GameSpy: Some MMO developers feel that story is critical to pulling players into the game, others feel you only need enough story to set the stage and then players can develop their own content. How important is the story to Auto Assault?

Ryan Seabury: Very. We have over 1000-plus pages of internal back story that frame the Auto Assault universe, separate from the game's actual content. For fun, let me try to condense that into 50 words or less.

Hmm. Aliens crash, Contamination spreads. Mutants arise and rebel, kept in check by Biomechanical Raiders. Urban chaos and societal breakdown. Shadow governments unleash a Final Solution: Nukes. Chemicals. Biologicals. "Important" Humans go underground. Fast forward a couple hundred years. Post-Apocalypse, armed vehicles rule the road. Humans emerge from hiding. Go!

Obviously that doesn't do justice to the entire back story and all the factions and groups that arise from it, but you get the idea.