. The idea was to share this content with our community on InterstellarMarines.com and introduce our crowd-sourcing business model in the process (Game developer funded by its community).

Everything was good until we asked Epic Games to kindly structure a license model where we would pay off the engine license fee with revenue generated on InterstellarMarines.com instead of committing to paying the traditional million dollar upfront engine license. Epic Games respectively refused and referred to us being on an evaluation license without the privileges to show anything publicly forcing us to look around for an alternative game engine to build Interstellar Marines on, because we could not afford the Unreal Engine. (Epic released the UE3 UDK 8 months later, good for others but too late for us)

Our eyes quickly turned to Unity because one of our team members had worked with it before and recommended its potential. We instantly fell in love with Unity’s power to deliver high quality game content on a web page, its PC & Mac platform compatibility, the fact that the technology will be available for consoles in the future etc.

Unity became an obvious choice as technology platform for building Interstellar Marines moving forward. In the end Unity allows us to sell Interstellar Marines the exact same place people play it, in their browsers on InterstellarMarines.com.

GB: How much of a reflection on the finished game do you find your latest chapter, Running Man, to be?

Fantastic question. Running Man was the natural step for moving forward with building the core features of Interstellar Marines from the inside out. Its no secret that it’s our ambition to create one of the most immersive game experiences ever made so we immediately turned our attention on nailing the basic feel of looking out the eyes of the character. It was important to introduce simple immersion features such as the helmet, body, movement and weapon handling as well as establishing the environment and gameplay to support the immersion in fun and exciting experiences for the players. In terms of how close we came to the immersion, features and gameplay envisioned for the full game, we still have a long way to go. It feels like we’ve only nailed a fraction of the core features with many more to go, as we move forward with evolving the immersion, movement, weapons and enemy AI needed to blow people away in today’s competitive market.

GB: Interstellar Marines is a sci-fi shooter in a sea of sci-fi shooters. What is going to make consumers purchase your game over others in the same vein?

You mean besides the fact that Interstellar Marines have genetically engineered land sharks in one of the missions? 🙂

Our ambition with Interstellar Marines is to make the most believable and immersive sci-fi first person shooter on the planet. No lasers, no needle guns and no big bulky energy armors. When you play Interstellar Marines, we’ll make you feel like you’re “jacked” into the Matrix and when you “unplug”, you’ll be wiping the blood from your mouth.

Interstellar Marines is inspired by RPG titles such as Deus Ex and System Shock 2 for their focus on story, open ended design and character development. FEAR and Crysis for their focus on character immersion and dynamic combat scenarios. And last but not least our beloved tactical shooters Rainbow Six: Raven Shield and Ghost Recon – Advanced Warfighter for their strict military realism, weapons customization and cooperative gameplay.

Interstellar Marines is about evolving the FPS genre with the ideas and inspirations we’ve collected since the birth of the genre; a kind of evolutionary step forward driven by our compulsive interest for science fiction, role-playing, military realism, immersion, cooperative multiplayer and a great unpredictable story.

GB: Zero Point Software is currently pioneering the idea of ‘AAA Indie’- games made by the gamer, for the gamer, and funded by the gamer. But why did you decide to take the more risky approach of indie development instead of finding a big name publisher?

We’re way too humble to take credit for pioneering the crowd-sourced development model, we just believe there is a future where games are made and sold directly between developers and gamers. Fortunately we are not alone. There are several other great indie projects already stirring up the industry, like for example Unknown Worlds with their Natural Selection games and Wolfire Games with their Overgrowth.

GB: What might the other chapters to come contain?

We are planning to release our competitive multiplayer as soon as humanly possible and over time expand and iterate on it to provide more and more value and gameplay for our community to enjoy. The idea is to get people playing early on so we can collect valuable feedback and suggestions because although we have a very clear vision for Interstellar Marines we still believe we can make the game so much more fun and balanced if we take the time to iterate the gameplay with our community.

GB: The chapters themselves, despite being free and web playable, are quite simply the most stunning first person shooters I have ever played from the comfort of my browser. How did you go about creating them?

We had to come up with a lot of tech to lift our ambitions for Running Man and although Bullseye was and still is a textbook game design example (points, stars ratings and achievements), Running Man eats Bullseye for breakfast when it comes to tech features. In Running Man we had to integrate path finding for the training robots, develop rag-doll for both the FPS character and the robots, nail at least the basic movement scheme while staying true to our ambitions for immersion. We ended up creating an advanced reverb volume playback system, audio occlusion and a simple but effective breath system to enhance the immersion of the character. We even created a level streaming system from the ground up with the functionality to stream and align levels dynamically including lightmaps and the list just goes on and on. The best thing about all this is that it makes moving forward with multiplayer and coop so much more interesting, now we have given Unity a proper run for its money.

GB: How can fans support the development of Interstellar Marines?

The fact is that by reading this interview you’re already supporting the development in some sense and with further engagement into spreading and hyping the word things can move really fast. This is all about reminding you that you’re not just passive mindless consumers, but individuals with the power to bring games to the market.

GB: Will the game see a release on the consoles?

We’ll be right where the gamers want us to be, we just need enough support then everything is possible.

GB: When is the game expected to be released?

That’s impossible for us to say at the moment, but with our open door development strategy you’re at least sure to get lots of fun and exciting gameplay experiences while waiting.

GB: Any further comments regarding Interstellar Marines?

We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for our dedicated fans and their support. We’re completely blown away by the commitment and trust they’ve shown us and although those that have purchased upgrades to their accounts will always hold a special place in our hearts, it’s not just them that are helping us out. It’s every user and every visitor that helps give credibility to us and Interstellar Marines.

We thank the team at Zero Point Software and especially Kim Jørgensen for giving us a chance to interview them.

Zero Point Software invites gamers from all over the world to get immersed even deeper into the story, world and gameplay of the Interstellar Marines games, currently in development.

In Running Man players take part of a select group of Special Forces secretly being trained as first line of defense against other sentient species. Deep inside an underground military facility and under the supervision of Drill-Sergeant Barry, players will engage in a series of grueling training programs and fight high-tech Combat Training Robots specially designed for fast paced close quarter combat training.

“In our previous slice, Bullseye, players were confined to a small military shooting range filled with simple cardboard targets. This time players will experience complete freedom of movement and they will need to move fast to survive the waves of charging Training Robots. At the same time Running Man sets a series of events in motion, that eventually will lead to the revelation of the back story of the Interstellar Marines trilogy”, says Kim Haar Jørgensen, Game Director, Zero Point Software.

The developers of Interstellar Marines, a game we heard about , back in 2006, have revealed a new trailer. The Photo Session shows off the games universe, but what went into creating it? In this behind-the-scenes feature the developers invite you in to discover the reasonings and history behind it. And you get to see the games illustrious leader curse like a sailor.

The game is due for the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 this year. Stay tuned for further details.