Bid welcome to Earth No More - a game that's an awful long way away (we're talking 2009 here, people), but has a mission statement that makes it damn hard to ignore.
From a development house splintered from Remedy (of Max Payne fame) and 3D Realms, it's all part of a concept known as the "cinegame."
"Our ultimate goal is to bring games to the same level as film and television in terms of providing an interactive experience with emotional consequence," says Samuli Syvähuoko, studio director at Recoil Games. "We want to tap into the whole gamut of human emotions, not just the low-hanging fruit like tension, excitement and fear. The single driving force behind all good films, for example, is drama. And to create meaningful drama, we've got to abandon the lone hero in favor of an ensemble cast. It's this cast of characters that allows us to explore a fuller range of dynamics and conflicts that we've not seen in many previous games."
Announced back in 2008, Earth No More looked to be a promising new first-person shooter. Ever since then we've heard very little about the project, until now. A recent trademark filing seems to indicate that the project isn't totally dead.
I almost forgot about this. I followed it for years and last time I checked it hadn't been cancelled.
Video games are often delayed, crippled or outright killed. This is their story.
In 2007, Recoil Games and 3d Realms announced there new title, Earth No More. Earth No More features many trademark disaster/thriller movie trademarks including, epic action, threats to humanity, and a wayward cast that don't always get along. The game will run on Unreal Engine 3.
Sounds interesting.
Sounds good. Hope they have skillful writers and innovating designers who are able to merge the drama, action and freedom of choice naturally into the game's intellectual offerings. The ultimate task in my opinion is to produce a game where the player and different entities have seamless causal relationships at the different emergent levels (mainly physical and psychological) AND produce information that is applicable to the game world in addition to having a philosophical meaning that reflects the fundamental basis of it.
After the Max Payne series and how Alan Wake is turning out, I have faith Remedy games can turn out a pretty good story and game, but this just almost just seems like setting your goals to unreachable places.
p.s. Give me Alan Wake before you even start this, damn it Remedy!