Gamepro.com Writes:
"Japanese video game magazine Famitsu recently broke the story that Hideo Kojima, father of the Metal Gear series, is already working on two brand-new titles. And to be honest, we're a lot more interested to hear about these secret game projects than anything he's planning on covering in his GDC 2009 Keynote speech about "conquering various development obstacles with creative game design." But then again, we're not game designers."
Headquartered in Poland, Elsewhere Entertainment — an all-new internal studio at Activision — is working on a new “narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise.” Elsewhere includes developers credited on The Last of Us, Uncharted, Destiny, Cyberpunk, and more. Activision’s new studio announcement comes just a week after its parent company, Microsoft, closed three Bethesda studios. It also follows job postings about a new Activision IP.
The game industry confuses, closing down proven studios only open a new studio?
It would certainly be strange if this news came from Bethesda, but Activision is its on monster.
To be fair, many Activision employees lost their jobs too during the the last few months. So it really is quite odd to see them opening another studio. All I can say is they better not do another mass layoff anytime soon or its just gonna piss everyone off. Studio description reminds me of The Initiative. The only saving grace is that they aren't claiming to be making a AAAA game lol. I guess we will check back in in 5 years to see how everything is going.
Replies(1)
@InUrFoxHole
Well, xbox was pretty adamant that Hi-Fi Rush was special, journalist and gamers seemed to agree and from my own personal experience I would say it was a great game. They also made Ghostwire: Tokyo, and the Evil Within series.
Yeah, then the head/lead of the company left...
No hope for a good Evil within game, ghost wire was not really successful,and HI-FI alone was not enough to keep an entire studio open.
@thesoftware730
I think the fact that this 'wasn't enough' is a problem wouldn't you concede?
Hi-Fi Rush was a great game regardless of who left and according to Aaron Greenberg,
"Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
So of course they rewarded the team for their accomplishment by firing them. They have studios that have contributed much less that they haven't closed. It is going to be very difficult for any game to be successful when it goes straight to gamepass day one.
I think this is just a publicity stunt and that this studio never actually produces a game. Someone at Microsoft was like were getting cooked in the media after they closed these studios and they came up with a plan to create some dummy studio someplace outside of the reach of the English speaking presses reach to distract people.
"Oh hey we're not closing studios we're actually creating studios"
And of course what are they working on... the type of game that gets the most popular public perception a narrative driven story based game... ya know not the thing Activision and Microsoft are known for.
Replies(2)GamingFans6946m ago
They hired a bunch of people and opened a new studio for a publicity stunt?
Yea, they hired people... Who? "Oh, you know, people..." people who worked on TLOU Uncharted and Destiny of course...
It's the same crap they did with The Initiative where they were under fire for buying a bunch of studios and not forming anything except even more sketchy this time. Of course the The Initiative was formed with people mostly poached from PlayStation specifically Naughty Dog, then less than 12 months later almost everyone was back at Sony and The Initiative was rumored to have lost 80% of it's staff and the game they were working on was announced to actually be getting developed by Crystal Dynamics.
The way we need to look at these buzzwords is the same that we see when a sports team brings in the best athletes in their position in hopes to bring them to look like a superteam, only to barely win half of their games or lose in the first round of the playoffs. Sometimes superteams work, but when it doesn't it just makes you question how they can't take advantage of their abilities.
They don't make games like this anymore.
Too dated in my book. The AI is way too unpredictable to be acceptable today. It's definitely a game of its time.
Agreed with those sentiments. The quality of the CPU controlled characters make or break a stealth game and they are pretty poor in all the Splinter Cell games by today's standard. This is what led me to playing Spies vs Mercs all the time in later games just to get a better stealth experience from a real person. Arguably Sony are making better stealth games albeit not Tom Clancy stuff.
You should stick with fortnite or one of the countless bloodborne style games then. What a joke.
I had a good time with the game. It is a product of its time. But when it came out it was a must have game for a lot of people. I wish Ubisoft would make another game in the series or at least a reboot.
They are making a remake, I think. I loved the original game when it was released, but I tried to play it again in recent years and just couldn't get on with it. The same with the older Hitman games.
Yeah chaos theory still holds up though I gotta say. If you’re a fan of the series I highly suggest you go back to that one. Ubi has said they are remaking sc for “modern audiences”. I don’t have a lot of faith for the future of that company
Due to the lack of modern stealth games, and me constantly playing the MGS series, I've been looking for alternative stealth games to play, and went back and re-played the SC series recently. I wouldn't call SC1 or SC:PT masterpieces, there are AI issues, they're very much trial-and-error games, and that can lead to a lot of frustration. I also found the stories in this series to be boring, uninteresting, and just sloppily told. Cinematics are also of poor quality for both in-game scenes and CG cut-scenes, the soundtrack didn't leave any impression on me either.
Chaos Theory is better, but there was still a lot of room for improvement, and Double Agent (old gen ver.) was a sloppy mess that ended up a regression from CT. But still, at least they tried back then, these days Ubi-junk doesn't even try to make good games!
Xbox and EA have recently made baffling moves that define how bleak the future of the gaming industry is with major companies at the helm. Ryan Bates from "Last Word on Gaming" posits in this op-ed that maybe it's not ineptitude, but intention.
Name someone that isn't trying to look us these days maybe cdpr.
Take two, ubi and yes even PlayStation are pushing us to own nothing and be happy with our live service ad injected games on a sub so they can raise prices at will and take access away when they see fit.
If it keeps up I'll be a full time retro gamer and this industry will be crashing hard
As rediculas as it sounds we need government reforms to defend consumer rights
i am guessing an announcement from Team ICO, PSP version of LBP, GOW 3 gameplay video, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and Infamous gameplay footage, plus most probably Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Quantum Theory gameplay footage plus a couple of other psn & psp games & a few announcements regarding Home, as far as Price cut is concerned, GDC is not the place for it, it will most probably happen at E3 or Sony's Gamers Day 09. Release window for GT5 please.
While on 360 end, I am really hoping they show Alan Awake footage, MassEffect 2 footage, Halo 3 ODST footage and announce some more exclusive games for 2009. *Forza 3 fingers crossed* & there is no way in Hell Microsoft will free xbox live. How do you think they pay for exclusives from. Consider this if there are 15 million proper online Gold Members and if each pay 8$ a month = ???
As far as MGS5 is concerned, I doubt the announcement will be made at GDC, it will either be announced at E3 or TGS09.
WHAT!! Alan Wake was supposed to be a 360 launch title! And i thought that Halo 3 delay was bad, i hope this game doesnt turn into a Too Human
I just wanna see some ME2 footage and at least one new 360 exclusive
wake up alan lets go buddy ... show us wat you got .. speaking of which IS THERE ANY NEWS ON MAX PAYNE 3???
I cant wait for ME2... as far as alan wake.. that dude loves to sleep thou.. dout its coming out anytime early this year i am guessing towards the end of this year anyway.. but b4 then there are loads of games that would keep be busy on my ps3 and 360 so i doin good.