Five developers – One hugely successful game. I am of course talking about the viral sensation that is called Frontlines, a Roblox title that has been praised for its smooth gameplay, well-designed maps, and its similarity to Call of Duty.
After its initial release on February 22, the game has amassed a huge player base and has seen popular content creators like JackFrags praise the game for how well done it actually is. Recently, I had the chance to sit down and talk with the game’s Creative Director, Maximillian, and the four developers to ask where they want to take Frontlines and what the game has meant for the Roblox platform as a whole.
First of all – Congratulations on the success of the game. I’ve put a good few hours into it now and think it’s brilliant. That said, were you expecting Frontlines to be as successful as it currently is?
“When we started Frontlines back in 2019, our goal was to elevate the kinds of experience you get on Roblox. We wanted a game that inherits the same qualities as those you’d see in the larger industry to grab the respect and attention from people who didn’t come from the Roblox community. When we released on February 22, we were already getting the attention within the local community, but we did not expect it to reach out to the likes of Jackfrags and Futives within such a short period of time.”
Something that I’m sure is on a lot of people’s minds is how are you going to continue with the success? What does your pipeline of content look like and dare I say it, are you planning something like a Battle Royale experience?
“From the surge of attention that we got, we are looking to push out a significant amount of content, including more weapons, skins, maps, features, and gamemodes. We’re also planning to use the Frontlines framework to expand out to a separate 5v5 objective-based game and create a more cinematic, movie-like experience. Our goal is to not only make a fun FPS, but also make this into a memorable and timeless experience that will inspire a new wave of creators.”
I’ve seen some prototype footage of mobile gameplay dating back from last year, is this something you’re still working on?
“Mobile and console are currently supported by Frontlines. This is something major we’ve been pushing for, especially since we want Frontlines to be accessible by anyone, anywhere. However, mobile and console are fairly limited at the moment, and we are currently working on enhancing the gameplay experience through improved controls, UI usability, and mobile and Xbox-only servers.”
The game has been described as “the Call of Duty we all wanted” and as a Call of Duty gamer myself, I need to ask if there are plans to add the likes of killstreaks or perks into the game?
“Killstreaks are on our list, but we want to come up with a good way of doing it before announcing the feature.”
“Battle Royale and PVE are also on our list, but we want to make sure the base game is solid first before starting new projects. We’re currently a 5 man team, so we’ve got to be really strategic with our time and priorities. Once we grow, there’ll definitely be a lot of opportunities to expand the game at a faster pace.”
If it’s not too sensitive, can I ask how many players have played Frontlines so far? Or any form of stats like games played, sessions played etc?
“Since release, Frontlines has had approximately 5.1 million sessions played. On average, we have about 200,000 daily active players, with a range of 3000 – 6000 concurrent users at any given time.”
Frontlines is vastly different from what most people consider a typical Roblox game, do you think Frontlines has shown the potential for more games moving forward?
“Frontlines as a whole is a stepping-stone game for us. We have a much larger vision for our next projects that are not limited to FPS games, and our goal is to band together the best developers in the world to make lasting experiences that will help push gaming into the same respectable merits as the rest of the entertainment industry.”
“We want video games and interactive entertainment to be as accessible, respectable, and culturally impactful just like the best movies and music.”
“As a whole, we think the community is very important. In the end, it’s all about people. And we want to give people the best possible experience of their lives, hoping that they can take notes from what we did and make even better experiences of their own for the world.”
As someone who’s adored first-person shooters since I could pick up a controller, Frontlines is a great game. Not only has Frontlines changed the perception of Roblox as a platform and what it’s capable of, but I hope it’s a catalyst in showing gamers that Indie games are generally the best games to have fun on.
If you’re an Indie developer and you’d like to be a part of The Indie Initiative, check out how you can get involved here.
