After announcing earlier this month that the cult-classic cyberpunk game Syndicate is getting a reboot, EA has revealed that it may be coming sooner than expected at a recent media event in Las Vegas. Syndicate (2012) is only five months away and will be released February 21, 2012 in North America and February 24, 2012 in Europe. While we're still a bit baffled by how this modern FPS is going to relate
Watch the Xbox E3 conference right here at 9:30 AM Pacific
E3 week begins this morning at 9:30 AM Pacific with Microsoft's Xbox event in Los Angeles, where the company is expected to talk up its lineup of video games and hardware for the year ahead.
We've embedded a video player above that's tuned to Microsoft's Twitch livestream of its event, so you can watch the show along with us -- from the comfort of your browser.
From AAA to academia: What industry veterans have learned
Many veteran games designers have recently joined the world of teaching, and more can be expected to do so.
Many veteran games designers have recently joined the world of teaching, and more can be expected to do so. Prominent examples include University of Southern California's Richard Lemarchand, Warren Spector of the University of Texas at Austin, and industry power couple Brenda and John Romero, who both teach at UC Santa Cruz.
At GDC, the four got together on a panel to talk about what they've learned from teaching, the ways it's challenged them -- and the exciting opportunity to be closer to the kind of design work they most love.
Before Spector got into games, he figured he was on track to become a teacher. "It's a long, sordid story about why I ended up making games instead... but I always thought I would teach at some point," he says. "I just didn't think it would happen so soon -- it either kills you or keeps you young, making games," says the 30 year industry veteran.
Richard Lemarchand, formerly of Naughty Dog, longed to rejoin higher education ever since he graduated. He began volunteering at USC in 2004 and mentoring MFA students. Throughout all that time, he found himself drawn to teaching.
Then, one day, "I was ironing a shirt in [New York University's] Eric Zimmerman's hotel room, and I had the sudden realization that I was heading toward a crossroads in my professional life," he says.
"While I'd had the most amazing time working at Naughty Dog... I had this opportunity to pursue the love for games and play as art and culture that I always nurtured ever since the beginning of my time in games."
As a full-time game developer Brenda Romero recalls feeling envy for people who were able to continue taking classes and learn. "As a frontline lead designer, I envied my friends, the books that had been written that I had no time to read, or discussions about games at a level that we just couldn't do when we were trying to hit milestone after milestone," she says.
Working with students became an irresistible draw for her. Her favorite classes to teach are introductions to game development. "They've been told all their lives, 'you want to do what? You want to go to college for that?' And for them to see someone in the classroom who for the first time [is validating] that? ...That's a drug to me."
Her husband John Romero was invited to teach a class at UT Dallas in 2002 for a semester -- a cross-platform game development class. Afterward, he was invited to help conceive and hire staff for The Guildhall at SMU. "I needed to hire people at my company, and I wanted them to come from Dallas," he says.
Now he and Brenda work on the Santa Cruz's design education program together. "It's really fun," he says.
Brenda Romero says the "degree wall" holds a lot of people back -- developers who want to move into academia often are inhibited because they don't have certain advanced degrees, but that's changing. "I've noticed institutions willing to work with people who don't have the terminal degree," she says.
The salary difference between an in-demand coder and teacher can come as a shock, she suggests. But supplementing the income with consulting and other projects can help ameliorate the income drop-off for those who are worried about the difference.
There has definitely been some anxiety associated with the transition for the veteran designers. When it comes to the anxiety about trying something new, Lemarchand says it took courage: "I like to push myself, and try to be the kind of adventurous person I can be in the kinds of games I love to play," he says.
Adds Spector: "I never realized how much of my personal sense of self was tied up with 'I am a game developer.' Now, what do I put on credit card applications?" Says Spector. "That's been a surprisingly steep hurdle that I'm not actually over yet."
Learning a new profession can be challenging. Even though there are commonalities between teaching game design and doing it, there is a lot to learn when becoming a teacher, Lemarchand says.
Brenda Romero had fears before starting her new work as well -- "what if I don't know anything," she jokes. "But after 20 years in game development, one would have hoped I'd picked up something. It was all new to me, preparing lectures and giving homework, but it was still very rewarding."
Systems thinking helps, she adds: "I'm shipping students," she jokes.
Lemarchand has been pleasantly surprised by the commonalities between building a curriculum and a student experience and building a game. "We're developing systems and processes, and we get to iterate on them semester after semester." Spector tells his students on day one that they're "in beta" -- in six months, everything you know and teach could change.
"In a medium that changes so rapidly, I think recent experience is critical," says Spector. For example, he's trying to hire designers who have worked in games within the last three years.
Experience is more crucial than perceived expertise, the veterans agree. "If I'm working with somebody in industry, I want my lead to have lots of experience not because I feel she has done great things during that time, but with lots of experience I know she has seen things go wrong," Brenda Romero explains. "The value in a lead, to me is that she's seen things go off the rails, can spot it a mile away and is not going to panic about it."
"Our students just hit alpha... and just letting them know that somehow alpha will happen, and the world will not catch on fire and you're going to be thrilled when you get there... not that when we're shipping, we don't feel the same way," she adds.
We try to bring the structured methodology for our students that we've learned in the industry, that we had to struggle to get to grips with," says Lemarchand. "I think it's really valuable to make yourself vulnerable to the students -- 'let me tell you about this one time, on this one project, where we managed to pull it out of the fire at the last minute.'"
"Freedom to fail is critical," says Spector. In the industry, if you fail too much, you get fired. In education, "I actually want to engineer failure into the program, because every failure is a learning opportunity, and it's safe."
"In a way a big failure is a better learning experience than a big success, when you're just starting game development," Lemarchand agrees.
Romero says pushing innovation constantly is a high bar for students to hit. "They hit the failure point they recognized, and then they get to fix it -- in crunch mode," he says. He also says it's important for students to learn about IP ownership and similar elements of the industry before they enter it and before mistakes would do harm.
The educators are studying the role of crunch in the academic environment. It's a tragedy that crunch causes people such harm to work life balance, because it drives talent out of the industry, in Lemarchand's view.
Even though the industry has been trying to address its quality of life problems, "we have the opportunity as educators to have really frank conversations about this," Lemarchand says. "I'm a fan of working hard in a sustained way to achieve excellence at a certain critical stage of the project, but I work to encourage people not to 'crunch', to their detriment."
Brenda Romero's thoughts on crunch are conflicted. She works with, reads about, talks about, plays and works on games from nearly the moment she wakes up til the moment she goes to bed. "This is my life, and this is quality for me," she says. "I also recognize that's not for everybody."
"There are times when crunch is really cool," Spector agrees. "It's bonding and it's energizing... and there are times when it's not. What we have to do is communicate to our students when it's too much, why you want to do it, the values and the damages. The University of Texas shuts its buildings down after 11 o'clock at night. You're not allowed in the building, and I'm like, 'wow, that's so not like game development.'"
"Everyone will take their laptops outside, then," John Romero laughs.
"That'll happen," Spector agrees.
Helping teach about scope is an important role for educators, Lemarchand says, so that students don't over-scope and then internalize the idea they'll have to work to escalating degrees to try to pull their project off in time.
"I try to make sure I work really hard at the beginning of the project, with my students, to make sure that their projects are well-scoped," Lemarchand says.
Developers as a community will need to work together to learn and establish best practices for education, the designers agree. They agree on some advice from their experience: "Just because you are a game developer doesn't mean you have the foggiest idea how to captivate a room full of people," Romero says. And having to actually change someone's life by telling them they've failed a course is an enormous task she sometimes struggles with. "I wished there'd been a boot camp for... working with students," she reflects.
"If you're thinking about it, start now on getting your resume and background together," Brenda Romero continues. "If you're preparing a 'I'm heading into academia' CV, that's a massive deal. If you don't have [a bachelor's or a masters] you will have to justify all of your experience on paper."
"If you're thinking about it, I would do it," Brenda adds. "I love working with students so much... and I have the freedom to pursue projects that nobody in their right mind would ever publish, and I'm working with students who are so incredibly excited... the happiness that I saw among them was enough to power me through GDC."
"You may have heard teachers say 'the students make this experience so meaningful,' but it's absolutely true," Lemarchand adds. "The energy and enthusiasm of the people we teach is the most sustaining thing."
Institutions who are interested in hiring high level game designers and prepare the situation for success can do their best to remove bureaucracy ("and I thought Disney had a lot of bureaucracy," Spector jokes. "Whew!"). John Romero says professors need to be able to work on the side, and UCSC allows students to own the IP they create in school so they can publish it afterward.
Lemarchand says universities have an amazing opportunity to attract veteran talent who might be longing to have a space to create, experiment and discuss. "I'm working on an independent design research project right now -- and doing things I always tried to get started when I was working as a full-time professional AAA developer that I just couldn't do, because my mind was full of whatever I was working on."
"But being in education is like being at GDC every day... that's a freedom we have in the academy."
App Store Update: October 29 – ‘Yushino’, ‘Buddha Finger’, + More
With hundreds of new apps making their debut, being updated, or dropping in price on the App Store everyday, it can be hard to keep up with the latest mobile indie games.
With hundreds of new apps making their debut, being updated, or dropping in price on the App Store everyday, it can be hard to keep up with the latest mobile indie games. We’ve sorted through them so you don’t have to. Here’s the latest in mobile indie games on iOS.
New Releases
Buddha Finger – ()
Part twitch action and part beat ‘em up, challenge your reflexes as you use an ancient kung-fu pressure point attack to tap, touch, swipe and spin your way to victory.
