Ex-SEAL enlists for new action-adventure game

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 30, 2006 by Joe Bacchus

After serving two tours in Vietnam and founding two U.S. Navy SEAL counter-terrorism units, Richard Marcinko has been tapped by Bethesda Softworks LLC to bring authenticity to an upcoming action- adventure game.

"Rogue Warrior" will follow a SEAL team as it tries to survive behind enemy lines after it is caught in the middle of a war between North and South Korea. The Rockville-based Bethesda Softworks will develop the game along with Seattle-based Zombie Inc.

Pete Hines, spokesman for Bethesda Softworks, said much of the game's envisioned success will depend on the "authority and expertise" that Marcinko collected over his 30-year career as a SEAL commander.

Marcinko has translated that military career into a successful second career as an author and military expert. He wrote an autobiography, entitled "Rogue Warrior," which topped The New York Times best-seller list, according to publisher Simon & Schuster. He also has a line of Rogue Warrior adventure novels based on his time in the military and heads two companies, Richard Marcinko Inc. and SOS Temps Inc., which specializes in team-building exercises for companies such as General Motors Corp. and BellSouth Corp.

Marcinko said he was excited to be working with Bethesda Softworks, especially because as a resident of Northern Virginia, he can easily spend as much time as needed with the company's development team.

"They've been after me for years to do a game and we finally consummated it," Marcinko said.

Marcinko said he has also already spent extensive time in Seattle working closely with the engineers at Zombie, teaching them everything he knows about being a SEAL to make the game as realistic as possible.

Hines said Bethesda Softworks previously had success with the first-person shooter genre, which allows gamers to see and interact with digital worlds as if they were standing in a character's place, with a game based on the Terminator series of films. "Rogue Warrior" will be its entry back into the genre after focusing on role- playing games.

The company is perhaps best known for "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion," a role-playing game that won numerous industry awards and was at one point the top-selling computer and Xbox 360 game in North America.

Hines said the company hopes "Rogue Warrior" can achieve similar success.

"Certainly that's an awfully lofty goal," Hines said. "But, we didn't get into this to be mediocre."

Bethesda Softworks has been working on the game for about a year and expects a release date some time in late 2007. The game will be available for the PC as well as the next-generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gaming consoles.

Joe Shapiro, spokesman for the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, said he was not surprised to learn of a potentially lucrative partnership coming out of one of the county's technology companies. He said the Interstate 270 corridor, which stretches north from Bethesda, is known for its technology assets.

"It has been, and continues to be, the heart of our biotech and advanced technology business," Shapiro said. "We're very proud of the talent and the quality of companies we have here."