EA Montreal, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced an all-new campaign map pack called ‘Chapters of Deceit’ for the third-person co-op shooter ARMY OF TWO(TM): THE 40th DAY. Available for download on Xbox LIVE(TM) and the PlayStation(R)Network on April 1, 2010 for $9.99 or 800 Xbox LIVE points, players will return to war-torn Shanghai where they will encounter more destruction, more devastation and enemies determined to bring the city to the brink of ruin.

ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY – Chapters of Deceit features two all-new co-op campaign maps. In the new chapters, players stumble upon information that could lead to ending the invasion by Jonah and his 40th Day Initiative army. However, they quickly learn that everyone is out for themselves and to trust no one but their partner.

In ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY, players have to work together to escape Shanghai as it falls under attack. The game boasts a robust playbook of co-op moves with one of the most extensive and varied weapon customization systems ever found in an action/shooter game. Players can mix and match weapon parts and execute strategic two-man tactics that create a one-of-a-kind co-op action experience.

ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY is rated "M" by the ESRB and available for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, the PlayStation(R)3 computer entertainment system, and the PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable). Gamers can also download a demo of the game now on PlayStation(R)Network and Xbox LIVE(TM) Marketplace. For more information on ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY please visit: www.armyoftwo.com. For more information on EA Montreal, please visit www.eamontreal.com or www.ea.com. Or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Army_Of_Two.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA^TM, EA SPORTS^TM, EA Mobile^TM and POGO^TM. In fiscal 2009, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $4.2 billion and had 31 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA’s homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA Mobile, POGO and Army of Two are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. "PlayStation" and "PSP" are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

What was your role on Army of Two: The 40th Day (AO2 TFD)?

On AO2 TFD, I took on the role of senior sound designer and started a few months after production was under way, for a period of 10 months.

My role consisted of creating the disaster and destruction sequences, supervising audio for the in-game narrative scripted events, as well as producing audio for context sensitive interactive actions, HUD and front end menus. Lots of sounds, lots of mixes and of course, a bit of ‘running against the clock’. Destruction elements were definitely a ’blast’ to do.

There was also a fair amount of collaborative effort throughout the project, mostly with Francois Lafleur, senior sound designer on the ambience part of the game, Tobias Paice on the Front end and technical integration aspect on the interactive audio design part, and Lewis James, audio director.

How did you get started in the industry? Did you go to a game audio school or just started out as a musician?

I actually started out as a guitarist about 25 years ago. Music was my first ‘affair’ with audio. The ways we could easily shape the sound of electric guitars got me hooked. It was ‘lust’ at first sight.

My first introduction to audio engineering was through a Radio-broadcasting school though. After graduation, I started my own company and built a home recording studio, and has been my creative playground during my 20’s, both musically and technically. But when Digital technology started invading the market, I went on to follow another audio engineering program, in Toronto, to get better digital audio knowledge. Then I went on in sound post-production for the next 5 years for a studio in Ottawa (Sound Venture Productions), working mostly on cartoons and television series as a sound designer and mixer.

In 2002, I got an  amazing opportunity to do audio engineering for a video game company based  in Southern California (The Collective). The novelty of video games and a sense of adventure got me to take a shot at it and move to Newport Beach. I didn’t know much about video games at that time, but I was excited to be part of a young and dynamic industry in which I could make a difference. Very idealistic and maybe naïve, but definitely a life changing moment!  In 2004, I came back home and worked for Ubisoft for about 4 years and finally joined EA montreal on February 2009.

What other big projects have you worked on?

Some other big projects I worked on in video games  include Shaun White Snowboarding, Assassin’s Creed, Mark Ecko’s Getting up-Content under pressure and Wrath Unleashed.

Do you have any mentors or are you fan of other popular game audio designers in the industry?