Nun Attack – ()
Days have gone by uncounted since the power-thirsty Fallen Nun has taken over the mortal world, spawning evil all over. In a world where Evil is taking over and prayers are no longer answered, there is only one type of divine intervention left, and it’s armed to death.
Dodonpachi Maximum – ()
A GUINNESS-RECOGNIZED SHOOTER! Beautiful graphics, complete with waves of bullets that fill the screen! Take a ride on EVAC Co.’s maximum bullet-hell simulator, the M.B.S.! Survive an incredible array of bullet-hell weaponry!
Yushino – ( Free)
If you like word games then you will love Yushino! It can be played with non-english speakers too and you do not need to memorize words or have arguments about whether a word is valid or not. Sudoku lovers rejoice! Yushino is a numbers game that can be played with company. Play with your Facebook friends, or start a game with a random person and make new friends!
Price Drops
Anthill – ( Free)
Join the ranks of Anthill, a tactical trail defense game based on the real-world behavior of ants. The award-winning user interface enables you to draw pheromone trails to direct your troops, moving streams of ants rather than individuals.
Muffin Knight – ( Free)
Fertilize the forest with the unicorn, cover the sky with black holes, flood the world with candy, but just get the muffins back! Muffin Knight is an action-packed platformer with stunning visuals and a myriad of fairytale characters, each with their own unique abilities which gain strength as you advance.
Organ Trail: Director’s Cut – ()
Organ Trail is a retro zombie survival game. Travel westward in a station wagon with 4 of your friends, scavenging for supplies and fending off the undead. Members of your party might die of dysentery or you might have to put them down yourself when they get bit.
Dead Space devs to make C&C action game
[ : It seems we misinterpreted the interview, and the new C&C game is actually under development by EALA, and not Viseral Games.
: It seems we misinterpreted the interview, and the new C&C game is actually under development by EALA, and not Viseral Games. EALA are the studio responsible for other recent Command & Conquer games.]
The creators of the space-ship horror game and limb amputation sim, Dead Space, have revealed that they're working on a Command & Conquer game.
General Manager, Nick Earl revealed the fact during an interviewwith Gamasutra. No specifics have been announced just yet, but Earl has confirmed that the game will be "pretty far out". The Command and Conquer strategy games have been in steady decline over the past few years and EA's last attempt at a C&C action game, Tiberium, was canned a couple of years ago. Given Visceral previous game, Dead Space, it seems likely that this will be an action game in a similar vein. Perhaps Visceral's take on the series can give C&C the reboot it sorely needs if it's ever to become a great PC gaming series again.
I'm trying to picture what this game could possibly be like, and all I can think off is Kane stalking some dark corridors with a Plasma Cutter. What do you think? Can an action game set in the Command & Conquer universe work? What would you like to see from a Visceral C&C game?
[via CVG]
Did you know Stockholm used Cities: Skylines for urban planning?
In the trailer above for the movie My Urban Playground, there's a quick discussion of the fact that Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive's wildly successful Cities: Skylines has been used for real-world urban planning -- of a new transportation system in Stockholm, Sweden.
It's part of a larger discussion of how games can interact with real cities, which is the subject of the documentary.
The documentary will have a "sneak peek" this weekend at SXSW in Austin, Texas, which Paradox Interactive is co-sponsoringwith film agency Luckyday.
"It shouldn’t come as a surprise that among our millions of players, we have plenty of architects, urban planners, public officials, and many more people who have found parallels between the game and their professional lives," said Paradox COO Susana Meza Graham in a statement.
If you're not at SXSW, you can follow the movie's official Twitterto find out when you can watch it.
PAX Prime 2013: ‘Contrast’ Impressions
Chris Hayes — part of our PAX Prime 2013 ground team — writes on his impressions of Compulsion Games’ gorgeous game of light, shadow and escapism, Contrast.
When telling a story, much of the experience is all about how you tell it. You would also hold this true to video games, seeing as how the music, ambiance and voice actors hold just as much of an intricate role when designing a game with challenging puzzles combined with a unique and dark tale to go with it.
Contrast is a game set in the 20’s type era about a girl watching at her family crumble apart from her perspective. The thing to take away from this is kids are innocent and as such don’t always understand what it is they truly see. This is the aim of this game in a way as it was explained that they really tried to focus on telling it from the 9 year old’s perspective as to how the relationship of the nonexistent dad and budding burlesque dancer of a mom play out. You guide through the game playing as the girl’s imaginary friend who has the ability to jump between reality and a shadow on the wall in a strange and crazy world. Most who have seen the trailer believe this is a hoot and a holler, but I was left wondering where this journey is going to take me, in the same sense of when you step into rapture after your airplane blew up and taking the bathysphere to Rapture thinking, what the hell have I gotten myself into.
One of the questions that Compulsion’s Sam Abbott could not wait to ask me after a rousing original song from a shadowy burlesque show was, “What did you think of the voice acting?” The reason being is this game is all about the story as it is about the unique game play. Sam made sure before I entered a burlesque house to stop my character and keep walking down the road only for me to see roads that curled down into nowhere and floating umbrellas and tables. I was only left to take this to interpretation, but was happy to do so as I got the sense that this game is all about finding the nuances and spotting the aspects of the story.
I know I am going on and on as if I had played the game, but in reality I stopped right after the first area because I wanted to wait for the game to come out so I could take it all in at once. The final thing that blew me away with this game was seeing how phenomenal it looked on the PS4. It made the environment and the game play look crisp and fluid. If this game is not on your radar, I would recommend placing it on their immediately.
Red Faction: Guerrilla drops Games for Windows, Steamworks beta underway
[Update: Nordic has clarified that it's actually going to update Red Faction: Guerrilla to DirectX 11.
[Update: Nordic has clarified that it's actually going to update Red Faction: Guerrilla to DirectX 11. "Instead of just abandoning DX10 we decided to bring it over to DX11," Nordic's Reinhard Pollice said. "With this implementation which will soon be available as beta via Steam we hope to deliver a great Red Faction Guerrilla experience for PC gamers especially on Windows 7 and Windows 8." The DX11 update went into beta yesterday and is expected to be ready for full release within a couple of weeks.]
Nordic Games said at the beginning of this yearthat it would strip the Games for Windows Live requirement from Red Faction: Guerrilla, which it picked up, along with the Red Faction franchise as a whole, following the collapse of original owner THQ. And now it's finally gotten around to doing it.
Executive Producer Reinhard Pollice made the announcement on Steam, where he revealed that a Games for Windows Live sign-in is no longer required to play the game. Matchmaking and multiplayer, along with leaderboards, voice chat, and achievements, are now handled entirely through Steam. The game also now uses the DirectX9 renderer by default, because "DX10 created a lot of problems and resulted in performance issues," and it will attempt to migrate saves from Games for Windows Live to the new system the first time it launches.
In a follow-up post, Pollice explained that while some fans might be disappointed by the decision to default to DX9 instead of making DX10 work properly, it's not actually going to make a noticeable difference. "The whole DX10 support from MS side is not good that's why we believed it's the safest to go for DX9 mode. This will run perfectly on any DX10 system as well," he wrote. "Seriously DX10 in Red Faction Guerrilla was just a marketing gag as there was no real advantage."
To ensure that all is working as it should, Nordic is running a beta version of the overhauled game, open to anyone who wishes to take part. Instructions for doing so are here, but you'll also need a couple of passwords, which can be found in Pollice's forum post.
Tequila Works reacquires Rime rights from Sony, could go multi-platform
Spanish developer Tequila Works has reacquired the rights to its cel-shaded adventure title, Rime , from Sony.
The studio broke the news on Twitter, telling followers it's "working hard to realize its aspirations" for the title.
Rime was originally revealed as a PlayStation 4 exclusiveat Gamescom 2013, catching the eye thanks to its compelling visuals and curious narrative, which drew comparisons with critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer, Ico .
Speaking to Polygon, a Sony representative confirmed the news, explaining that "SCE is no longer proprietary of the IP, nor the publisher of the game."
The exact future of the game is now up in the air, although it's possible that Tequlia could release Rime on multiple platforms.
We've reached out to the studio for more information.
Tequila Works has chosen to reacquire the rights to its adventure game, RiME, and is working hard to realise its aspirations for it.
— Tequila Works (@tequilaworks) March 16, 2016Farspace Announces Game — Hyphen
Have you ever tried to push a stick through a tree trunk… without touching anything?
Have you ever tried to push a stick through a tree trunk… without touching anything? Oh and the wind is blowing… and the stick is spinning… and the tree is also spinning! That is pretty close to what is going on in Hyphen, by Farspace Studios. It is an action/puzzle game where the goal is to navigate a rotating stick through a maze of rotating and dangerous obstacles. The main eye grabbing feature of the game is obviously the neon graphics, check out the trailer to see for yourself.
Here is a quote from the game’s developer, Marc McCann, regarding the game’s difficulty, “Although it sounds extremely simple in theory, in practice it’s extremely challenging, especially as we have added lots of traps, interactive objects and puzzles to the mix. Despite its difficulty we think Hyphen is pretty darn fun and paired with its bright glowy visuals and techno soundtrack, it makes for a very intense experience for both hardcore and casual gamers.”
While Hyphen is not released yet, it developers are planning on being ready to go within the next few weeks. The Windows demo can be downloaded from Farspace’s website.
To learn more about Hyphen and Farspace Studios , you can visit their website and interact socially using the following links:
Website
Twitter: @Farspacestudios
Facebook
YouTube
Smash director Sakurai on Cloud, console wars, and fighting game design
"I think we should forget about console wars and focus on what’s really important: enjoying the games themselves."
