“We looked at Idle Minds, the makers of Pain,” THQ Digital UK’s creative director Don Whiteford tells me when I asked him where he looked for examples of developers that understand digital downloadable games. “They’re listening to the customers, they’re learning and they’re feeding it back to make it an enjoyable experience and keep that thing going.” Currently heading the Red Faction: Battlegrounds project, Whiteford hopes to show THQ the greater value of developing digital games in smaller teams with more rapid development cycles. He sat down with Gamesauce to talk about his findings, the challenges of adapting a game studio to developing digital downloadable games and how a publisher like THQ has a growing interest in it too.
Alex & Mike talk Biomutant, a game from Experiment 101/THQ Nordiq you likely have not heard of. While the AAA side of the industry tends to homogenization and imitative, cinematic presentation, “AA” games remain creative and innovative in 2021. Drawing on inspirations as varied as Dark Souls, third person shooters & kung fu cinema, Biomutant is Ratchet & Clank on acid, developed by a team of 20 people.
Remember THQ? They published such games as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Darksiders I & II, the Destroy All Humans series, Homefront, the Red Faction series, and Saint's Row 1-3. Almost as famous as their games were the THQ marketing stunts, including a Golden Wii.
PlaySation gamers are in for a treat today! Not only did Sony roll out its “Double Discount” PlayStation Store sale, but there’s also a THQ Humbe Bundle PS4 discount happening too!