I am a huge fan of the Skywalker Sound team, especially when they’re working on Pixar’s films (Ratatouille, Wall-E, Toy Story…)

It doesn’t matter if it’s the Foley, the sound styles, the VO work, the music spotting or the final mix, they excel in all areas. It’s actually very hard to do great animation sound since you never really have a scratch location sound track to start with. So  it takes more imagination, more precision, more tweaking, and a lot of talent to get to that level of perfection.

And of course, for mentoring, I have to say the audio fellows I work with everyday. The AO2 audio team include some of the most talented people I got to collaborate with. Whenever I need a solid critic or good advice, I know I have around me guys who can provide the best feedback.

How many people were working on audio on AO2 TFD?

We had a core team of 6-8 people during most of the production but the size of the team peaked at 14 during the Alpha/Beta phase. We had sound designers, voice designers, integrators, audio programmers and one audio tester. I have never worked with that many people on an audio team before and it was great! Can’t wait to start over again!

What is your favorite sound effect in AO2 TFD?

I am biased on this question actually. My favorite sounds on AO2 are the destruction sounds, of course. I like the guns, the bullets, the surrounding ambiences but the real payoff for me is to hear the tearing sound of a falling building or an airplane about to crash meters away from you. It keeps you on your toes and makes you mind your surroundings!

Were the foley sounds created in-house, were they contracted out or from a library?

Foley recording sessions were all outsourced.

We did a few Foley sessions, one in the US with Foley artist Col Anderson of CA Sound, for the in-game sounds and another one here in Montreal, at Cinegroupe with Foley artist Nicolas Gagnon and recordist Dan Bison, this time to cover all of the in-game scripted events.

EA audio designers world-wide  also got together in December 2008, to do what is known today as the Guinness world record of the ‘most microphones used’ for a location recording shoot. Over 80 microphones were used to record EA’s biggest outdoor gun shooting session! Yes EA’s got guns!

What computer tool do you use the most for your audio needs?

We used Audio Kinetic’s WWise audio rendering engine in conjunction with Unreal 3 for AO2 TFD. A great combination of tools and really looking forward to use again!

On the sound designing side, I used a Pro tools HD system on a Mac G5, again, another lethal combination.

What are a few of your favorite game audio web sites?

I recommend Designing Sound. The site is not necessarily aimed only at game audio designers but to all sound designers out there.

Any suggestions for people wanting to get into the game audio industry? schools, instruments to learn, how to send a demo reel?

Be passionate about audio. It’s more of a vocation than a job for anyone who succeeds in it so it should not be any different for anyone who wants in. It’s quite a tough environment and it requires both strong technical and creative skills so I’d say spend as much time as possible recording audio, designing sounds  and mastering the tools before getting in the game audio business. Make sure you create a ‘straight-to-the-point demo reel too! I also think school is a must but I would say you have to choose wisely nowadays. If I had to go back to school today, I would definitely look at a programming and/or game & level design certificate to complement my audio knowledge.

Thanks Alain for your time and rock on!

Do you have any questions for Alain? Have you ever worked with him? Let us know in the comments.

How to win? You might be randomly chosen if you:

• Follow us on Twitter and retweet this post

• Become a Facebook fan and share with your friends

• Must live in Montreal

We will announce the winner by the end of the week. Good luck!

Update: Congratulations to @airdom (on Twitter) on winning a copy of Army of Two: The 40th Day! Thanks to everyone for the retweets!

Army of Two: The 40th Day, the sequel to the 2008 hit is now available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PSP. Get it today on Amazon.com.

Come back this week, we’ll have an interview with a dev team member and a contest to win a copy of the game.

Here’s the launch trailer from GameTrailers:

Update: And the review from GameTrailers:

EA is "absolutely" committed to the Army of Two franchise, the game’s producer has told CVG.

When asked in our just-published Army of Two: 40th Day interview, EA Montreal’s Matt Turner replied: "Yeah, absolutely and that’s great for us because we’re really excited.

"The original didn’t do that well critically but it did quite well sales-wise, so that was a big thing for EA. We’ve got two great characters and an interesting world to tell videogame stories.