- Smash Bros .
. director Masahiro Sakurai
In a revealing, newly translated interview, Masahiro Sakurai, the director of the Smash Bros . series, talks aboutthe latest game's downloadable characters -- and how the team designed and implemented each one.
It's a fascinating interview that cuts to the core of balancing a fighting game and making it accessible, as well as drawing a range of IP into one game and making it all work together, but it's also notable for a side discussion of the appearance of Final Fantasy VII 's Cloud in the game. That's what led to the quote above.
The Nintendo Dream interviewer asked about how Cloud ended up in Smash, given that Final Fantasy VII was originally published on the PlayStation, not a Nintendo system. The answer is simple: "... within the FF franchise, Cloud is without question the most popular choice."
But more interestingly, Sakurai also gets deep into how bringing a character like Cloud -- who came from an RPG, not an action game -- works:
"In FFVII , Cloud starts slashing from the corner and finishes with the cross in the middle, but in Smash , we had him draw it the correct way: start with the cross, then finish with the outline. This adjustment makes it easier to string together all the hits since Cloud begins the attack from the middle."
With details like those, the whole interview, published today at Smash Bros . fan-site Source Gaming, is worth a readif you're a student of fighting game design.
Stanford team battles VR sickness by bringing worlds into focus
What if VR sickness could be erased through the physical way the headsets are constructed?
One of the biggest problems facing VR has to do with how our bodies interpret what we're "seeing." Much in the same way that 3D TVs and movies leave some users feeling sick, VR headsets can also cause discomfort. It's not a universal issue, but it's a problem that'll need solving if VR is to ever become part of our day-to-day lives.
Fortunately for those who do suffer from VR sickness, a Stanford University research team [PDF] has found what might be a cure: Technology that allows the eyes to focus naturally on objects at different (simulated) distances, as illusrated above. This is in contrast to single-screen VR tech, which simply places users in front of a "magnified 2D image" that appears flat to the body's systems.
By combining " well-known" stereoscopic display principles with "emerging factored light field technology," the team hopes to add depth to virtual worlds, allowing us to focus in on specific objects:
If successful, our bodies are more likely to accept VR worlds as real, reducing the nauseating side-effects of VR while allowing us to use the tech for longer periods of time.
"Accurate reproduction of all depth cues is crucial for visual comfort. By combining well-known stereoscopic display principles with emerging factored light field technology, [we've created] the first wearable VR display that supports high image resolution as well as focus cues," explained the research team.
"The light field stereoscope is a crucial step towards highly immersive but also comfortable experiences. Along with content, latency, field of view, and resolution, visual comfort may be one of the most important factors determining the eventual success of emerging near-eye displays in the consumer market.
"With the proposed technology, we hope to contribute a practical technology for improving visual comfort. We strongly believe our technology to be a crucial advance towards more immersive and comfortable VR experiences."
Nordic Games resurrects the THQ name, will resume publishing under its banner
It was a sad day in 2013 when the THQ flag was lowered for the last time .
. Not that we didn't see it coming, but there was a time when THQ was a solid mid-tier publisherwith some well-regarded studios under its banner, and while those glory days can never be brought back, the THQ name can.
Nordic Games General Manager Klemens Kruezer told Polygonthat the company has completed a deal to acquire the trademark, and if you're now wondering who Nordic Games is, well, that's kind of the point.
"It was kind of a surprise to some industry veterans and players that we were the winner of the auctionof the THQ titles. The challenging fact is nobody has ever heard about Nordic Games before [the auction]. There were so many articles with the headlines 'Who the fuck is Nordic Games?' We said, okay, they were right," Kruezer said. ""We have seen an uplift in the name of Nordic Games, and what we have also done is we have made a second deal with THQ where we bought the THQ trademark."
Nordic Gamesis actually an Austrian publisher with a catalog built largely out of acquisitions from THQ, JoWooD and DreamCatcher. It picked up the rights to the Darksiders and Red Faction franchises last year, and also holds Painkiller, Titan Quest, Panzer Elite, SpellForce and various others. It's perhaps not the most world-beating array of titles ever assembled, but Nordic is working on it: Kruezer said the company needs fans to be patient because it wants to do a proper job of bringing back old THQ games like Darksiders.
"We want to be able to do it right," he said. "The owner of Nordic Games has given [interviews] where he has said that he doesn't want to make a shitty sequel."
Kruezer said more information about Nordic's plans for the future will be revealed in August at the Gamescomconvention in Germany.
Nordic Games shares THQ spoils in Humble Weekly Sale
Many publishers swarmed in on THQ's trove of established licenses earlier this year, but Nordic Games arguably got one of the biggest takes by buying both the Darksiders and Red Faction franchises.
by buying both the Darksiders and Red Faction franchises. However, it'll probably be a while before we see anything new from those franchises, considering Nordic bought the licenses just this April. So what do you do with a stack of licenses and nothing new to show? Put them on sale.
Nordic Games has taken over this week's Humble Weekly Sale, and you'll notice it's plastered with games that used fall under THQ name. Paying a penny or more will get you Red Faction: Armageddon, The Guild 2, Neighbours From Hell Compilation, the original Supreme Commander its standalone expansion, Forged Alliance. Paying at least six of your hard-earned dollars adds Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, ArcaniA, Darksiders 2, and SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny to the list. I'm not sure why Supreme Commander 2 and the original Darksiders aren't bundled, but you can't really complain with six dollars. Well, you can , but not without sounding the opposite of humble.
Every game comes with a Steam key except the Neighbours From Hell Compilation, though that's because the game's still trying to be greenliton Steam. The game listing says users will automatically receive Steam keys if the game gets the greenlight. It's not really a big deal considering you have eight other games to play, though I suppose you could just double-click the .exe like a caveman.
Correction: This article previously referred to the sale as a "Humble Bundle," which is distinct from the "Humble Weekly Sale."
Dragon Age: Inquisition devs talk factions, dragons, and a 50-hour story arc at E3 2014
After our double - dose of Dragon Age: Inquisition videos yesterday, we were already pretty amped up for the huge open-world take on the Dragon Age mythos.
videos yesterday, we were already pretty amped up for the huge open-world take on the Dragon Age mythos. Today, executive producer Mark Darrah and creative director Mike Laidlaw joined the Twitch.tv E3 streaming broadcast to talk more about the game's story, crafting systems, and squad-control mechanics.
Laidlaw and Darrah spoke for about half an hour about how and why you'll move through the massive open world in Inquisition. Players will be able to customize their weapons' hilts, blades, and guards, equip their followers with upgraded armor, and work to make the Inquisition a powerful force in the region.
“Ultimately everything you're doing is designed to strengthen you and your party, or you're doing things that strengthen the Inquisition,” Laidlaw and Darrah said during the gameplay video. “One of the core tenants of Dragon Age: Inquisition is that you're the leader of an organization, and this allows you to do things you couldn't do as an individual.”
Gathering ingredients and crafting is also a key part of strengthening the Inquisition. Dragons in particular have been redesigned to be end-game battles with valuable crafting components—but you'll need some help to take them down.
“We've reworked dragons from the ground up. Rather than targeting a dragon as a giant circle, you can now target individual limbs. And they're so big that you can really get inside it, under it, beneath it. There are different types, different breeds, but they're all apex predators.”
According to Laidlaw, the game will take about fifty hours to complete if you ignore every sidequest and just burn through the story content. If that's accurate, it means there's a staggering amount of plot to explore as the head of the Inquisition. We'll also get to see some familiar faces return from early Dragon Age games, including Leliana, Morrigan, and Cullen.
You can catch up on all of our E3 2014 coverage here.
Darksiders series "not dead," but creative director says future remains uncertain
Darksiders lives, but what that means for the series is anything but clear, according to the action RPG's creative director Joe Madureira.
lives, but what that means for the series is anything but clear, according to the action RPG's creative director Joe Madureira. In a followup post on Facebook today, Madureira writes that his comment yesterdayabout how the Darksiders series "is not dead" doesn't mean its future has been secured.
A remnant of publisher THQ's collapse, the rights to Darksiders were bought by Nordic Gameslast year. And as Madureira points out, Nordic is ultimately responsible for determining the fate of the series.
"My enthusiastic outlook on the future of the series is in no way a confirmation that it's happening!! (Sorry guys, I hate being a wet blanket!)" Madureira writes. "My post was in response to the countless messages I get from DS fans that are mourning the 'death' of the series or asking me to 'bring it back' (which it's not in my power to do!). Many fans still do not seem to know that the series didn't end with THQ's demise, and that the rights were picked up by Nordic Games. What that means is that a 3rd game is still *possible*. ie. 'It's not DEAD!' And that Nordic seems committed to continuing the series. Again, this isn't a confirmation—just my own positive outlook based on what I gathered from speaking with them."
We liked both Darksiders 1andfor their satisfying approach to hack and slash combat. And while Madureira seems intent to walk back his Monday statement about the still-beating heart of Darksiders, he also sounds pleased with the response to his comments.
"Only Nordic, as the owner of the franchise can make any official decision—or announcement, about the future of Darksiders," Madureira writes. "Not me! So I probably should've chosen my words more carefully. That said, I can't help but see the feverish excitement and support from both gamers and press as an encouraging sign that DS is indeed a beloved series, and that the demand is obviously still there!"
Hat tip, Gamespot.
Dragon Age: Inquisition interview: the world, party, and how BioWare's biggest Dragon Age plays on PC
Dragon Age: Inquisition was one of our favorite things at E3 .