"We also have a talented and experienced team at Montreal that’s been able to grow and learn from our first game in a huge way. Those things together, for the big-wigs at EA, is a win-win situation," he added.

Read the full interview at CVG.

Before heading up to Montreal for the Army of Two: The 40th Day event, we made a post on our boards asking for any questions our community might have for the game’s developers.  Today, we provide the answers to those questions that didn’t quite fit into our interview with Eric Chartrand or weren’t covered by our impressions of the Extraction and multiplayer modes.

Q: Since the "boss" enemies have been removed (that’s still the case right?), what can we expect for more intense segments of the game?

A: I had a partial answer to this particular question based on what we played at PAX, but got the full details at this event.  Spenser Norrish, the Army of Two: The 40th Day Community Coordinator, told me that there are no “boss” type enemies per se, however, the bigger, badder enemies (such as the grenade launcher guy) that you encounter do fill the spot of the bosses.  These encounters really depend on solid teamwork between players as many of them have some kind of trick for players to work out of how to beat them.  Spenser also informed me that as the game progresses, you encounter these enemies on a more regular basis, leading to some pretty intense battles for Salem and Rios.

Read the rest at Co-Optimus.

Here is an awersome trailer from GameTrailers:

When EA Montreal released Army of Two in March 2008 it received very different receptions in the US and Europe. America accepted the tone of the game – macho, crude, in-your-face – while Europe snubbed it, put off by the frat-boy humour and trash talk. Aware that cutting off half of the audience isn’t a wise move in a time when hardcore gaming is becoming a niche, next year’s sequel, Army of Two: The 40th Day , is EA Montreal’s attempt to make the core game more appealing without dumbing down the experience to pander to a wider audience.

GamesIndustry.biz recently got the opportunity to catch up with executive producer at EA Montreal Reid Schneider, to discuss the sequel, how hardcore games need to evolve to remain relevant in a changing market, and how game developers can benefit from looking for new inspiration in different media.

Q: You talk at the Montreal International Game Summit last month was about bringing in new audiences to games without sacrificing hardcore sensibilities. Can you expand on that, and how that relates to your work at EA Montreal?

Reid Schneider: Really what I wanted to talk about was our approach to making games. The market is expanding with more casual players coming up, so we’re starting to see a decline in terms of hardcore sales based on NPD data. So as developers, how do we think about making games that our customers want? The people I always look to are Valve, who I think are brilliant at it. Valve is super smart about it. When you hear them speak it’s about connecting with their customers and making games that are focused on the customers and making a better experience for your audience. One of the things I’m trying to look at now with our team is that when we’re building games and deciding what the features are going to be we’ve got to make sure that we make games that are really audience-focused. Because games are changing. I talk to Clint Hocking (creative director at Ubisoft Montreal) a lot and what he says is when Ubisoft started development on Far Cry 2 in 2003 tastes were really different. If you think about what’s successful now and what was successful in 2003 before the market changed. It’s incumbent on us a lot, whether you’re a developer or a journalist, you’ve got to think about where game are going and how they connect with the audience in a deep and meaningful way.

[…]

Read the rest of the interview.

EA Montreal General Manager Alain Tascan has told us that EA Montreal — as part of the EA Games label — is to refocus the studio on "action titles and HD-quality products" compared to its recent history of Wii titles such as Boogie Superstar and Skate It .

It’s more evidence of the restructuring plan EA announced with its recent decision to make 1500 layoffs and purchase of Playfish.

"The Wii market is a little bit unpredictable these days," said Tascan, "We’re going to see how Christmas is going to do and while with the Wii we have had very successful titles, we are going to focus on big, blockbuster-type titles. It doesn’t mean that we are going to abandon the Wii, but as a studio we want to be ready for new challenges."

Army of Two — an Xbox 360 and PS3 title developed at EA Montreal which is to be joined by sequel The 40th Day in January — is reportedly one of the driving factors for this change, as "the most successful original IP EA has had in the last few years" according to Tascan, arguing that EA as a whole isn’t turning away from big-budget titles but "adjusting their direction."