. After checking out EA's lengthy gameplay demo on the floor, I inquired with Dragon Age's Creative Director, Mike Laidlaw, about how party members will influence story decisions, how Inquisition plays on PC, and a few other things I was curious about.
Dragon Age will have 40 "major" endings, EA says. We're looking forward to diving in this October.
THQ gets approval for its liquidation plan, officially ending bankruptcy case
Technically THQ has been dead for a while now - existing as a husk-like reanimation of debt and creditors.
Technically THQ has been dead for a while now - existing as a husk-like reanimation of debt and creditors. But like the zomibified, shambling remnants of anything you once loved, seeing it finally put down is never easy. That's what finally happened yesterday, after a US court approved THQ's liquidation plan, thus ending the former publishers bankruptcy case.
It was back in Decemberthat THQ sought court protection - listing debts of $248.1 million, and assets of $204.8 million. Yesterday's deal was signed off by bankruptcy judge Mary F. Walrath, who said that the studio had "met the burden of establishing that the plan should be approved". It will see the money raised from the liquidation of THQ's assets go towards paying off their many creditors.
According to Bloomberg, unsecured creditors are expected to receive 20 to 52 percent of the amount owed to them - estimated to be between $143-184 million in claims. That may lower if the $107 million claim of THQ's European subsidiaries are upheld. That's an argument that could drag on over the next two years - the length expected for the liquidation plan to finish picking clean the publisher's corpse.
Farewell, THQ! You can remind yourself of the good times by having a read of our our fondest memories.
Thanks, Polygon.
Game mechanics and player agency in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Dear Esther from The Chinese Room is one of the forerunners of a style of game focused on environmental narrative and storytelling – games that convey a sense of mystery, exploration, and discovery on a player-personal level.
The Chinese Room has been working on its next game, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture , which aims to evolve the storytelling ideas in Dear Esther. That means this new game has less corridors, more subtle storytelling, and more about allowing players to discover a story for themselves and letting the narrative unravel naturally. You walk alone through Rapture , seeing ghost-like figures and subtle environmental storytelling that clues players into what exactly happened.
The Chinese Room is doing this with a deft combination of audio, attention to detail, and knowing which design tools they should be using (and which they shouldn't be using) to convey the game’s experience.
In games like Dear Esther and Rapture, traditional game mechanics are few and far between. You’re walking, examining, exploring in Rapture ’s world, unraveling a story.
“Mechanics are a tool to getting somewhere,” Pinchbeck says. “Once you know the kind of experience you want the player to have, that’s when you select the mechanics that will best fit that.
“This always happens with our games – we start off with more mechanics in there, then we work on it and test it, and realize those mechanics are just getting in the way. We really want this to be about the player and the story, and anything that gets in the way of that is kind of problematic.”
Even as someone who appreciates the work and skill that goes into modern-day shooters (he wrote a book about Doom ), he says, “We, as a company, will never make a mechanic-heavy game. This is what we do, and people like it. We want as much emotion and immediacy as possible. You just don’t need a lot of that stuff [i.e., mechanics].”
The focus on player agency is a strong theme in The Chinese Room’s games. When it comes to player agency, Pinchbeck says, “I always come it from a philosophical standpoint. When I was as an academic, I was doing a lot of work on psychology. There’s an Italian neuroscientist called Antonio Damasio, and he developed this whole series in which he says we tend to want to split up intellect and emotion, when actually all thought is emotional thought.
“And that always really inspired me in terms of game design, that all game design is emotional game design. It’s about saying, ‘This [game] is an emotional experience first and foremost.’ If you are having an emotional experience with a game, you’ve got agency with it.”
Pinchbeck continues, “When I’ve got my ‘ Halo face’ on, that slack-jawed ‘aaauuugh’ face, I’m not necessarily experiencing agency because I’m not particularly feeling or thinking about anything that’s going on.
“That’s our target: we don’t want anyone getting their Halo face playing our game. I love, adore Halo , don’t get me wrong, but what was really important, what we wanted to get towards, was a much stronger sense of the player thinking, 'What I did made this happen. I found the story, and I own my own experience.'”
Dragon Age: Inquisition gets appropriately epic box art
Perhaps it's just a side effect from the afterglow to watching this week's Game Of Thrones, but I can't seem to stop staring at the recently revealed box art for Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Perhaps it's just a side effect from the afterglow to watching this week's Game Of Thrones, but I can't seem to stop staring at the recently revealed box art for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Anyway, in the unlikely event you still actually go to bricks and mortar shops to buy your games, now you know what to look for: A goopy green cloud of monsters, and a knight with a flaming sword throwing a Freddie Mercury shape. Classic BioWare.
Also classic BioWare is the fact that the armoured character, the game's titular Inquisitor, isn't obviously a dude or a lady. As with Mass Effect, you can opt to play as either. Dragon Age: Inquisition is due out this Fall and runs on DICE's powerful Frostbite 3 engine. You can see some leaked footage of the game in action here, and there's also a very pretty and a couple of screenshots here.
Sega sue THQ for $940,000 over Company of Heroes 2 pre-orders
Sega have decided to give the corpse of THQ a sound poke with their legal stick.
Sega have decided to give the corpse of THQ a sound poke with their legal stick. They're suing the bankrupt publisher for $941,710.93 (roughly £632,000), over Steam pre-orders of Company of Heroes 2. That's the amount Sega claim Valve paid to THQ between its pre-order launch and January 24th, 2013, when Relic and their RTS IP were bought by their new owner. The $940k is one thing, but the 93 cents? That's just vindictive.
In their court filing, Sega claim that, of the total amount due, $508,877.85 is "entitled to priority", as those payments were made by Valve after 19th December 2012 - the sad dayTHQ filed for bankruptcy. A month later, Sega bought Relicand the Company of Heroes franchise for $26.6 million in the resulting auction. Sega's claim points out that they're entitled to THQ's cut of the $1,345,301.29 paid to Steam by the 20,755 pre-orderers of the game between the stated dates.
If you're wondering why they'd sue a bankrupt company: essentially, Sega are adding their name to the already large list who will receive money from the sale of THQ's assets. To date, the pool of potential creditors are collectively owed around $200 million.
Thanks, Eurogamer.
ARK hits 1 million sold, reveals UE4 modding toolset
Working with Unreal developer Epic Games, Ark’s custom modding tools are intended to be an example of what developers can provide their modding community for games built on the widely available Unreal Engine 4.
Studio Wildcard has announced new modding support for hit Steam early access game Ark: Survival Evolved , which has now sold an impressive 1 million copies in just a few weeks of release.
The Ark Dev Kit launches immediately, with mods planned by the Player Unknown team, who created the Battle Royale mod for ARMA III and DayZ , custom maps from players in the Ark community, and planned mods from Studio Wildcard that are designed to be be extensions to Ark: Survival Evolved .
Speaking to Gamasutra, Studio Wildcard co-creative director Jesse Rapczak and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney expressed excitement for the new custom mod tools, both for what they represent for the Ark community specifically, and for the game development community as a whole.
As Sweeney explained, their partnership with Studio Wildcard was brought about thanks to the team’s early adoption of Unreal 4 last October, and was intended to be a template for other developers to design custom mod tools for their online communities.
Citing Epic’s strong background in the modding communities for Quake and Unreal Tournament, Sweeney also made clear his excitement for the mod tools as a path for more game development newcomers to get their start in the industry by working with modified versions of the Unreal engine. “A huge number of people at Epic have come from the mod community and worked their way into the industry through that channel, so we see mods having a multiplicative effect on the community surrounding an individual game.”
“This provides an opportunity for a new generation of developers to get into development through mods, and potentially branch out into the game industry as a full time career for some of them.”
(Above: Ark mod "Apako Islands" by modder KimmyKix)
As Ark is an online game with much of its calculations stored server-side, Rapczak explained that Ark mods would be run on player-controlled servers, allowing players to create everything from custom game modes to new creatures and items.
Speaking specifically to creature creation, Rapczak explained that modders could immediately dig into the game’s dinosaur AI thanks to Wildcard’s effort to construct their behavior within Unreal 4’s AI Logic tool.
“The reason behind that wasn't just so we could take advantage of that system in our own development but so that players and developers could create their own types of creatures that fit in with the Ark ecosystem and make their own behaviors that integrate well with the rest of the ecosystem there on the island.”
Given Gamasutra’s prior examinationof Ark’s dinosaur design, it’s worth noting that these mod tools would allow players to experiment themselves with either more realistic or more monster-movie-ish styles of dinosaur play, and, with intense labor, possibly allow for educational mods similar to Computercraftfor Minecraft.
Rapczak says that the Wildcard team intends to make internal documentation about Ark’s custom design tools available to modders to guide them through the design process. In addition, they’ll be relying on the established Unreal development community to help modders rub elbows with game developers with previous experience working in Unreal.
With Bethesda’s recent foray into paid mods on the Steam Workshop ending somewhat tumultuously, Rapczak explained that Studio Wildcard currently has no plans to monetize any mods, and any modmakers looking to sell their work would do so by putting their created assets up on the Unreal store for the purchase of other developers or modders to use in their game. “As far as the players concerned,” he explained, “we won't be trying to have a marketplace where they can buy mods for our game at this time.”
For other developers working in Unreal 4 to integrate mod tools into their game, Sweeney reiterated that Epic’s goal wasn’t to partner with any specific developer, but rather to open up the possibility for all developers working in Unreal 4 to integrate these tools into their game.
”It's not Epic sitting back and plotting what developers to work with, it's empowering everybody to do what they would like. Ark has emerged as the first game to support modding this way with Unreal Engine 4. [We expect] there'll be more, but this is a wonderful starting point, and a great example other developers can follow as well in building mod communities around their games.”
Still, Sweeney admits that he's excited that the first playground for these mod tools would be in Ark’s dino-themed environments. “A game of this magnitude, with an open environment and so many dinosaurs to work with, is a perfect toybox for anyone getting started with modding.”
Developers and modders looking to start experimenting with Ark’s modding toolkit can access it through this mod tutorial. Bonus points to the first developer to implement proper feathers on all of Ark’s theropods.
Dragon Age: Inquisition release date revealed; Bioware's RPG sequel out this October
What was looking to be a year packed full of epic RPGs has become a little more spacious thanks to The Witcher 3's delay.
What was looking to be a year packed full of epic RPGs has become a little more spacious thanks to The Witcher 3's delay. Fret not, though, fans of magic, monsters and mead, for Dragon Age: Inquisition is still on course to land in the back half of 2014. Bioware have now confirmed the game's release date, announcing their October 7th target alongside a new trailer for the RPG sequel.
Dragon Age: Inquisition will put the player in a much more proactive role than previous games. As the founder of the Inquisition, and the only person able to close the fade rifts of the world, you're a more immediately instrumental actor in the series' plot. You can find more on the story, and Bioware's approach to the third Dragon Age game, in Chris's interviewwith executive producer, Mark Darrah.
Freespace IP returns to Interplay for just $7,500
In the rush to place dibs on THQ's former properties, Freespace must have been kicked into some dusty corner of the office.
In the rush to place dibs on THQ's former properties, Freespace must have been kicked into some dusty corner of the office. Surely that's the only reason it was so neglected, with the space combat sim's IP rights finally being sold to Interplay for a meagre $7,500. That's according to a court document, filed on June 4th, and unearthed by Polygon.
There was a time when this would have been great news; Interplay being the publisher of brilliant games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, and, of course, Descent: Freespace and its sequel Freespace 2.
But when Interplay went bankrupt, the Freespace IP went with developer Volition to its new home at THQ. Since THQ's bankruptcy, Volition were acquired by Koch Media, and Freespace has returned to a very different Interplay.
Unfortunately, this Interplay hasn't shown much interest in making games, seemingly more interested in legal battlesand bizarre attemptsto crowdfund a Black Isle "proof of concept".
Both Freespace games are still availablefrom GOG. If you're still unsure why you should care, read our Reinstall of Freespace 2.
BioWare still undecided on Dragon Age: Inquisition multiplayer
Dragon Age: Inquisition producer Cameron Lee has made a suspiciously uncommitted statement about a multiplayer mode for the game: "The Mass Effect multiplayer stuff is really good, so we've certainly looked at options like that, but we haven't decided on anything in terms of multiplayer at this point," Cameron tells OXM at a preview event.
at a preview event. The statement is the latest in what is now a years-long tease about a multiplayer mode, which would be quite the novelty for a fantasy role-playing game of this type.
We first heard rumorof the multiplayer mode in 2011 when "industry insiders" slipped a few details to Kotaku, with the extra juicy tidbit that you'll actually get to play as a dragon, allegedly. We were also just starting to learn more about Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode at that time. BioWare seemed to be pretty happy with how it turned outand critics didn't hate it either (though we weren't big fans), so its overall success should encourage BioWare to add a similar mode to Dragon Age: Inquisition.
However, Dragon Age: Inquisition is currently slated for a Fall 2014 release, giving BioWare almost year to cut or commit to multiplayer. Also, as Cameron points out in the interview, it'll be more challenging to implement such a mode in Dragon Age: Inquisition than it was in Mass Effect 3, which became more and more like a shooter with every release, a genre where multiplayer is far more commonplace.
Either way, it seems like BioWare is trucking along with Inquistion. We last reported on the game when the team announced it was going to play through the " Holiday Build," which includes the complete storyline and all gameplay systems.
Darksiders and Red Faction owner wants former developers to work on its games
THQ's dissolution was a sad thing.
THQ's dissolution was a sad thing. I had hoped the company of Red Faction and Metro 2033 would avoid financial ruin, but alas, it was not meant to be. Publishers like Deep Silver picked up the Saints Rowand Metrofranchises, but where did everything else go? Well, it went to little-known company called Nordic Games.
The small, Austria-based studio bought the Darksiders, Red Faction, and MX vs ATV franchises for a cool $4.9 million back in April, and has remained quiet ever since. The head of business and product development at Nordic, Reinhard Pollice, told Joystiqhe hopes to change that by Gamescom, which begins on August 22.
“We want to carefully select which franchises are up for getting a sequel or new installment. We closely monitor the communities on that," Pollice said.
So exactly how small is Nordic? The studio consists of 15 people who have traditionally helped publish games from other developers. For example, they helped publish Painkiller: Hell & Damnation and the boxed copy of Alan Wake.
Pollice prided himself on being part of a passionate team, but admitted that the studio needs more bodies.
"Darksiders is really big,” Pollice told Joystiq. “We know we need a partner for that—an established development team that can pull out such a big action adventure. We obviously talked to former team members and, if they are free, we want to somehow involve them. If they are allowed to because, you know, some of them found other jobs or are with Crytek now."
It'd be nice to see developers work across company lines, but we're guessing the developers at Crytek are a little busy with other projects— like Homefront 2.
Inside the Fire TV: What's Amazon planning for games?
Last week, Amazon launched the Fire TV -- a video streaming box that, crucially for Gamasutra's audience, is designed to play games too.
-- a video streaming box that, crucially for Gamasutra's audience, is designed to play games too. It can be paired with an optional $40 controller that bears more than a passing resemblance to an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 pad.
It's also much more powerful than its competition, with 2GB of RAM and a quad-core processor, making it very well suited to good-looking games. Publishing games for it -- aside from working in controller support -- is substantially the same as getting them onto the Amazon Appstore for Android.
In fact, when I sat down to talk to Amazon's Michael Frazzini, VP of Amazon Games, and Ian Vogel, senior game design manager at Amazon Game Studios, I expected to talk a lot about the developer experience of working with Amazon. That, however, is a known quantity, and any new wrinkles (such as supporting the new controller) are documentedat its developer portal.
Amazon has worked with partners like Mojang and Gameloft to get games onto the Fire TV for launch, and from here on out it's mostly going to be up to developers to support it. Policies and programswill remain the same.
The conversation, instead, turned to what Amazon hopes to do with the Fire TV, and its internal game development efforts at Amazon Game Studios. There's a tremendous amount of potential in both -- but as of the surprise launch last week, there's not a lot that's yet concrete to talk about.
Frazzini was quick to play up the fact that the device is not a console, but a multi-purpose entertainment device that streams content to TVs, like an Apple TV, but also includes a robust game marketplace. "Similar to a tablet, you may buy it for one thing and end up playing games," says Frazzini.
That combination, he thinks, will lead people to buy the device -- and then gravitate toward games, since the device can do them well. Of course, that's contingent on something crucial: "if we do our job in bringing great, compelling content." The company's game studio strategy is informed, Frazzini says, by its success in creating original video programming for its streaming services. "It's worked out really well for Amazon Studios... it's sort of a no-brainer."
He particularly thinks two audiences will be important to the Fire TV: Kids, who are already well-versed in the tablet games that make up the majority of its early library, and adults who are lapsed gamers and can't quite see the value of laying down several hundred dollars for a next-gen game console, but have fond memories of playing before they lost touch with the market. What do they have in common? A 99-dollar device is in their reach.
The Missing Middle -- Can Amazon Find It?Over the course of the last console generation, retail games got bigger and bigger. The most successful indie games were small. Mid-sized productions got choked out.
Frazzini and Vogel are hoping that Fire TV can be a place they can reemerge. There's a "huge spot in the middle that we view as a bit of a gap right now," Frazzini says. Games like The Walking Dead, Minecraft , and The Room -- his three disparate examples -- rest there. More can, he believes.
There's "a significant growth in the number of studios that are five to 30 people, and work from six to 18 months on a game," he says, with "a tremendous amount of creativity and craftsmanship. A lot of them are fantastic." That's the "middle" he's talking about.
But Frazzini also called out Super Meat Boy and Fez as the sorts of games he'd like to see on the platform. "In general, we want all the content," he says, "and those type of games would be a big fit." Again, he alluded to people who grew up playing NES but have fallen away from games. They could be won back, he thinks.
But It's Not Apparent What's Up, Just YetOur conversation carried on for about an hour, and by the end of it, it was clear that Amazon doesn't yet know who's going to buy what kind of games for the system. The initial announcement touted the fact that the average price of a paid game on Fire TV is $1.85, but its own internal studios' Sev Zero is $6.99. Games like Fez cost more than that on consoles and Steam.
"Developers determine the business model they want to pursue, developers set their list prices. If someone wants to come out and set a list price of $14.99, they can do that, and if the experience is fantastic, people will pay for it," Frazzini says.
Still, he admits, "What gamers? Who's going to play? We're going to learn." Beyond the cheap device and cheap games that will attract kids (and their parents) as well as lure in casual players who might buy a tablet game here and there, he didn't seem sure who would embrace the system.
What he does think is that once people start buying games, the ease of search and recommendation engines that power the company's website will push them towards more titles they'll genuinely enjoy.
There is one way to lure in players, of course, one Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are also well-versed in: first-party games.
How Internal Development Will Shape the Fire TVAs with any first party, the audience and the experiences it enjoys are likely to be defined, in large part, by Amazon's own games. Its recent moves -- hiring Kim Swift and Clint Hocking, and buying Killer Instinct developer Double Helix-- suggest that the company is serious about its game development efforts.
"We want the games to show off, or otherwise push or represent, a great experience on these devices for customers," Frazzini says.
Ian Vogel is himself a veteran developer, having worked on Thief and System Shock 2 , and more recently, Age of Empires Online . His hope is that the studio can recruit "a particular breed of thinker, people who want to get stuff done and want to be innovative, and creative, and challenge the tropes and patterns we see in the industry."
If they can do that, he thinks, the studio can "find that gap between the two bookends of the industry," in the "opportunity space between casual and triple-A."
"There's a lot of creativity we can instill," Vogel says of the developers at the studio. "We really just want to make great games, and we want to have an impact."
Besides Swift and Hocking, whose names everyone will recognize, Vogel also called out two more game veteran hires: former Valve developer Tom Leonard ( Left 4 Dead ) and Ubisoft's Chris Roby ( Assassin's Creed III .) There will be more.
"We're organizing smaller teams," says Frazzini. "The people we try to hire, they come in knowing we have these smaller teams and shorter timelines." He's hoping that the developers can inject "a lot of autonomy and craftsmanship" into the games.
"Whatever traditionally worked, we don't want to do that," Frazzini says. "How can we create experiences that can be different and wow customers in unique ways? We're not trying to replicate what's already worked, we're trying to think about what the next thing we can create is -- that's the kind of teams we're trying to hire, and the kind of culture we're trying to create."
There's little evidence of that in Sev Zero , however. It's extremely conventional, marine-vs-aliens stuff, a first person shooter/tower defense hybrid -- but it's also obviously been developed on a quick schedule to meet a launch date, and to be fair, it's very competently made. Call it a proof-of-concept.
It will be awhile before we can see these grander ambitions realized, clearly. Frazzini and Vogel promised we'll see more sometime this year -- when they're ready, and not before. If they come, and are as significant as the talents behind them suggest they could be, they could change the shape of the landscape of what games played on a television are and how we access them. For now, though, it is left to those of us who are not building them to wait.
Dragon Age: Inquisition leaked footage shows thirty minutes of combat and questing
Quickly, pile on into this post, where the armies of darkness can't see you.
Quickly, pile on into this post, where the armies of darkness can't see you. We're sheltering thirty minutes of leaked Dragon Age: Inquisition footage, smuggled out from the Finnish Digiexpo 2013. Watch it quickly, before EA's ever-watchful legal dragons swoop down and burn it to a crisp. In it, you'll see combat, dialogue, and a brief glimpse of the less litigious lizards.
The Frostbite 3 wrapper should certainly make for a pretty RPG, even if this handheld recording isn't the best format to appreciate it.
Chris recently had a first-hand look at Dragon Age: Inquisition in action. You can read his report on the upcoming sequel here.
Thanks, NeoGAF.
Former THQ president details brutal working conditions at Metro: Last Light dev 4A Games
Former THQ president Jason Rubin, who joined the struggling company in 2012, has submitted a story to GamesIndustry International detailing adversities faced by Ukrainian developer 4A Games while developing Metro: Last Light, painting the team as underdogs who struggled against dreadful working conditions, a low budget, and unrealistic expectations.
"Let's be honest: 4A was never playing on a level field," writes Rubin. "The budget of Last Light is less than some of its competitors spend on cut scenes, a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors." On top of that, Rubin laments the "irrational requirement of THQ's original producers to fit multiplayer and co-op into the same deadline and budget."
It gets worse. According to Rubin, the team "sat on folding wedding chairs, literally elbow to elbow at card tables in what looks more like a packed grade school cafeteria than a development studio." Dev kits and high-end PCs had to be smuggled into Ukraine in backpacks to avoid the sticky hands of "thieving customs officials." Pile on frequent power outages and broken government-run heating which frequently led to below-freezing working conditions, and Rubin says that 4A's success is equivalent to that of the Jamaican bobsledding team which finished ahead of the US in the 1994 Olympics.
It's a harrowing story if it's all true, and I doubt anyone outside of Ukrainian customs officials would want it to go untold, though Rubin oddly spends a good portion of his text justifying its telling. "If you care about the art of making games then you have to care about more than the final product," he writes. "The struggle and the journey becomes part of the story. Like sport, you cheer when the underdog comes from behind, and triumphs in the face of incredible odds."
Who doesn't love an underdog story, and why are we just hearing about it now, months after THQ dissolved? According to Rubin, 4A's story hasn't been told in as much detail until now due to "a combination of a complex and secretive industry, a press that lags the movie and music press in calling attention to the stories behind the games, a dysfunctional and ever-changing sequence of producers causing confusion, the inevitable anonymity that comes from being an Eastern European developer, and a new, last minute publisher that doesn't see the upside in doing your team's publicity."
That new publisher is Koch Media (known better to us as Deep Silver, its game publishing wing), which purchased the publishing rights to the Metro franchise after THQ's bankruptcy. Deep Silver Director of Marketing & PR Aubrey Norris reacted to Rubin's criticism, tweeting: "I love when @Jason_Rubin runs his mouth about things at other companies he knows NOTHING about. Solid guy."
Rubin responded, pointing out 4A's near invisibility on the official Metro: Last Light website, which Norris says is due to time constraints and the complexityof assuming control of THQ's assets over the past four months. According to Norris, Deep Silver concentrated on the critical task of "making the game live."
With Rubin's timing and criticism of Deep Silver, the press, and other developers, he clearly has motives beyond simply telling 4A's story, but Twitter bickering aside, the story ought to earn 4A a huge shipment of respect (as long as it makes it past customs). Have a read of our Metro: Last Light reviewfor more on the impressive game, and read Rubin's full editorial at GamesIndustry International.
Update: Commenter Wildfire has pointed out this video, in which 4A's offices can be seen. While it does look cramped, especially compared to the offices of larger Western developers, there are more than a few non-folding chairs, adding some clarity to Rubin's picture. His claims of frequent power and heating outages, however, can be confirmed by other sources.
Battlefield 4 release date confirmed, coming to Xbox One
Battlefield 4 release date confirmed, coming to Xbox One Following the exciting announcement of Microsoft’s Xbox One last night, EA has revealed that Battlefield 4 will launch on 29 October 2013. The game will be released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. For all the information on DICE’s exciting new iteration of the hit FPS franchise, be sure to pick up games™ 135 where we revealed Battlefield 4 through our huge cover story. [mpu]
Dragon Age: Inquisition developer wants romance scenes to be "mature and tasteful"
BioWare's no stranger to crafting romance scenes in their games.
no stranger to crafting romance scenes in their games. After all, what's a romance story without a romantic scene? But these scenes have always come across as a bit wooden, and Cinematic Director Jonathan Perry wants to change that in Dragon: Age Inquisition.
“We certainly could push those romance scenes in any direction we wanted really,” Perry said to Gamezines. “Something that didn't work well is that we tried more, well I won't say graphic, but in Dragon Age: Origins we had characters crawling around in their underwear and it looked weird because they were wearing these lacy Victoria Secret panties and outfits which looked out of place.”
However, Perry doesn't just want the sex scenes to feel more natural—he wants the relationship, the path leading up to those scenes to be more organic as well.
“We also want to focus not just on the sex itself, but also that this is the culmination of spending a lot of time with a character and getting to know them, and so we're giving scenes a mature and tasteful treatment I guess,” Perry said. “We'll see where it goes for Dragon Age: Inquisition, it's something that we're working on right now so we'll see how these scenes pan out.”
In past Bioware games, picking a romantic partner was simply a matter of choosing the “correct” answers in key conversations. I've always enjoyed the stories Bioware has told, but the romantic elements have always fallen a little flat. Here's hoping Perry and the rest of the Bioware team change that for the better when Inquisition comes out next year.
Saints Row 4 trailer introduces you to the President of the United States of Ameriwub
What does a game that's as all out crazy as Saints Row 4 do when it's in danger of being out-sillified by recent releases like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon ?
? This: the latest trailer for Volition's madcap open-world sequel. It goes all out with dubstep, super-powers, and a President that - at a guess - has never once cared about an opinion poll.
Sure, Obama can do a good Daniel Day Lewis, but have we ever seen him pull a suplex-to-nutshot power move?
Powers seen include super-speed, super-jump, super-impact shockwave and super-jerk telekinesis. Basically, it's a game where the president is a one-man drone strike. If that's meant to be satire, it's probably accidental.
Saints Row 4 is out August 23rd. I look forward to its inauguration speech.
Wait there's more, some in-game footage from PAX showing super speed super jumping, super punching and the like.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion encounters some Stellar Phenomena
Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire came out in 2008, and the space-faring real-time strategy game has since had three expansions—the last of which was Rebellion in 2012.
in 2012. Its newest DLC is a much smaller affair, but still adds new content for only a little bit of money.
The Stellar Phenomena packadds six new deep space anomalies and 11 random events to the existing game. According to Ironclad's news post, the DLC lets players "exploit what resources remain in these dangerous sectors while you can," which sounds like it's priming the game's player base for a future in unsustainable oil-drilling. The anomalies include starship graveyards and antimatter fountains—a bite-sized bit of content that will only set you back $5.
Earlier in the year, Ironclad's Blair Fraser lamentedthe status of the RTS as a niche, going so far as to call it "done." But Ironclad still supports its five year-old RTS and Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson just announceda new studio dedicated to RTSs. "Niche?" Maybe. But that's not stopping developers from succeeding as RTS-only developers. Nor is it stopping them from starting fresh in 2013.
Dragon Age Keep lets you shape your past in Dragon Age: Inquisition
Save files are a fickle thing.
Save files are a fickle thing. Sometimes they're exactly where you need them to be, but more often than not, they're lost. Gone. Listlessly floating in the ether of your hard drive while caught between various planes of existence. BioWare has realized saves are lost more often than remote controls, and has created the Dragon Age Keepto make your past Dragon Agesaves irrelevant.
According to a, The Dragon Age Keep is a tool for both new and returning players to choose which actions they made (or would have made) in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. You can decide who lived and died, who your previous lovers were, and which roads you took to accomplish the task at hand. All this information is stored in the cloud, allowing people to revisit decisions that left them with a weary heart.
As for those who actually have their saves neatly tucked somewhere in their computer, BioWare was a little more vague, saying it would have more to say about the process in the "months to come."
Those interested in trying out the Dragon Age Keep for themselves can apply for the beta, though the post mentions participants won't cross the drawbridge until early next year.
Metro: Last Light video explores the tools of survival
4A have posted the last of their Metro: Last Light survival guides, this time focusing on the tools you'll need to thrive in the post-apocalyptic hellscape they've created.
survival guides, this time focusing on the tools you'll need to thrive in the post-apocalyptic hellscape they've created. There are gas masks, letting you breathe the suffocating toxic air of the surface; weapons, with which to defend against mutants and bandits; and a lighter, used to... er, burn down cobwebs. Bothering spiders doesn't sound like the most pressing survival tactic, but I guess everyone needs a hobby.
For players of Metro 2033, much of what's seen here will be familiar. Pumping the dynamo of a flickering torch, checking your watch to ascertain your visibility, and balancing military rounds between high-damage fire and trade. It suggests the sequel will deliver a similarly claustrophobic experience - although that's hardly a problem given the quality of the first game.
Metro: Last Light is due out May 17th. Preview here.
Development on a Star Control reboot will begin this year
The nineties gave us flannel-on-ripped-denim fashion and classic film roles like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.
The nineties gave us flannel-on-ripped-denim fashion and classic film roles like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Yep, it's a period most of us would rather forget—but if it's going to be revived at all, PC gaming supergiant dev Stardock has at least chosen a more favorable part of the era. Today it's announced that it's gained the rights to classic PC sci-fi franchise Star Control, with plans to begin development on a reboot this fall.
“We expect the new Star Control to come in the form of a reboot, similar to what Firaxis did with the XCOM series last year,” says president Brad Wardell on the Stardock website. "We are looking at Star Control 2 as a major source of inspiration.”
Stardock is the studio behind Sins of a Solar Empire, which is much-lovedhere. Given its history developing exclusively for PC, we're super hyped to see what Stardock does with the IP. I'm especially happy to hear that the reboot will take after SC2 primarily, as its adventure elements were especially enjoyable. Though there's no estimate on when it'll be ready for release, development on the reboot will definitely commence sometime this year.
Dragon Age writer is leaving BioWare, but not because of death threats
On Thursday, Polygon posted an excellent story examining an open secret in the games development industry: interacting with the gaming community can mean talking to the worst in people.
posted an excellent story examining an open secret in the games development industry: interacting with the gaming community can mean talking to the worst in people. Among the developers interviewed in the story was Jennifer Hepler, a writer with BioWarewho worked on Dragon Age 2and Dragon Age 3: Inquisitionbefore leaving the company this week.
You might remember Hepler as the writer who incorrectly received the blame for changing Dragon Age 2's combat system. Hepler gave an interview saying that playing through combat was her least favorite part of working in the games industry, and this was used as evidence that she was the “cancer” destroying BioWare. Hepler received heaps on abuse, death threats, and threats toward her children.
"I did my best to avoid actually reading any of it, so I'm not quite certain how bad it got," Hepler told Polygon. "I was shown a sample of the forum posts by EA security and it included graphic threats to kill my children on their way out of school to show them that they should have been aborted at birth rather than have to have me as a mother."
Now, UK newspaper Metrohas cited Polygon's article with the claim that Hepler left BioWare because of the death threats, rather than simply after them. As Hepler says, she's actually leaving to write a book.
“[L]eaving Bioware was for family reasons,” she said. “I am going to be working on a text book on narrative design among other game-related freelance projects."
The distinction is important because we can't give abusers any more power than they already have. The original Polygon piece is full to the brim with game developers talking about their experience with online vitriol, including the Call of Dutydeveloper who was threatened with violencefor altering three guns' specs. And, of course, the Phil Fish and Fez 2incident is fresh in our collective minds.
Hepler didn't leave BioWare because of abuse, and saying differently tells abusers that their tactics are working. At the same time, game developers should never be expected to put up with this level of abuse just to do their jobs. Surely there are developers who would rather leave the industry entirely than endure more threats and abuse, and this is the consequence we see if online harassment isn't brought under control: talented people leaving.
Hepler left to write a book, but what if she had left BioWare because strangers threatened to murder her children? Could any of us really blame her?
Check out the full piece on dev harassment over at Polygon.
Nordic Games snaps up Darksiders and Red Faction IPs at THQ auction
A low profile Swedish publisher has snapped up most of what remained of THQ's IP portfolio overnight, including the Darksiders and Red Faction IPs.
A low profile Swedish publisher has snapped up most of what remained of THQ's IP portfolio overnight, including the Darksiders and Red Faction IPs. Auctioned off in lots, Nordic Games can now lay claim to The Biggest Loser and Jeopardy franchises (hooray?), as well as MX vs ATV, Worms, Juiced, Destroy All Humans!, Titan Quest and much more.
In a statement, Nordic owner Lars Wingefors said the publisher was willing to co-operate with developers responsible for previous games in their acquired properties. "First and foremost we are very happy about this deal which also turns over a new leaf for the entire Nordic Games Group," Wingefors said. "In the long term, we either want to cooperate with the original creators or best possible developers in order to work on sequels or additional content for these titles.
"A very important point for us is not to dash into several self-financed multi-million projects right away," he continued, "but rather to continue our in-depth analysis of all titles and carefully selecting different financing models for developing new instalments of acquired IPs."
For $4.9 million, Nordic Games walked away from the auction with nearly every remaining THQ IP except Homeworld - which went to Gearboxfor $1.35 million. Of course, a lot of the meatier stuff (Company of Heroes, Saints Row, Homefront and South Park) was bought back in January.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion gets its first expansion pack
Who would've thought you could buy entire new planets for $5?
Who would've thought you could buy entire new planets for $5? Ah, video games. Today you can do just that with Forbidden Worlds, the first expansion pack to Sins of a Solar Empire's excellent expandaloneaddition to the franchise, Rebellion.
This time around, that war between loyalists and rebels is still waging—but who has time for drama when there are four new planet types to ruthlessly exploit for resources? There's also a new planet specialization system, giving you the option to expand your planets' social or industrial output. Would you rather a cultured planet, or one that basically exists as a production line for new ships? Additionally, 15 new research subjects and 40 discoverable planet bonuses are added to Rebellion's already-sprawling galaxy.
Forbidden Planets is available through Sins of a Solar Empire's own website, as well as via Steam—because the galaxy can only go without a fresh supply of sin for so long.
Dragon Age: Inquisition unveils world (sorta) in latest dev diary
Dragon Age: Inquisition wasn't quite ready for a proper Gamescom showing, with EA and BioWare rocking up to the conference with, er, another dev diary, and one that didn't really show us anything new.
dev diary, and one that didn't really show us anything new. Amid lots of promises and buzzwords and the customary bigging up of Frostbite 3, however, BioWare did reveal more about your role in the Inquisition.
As the video reveals - after a few glimpses of are-they-cutscenes and some admittedly quite lovely environmental shots - as the head of the Inquisition you'll be given your own agents (read: underlings) to order about. Presumably you'll use these guys to carry out low-level tasks, which would be demeaning to any self-respecting RPG hero - just kidding, there are no self-respecting RPG heroes. As this is a BioWare game (albeit one set in a "vast world"), choice is obviously important too, with the example given being the decision to save a burning village or to let it be destroyed - I'm guessing down to time constraints, rather than the Inquisitor being a bit of a jerk. As for the newly open world of Thedas, we're promised "rich, lush jungles", "barren wastelands", "beautiful forests" and mountaintops, which will make a pleasant change from the same cave interior repeated fifteen times.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is out next Autumn. For our complete Gamescom coverage, click on these words.
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Our Verdict
It could have been great, but this gruesome and ridiculous power fantasy is spoilt by a disgracefully shabby port to PC.
In the intro, your wife and child are killed when you unaccountably tell them to stay in New York City after a virus outbreak starts killing everyone. If you set out to hunt down the monster responsible for this tragedy – yourself – it would be a short game. So you hunt down the protagonist from Prototype 1 instead, who has just given you superpowers and awesome claw arms.
Even if Prototype 2 didn't start out by establishing you as a tremendous asshole, it would be difficult not to become one immediately. It's an open-world game full of innocent bystanders, and foot-long steel claws are the safety scissors of your toolset. The next thing you get is the ability to turn your arms into elastic tendrils that violate human bodies, erupt through their skin, latch onto heavy objects, then contract to yank these objects into the victim with lethal force. Sometimes, the tendrils attach to buildings and just pull until your victim is quartered, his head and limbs suspended in a spider's web of stringy red meat. You're not man of the year.
It's a power-drunk perversion of a superhero game, and its attempts to cast you as sympathetic are just funny. Once your character has told people “I'm gonna eat your fucking brains”, “wear your face”, or “skullfuck you and suck your memories out through the hole,” that ship has pretty much sailed.
It's a supervillain game. And it would have been an amazing one, if they'd managed to get it working properly on PC.
I've tried it on three PCs. On one, the game did not start. The Steam forums reveal this happens if you have certain USB devices plugged in, so I unplugged everything. It then started, but crashed whenever it loaded a new mission.
On PC number two, it ran, but got slower and slower as I played, until it was entirely unresponsive and crashed, losing all progress in the current mission. Some missions last longer than the time it took this PC to slow to a crawl, and you can't save mid-mission.
Other players found one early mission was uncompletable unless they told Windows to use only one CPU core. Mouse acceleration varies with your framerate. Windowed mode is more stable, but hidden, and stuck at 1280x720. Some button presses didn't register.
On PC number three, it's fine. No major issues, runs beautifully, and it's surprisingly pretty. So if you own three very different gaming PCs, you'll be fine. If you don't, the sheer shoddiness of this port condemns you to a technical lottery.
I don't know who, but someone in management seems to be stuck in the self-justifying cycle of PC port failure. “No one buys stuff on PC, no sense spending money or time doing that well. Hey look! Our shitty PC port sold badly! I was right!”
I'll come back to this at the end to remind you how stupid and frustrating this situation is, as if you don't already know. For now, I'll get back to the game.
It's realistic looking, but somehow the horrific things that happen in it aren't as disturbing as they probably should be. It's so gross, so absurd and so openly silly that it's tonally more like a slapstick cartoon.
Even the tendrils become weirdly satisfying – and technically fascinating – in worryingly short order. They feel like sticky rubber bands, or the gelatinous handpads on those toys that climb down windows. I walked through the aftermath of one fight captivated by the surreal scene I'd created: the whole street a lattice of flesh strands, two buckled tank husks hanging in the web.
Your other powers feel good too: tactile, crunchy, heavy, sharp. The eruptive feedback from every impact is a constant catharsis. In lots of ways, it's a sleeker version of the overloaded original: your arms can turn into more different horrible things, but fewer awkward key combinations are needed to pull off specific moves. Instead, you can combine modes of attack, stringing up an enemy with tendrils and then cutting their arms off with the claws.
Again, not man of the year.
When you're not being openly horrible to people, there are lots of new ways to be secretly horrible to them. The stealth system is simple but intriguing: if you're disguised as a soldier, you can get close to any other soldier and 'stealth consume' them. To be clear, that means you secretly eat them.
But rather than having to guess whether you'll get away with it, you automatically abort the operation with a hilariously suspicious shoulder-brush if it turns out someone is watching. Handily, the potential witnesses are also picked out with big icons above their heads, so you know who to secretly eat next.
It's a generous system – guards are absurdly relaxed about the labcoated scientist running up the barrack walls, backflipping off them, flying like superman to the mutant cages and opening them for no reason. For the same reason, you can also get into some awkward situations.
On a mission that wanted me to take out two supersoldiers, I used a disguise to release mutants into the compound to soften them up. Nice idea, but mutants can always sniff you out. I had to sprint around the compound pretending not to know why they'd singled me out, or how to fight back: my superhuman combat moves would reveal me to everyone. Eventually I slipped behind a tent to beat one of my pursuers to death, and emerged as casually as I could.
The missions often give you refreshingly free rein on how to tackle targets or get into a facility, but occasionally still fail if you step outside an arbitrary range or zone. The best missions have you fight something big and powerful wherever you happen to find it in the city, and happily, that's most of them.
In one, a mutant commander fled through traffic at night. I ran up a building and launched myself into the air, gliding above him to keep him in view. He picked up a car and threw it at me just as I started to lose altitude. I veered just enough to avoid the brunt of the impact, but my feet brushed its underside as it span. On some kind of automated animation logic, my character ran across the car before it flew harmlessly past. I turned it into a diving tackle on the target, and felt incredibly cool.
My favourite place to fight is rooftops: if the target's on the offensive, I'll run up a skyscraper and wait on the roof. You can rip up truck-sized ventilation units to hurl at foes when they arrive, and if that knocks them off, they scramble back up. If they knock me off, I try to turn it into a glide and circle back for another round.
Once, my target climbed a different building to leap across the street at me. I saw it coming, and charged my horrible tendril attack. Both my arms stretched out to hit him mid-air, making sub-tentacles erupt from him in all directions. They snatched up everything from the street – cars, people, chunks of building –and brought it all smashing into him.
At its best, Prototype 2 is a spectacular clash of horrific titans, their mutant limbs ripping through the city as they pound each other. The fights spill out into traffic, sending cars flying as they smash each other into whatever is unlucky enough to get in the way.
Both Prototype games have terrible stories, unlikeable protagonists and hammy voice acting. But what's exciting about this one is that it seems to understand how to sideline that stuff: the plot is just a framing device for why you've got to kill and eat the next guy you've got to kill and eat. It lets the game take centre stage, and refines it to show off its most ridiculous and horrific pleasures.
That's why it crushes me that I can't recommend this game. It's just in a terrible state, and there's no way for you to know if your £30 will get you a fantastic game, a chugging mess, or something that simply doesn't work at all.
I don't know how many towering PC successes it's going to take to convince publishers and developers to invest in their own games properly, or how dismal the console games market has got to get before we start to look appealing to them
in comparison. But I hope it happens soon, because I hate seeing something as good as this ruined
by neglect.
The Verdict
Prototype 2
It could have been great, but this gruesome and ridiculous power fantasy is spoilt by a disgracefully shabby port to PC.
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Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion gets its first expansion pack
Who would've thought you could buy entire new planets for $5?
Who would've thought you could buy entire new planets for $5? Ah, video games. Today you can do just that with Forbidden Worlds, the first expansion pack to Sins of a Solar Empire's excellent expandaloneaddition to the franchise, Rebellion.
This time around, that war between loyalists and rebels is still waging—but who has time for drama when there are four new planet types to ruthlessly exploit for resources? There's also a new planet specialization system, giving you the option to expand your planets' social or industrial output. Would you rather a cultured planet, or one that basically exists as a production line for new ships? Additionally, 15 new research subjects and 40 discoverable planet bonuses are added to Rebellion's already-sprawling galaxy.
Forbidden Planets is available through Sins of a Solar Empire's own website, as well as via Steam—because the galaxy can only go without a fresh supply of sin for so long.
Morrigan won't be a party member in Dragon Age: Inquisition
Electronic Arts may not have unveiled much of Dragon Age: Inquisition at this year's E3, but you could tell it hit the right note as Morrigan was greeted with cheers once she sauntered into view.
at this year's E3, but you could tell it hit the right note as Morrigan was greeted with cheers once she sauntered into view. Unfortunately, it seems our favorite practitioner of the dark arts won't be joining the team in Inquisition.
Creative Director Mike Laidlaw told Game Informerthat while Morrigan plays an integral role in Inquisition's plot, she won't return to cast spells as a party member.
“I think it is fair for people to understand that [Morrigan] will not be a party member,” Laidlaw told Game Informer. “That's going to disappoint some people, but I think it's important for us to be upfront about that.”
Laidlaw said Morrigan will serve as more than just a plot device, and will have a “human role” in Inquisition's plot. Laidlaw didn't elaborate on that point, but it sounds like the witch won't be relegated the role of a simple narrator.
Laidlaw also confirmed that your history with Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins will serve a purpose in Inquistion, though that raises new questions considering you'll play as a new human protagonist—not the Grey Warden from Origins. Perhaps our fair warden will make an appearance as well?
Either way, I suppose we'll just have to hold tryouts for a new dark mage to join our ranks—preferably one who can conjure sweet rolls and mead at a moment's notice.
Prototype 2 trailer tours the zones of New York Zero
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Prototype 2's beleaguered version of New York City (now New York Zero, for some reason) will be split into three zones labelled according to a traffic light system that ranges from "everything's gravy" to "completely boned." The green zone has trees, and civilians who haven't been infected with an experimental virus.
Prototype 2's beleaguered version of New York City (now New York Zero, for some reason) will be split into three zones labelled according to a traffic light system that ranges from "everything's gravy" to "completely boned." The green zone has trees, and civilians who haven't been infected with an experimental virus. Pedestrians in the yellow zone are less fortunate, and the developers don't even show us what's lurking in the red zone. It's probably safe to assume it's full of puppies and rainbows. We'll find out what's behind the big red door when Prototype 2 is released in April.
Ironclad: RTS genre is "a dying market"
Ironclad brought us Sins of a Solar Empire in 2008, and we enjoyed its space-based mixture of RTS and 4X.
its space-based mixture of RTS and 4X. Its next project, Sins of a Dark Age, pivots the developer's focus to the expanding MOBA genre, and it seems part of the reason for the change comes from Ironclad's belief that RTS games are "very niche," as Director Blair Fraser describes it in an interview with RPS.
"RTS games, to my mind, are very niche now," he says. "And that's unfortunate, because that's what I love, and that's what I grew up playing, and that's what I make. Or made, anyway. I just think the demographics have changed. Company of Heroes may be profitable, and StarCraft II is an anomaly, but most of them aren't gonna get big numbers. It's a dying market.”
Fraser thinks Sins of a Solar Empire avoids this problem because it "diverged" from the classic RTS structure. "It still has a very specific community that wants more," he adds. "There are games like Total War as well, but they broke away from classic base-building, because that's done. It's sad for me to say, but that's done.”
Is it done? Though RTS games, like pretty much every other genre, continue evolving and innovatingover the years, classic-style entries still shine—Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, and StarCraft II spring to mind.
Head over to RPSfor the rest of the interview.