Rebellion Announces it is Working on Evil Genius 2

[ffronw]

Rebellion Announces it is Working on Evil Genius 2

Rebellion is officially working on a sequel to 2004's world-dominating strategy game, Evil Genius.

When Elixir released Evil Genius back in 2004, it was very well-received. The game put you in the shoes of a James Bond film super-villain, and tasked you with building your evil lair, defending it against pesky secret agents, and sending out your henchmen to take over the world.

Although Elixir announced a sequel in 2004, it never came to fruition. In 2009, Rebellion acquired the IP during the Vivendi fire sale that came in the wake of the merger of Activision and Blizzard. Rebellion now says it's begun work on Evil Genius 2.


The news comes in a video interview with Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley (you can watch it above, skip to 3:30 for the announcement). This project was discussed a few years back, and was planned for crowdfunding, but the developer says that it won't be turning to its fans for funding this times. "After the growing success of the Sniper Elite series and other Rebellion games IP, we started to feel it wasn't fair to ask fans to fund a new game if we didn't need them to!"

It's worth noting that this project isn't coming anytime soon. Rebellion says that, "development only began this Spring and is still at a very, very early stage." The game is currently planned for PC, but the company says it will, "look at other platforms and see what fits and what doesn't."

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can find the original Evil Genius over on GOG.com [https://www.gog.com/game/evil_genius].

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[Borty The Bort]

pleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegame

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I could never get passed the first island. Never could beat the 'be making $100,000 a minute in operatives stealing' mission. Never had enough goons, and roll a D6, on a 5+ they die on mission and your threat level goes up.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Huh, there's a game I did not expect to ever get a sequel. Call me pleasantly surprised.

pleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegame

The article says right up that they're starting with PC.

 

[Mike000]

The problem I always ran into on the first one was the investigating soldiers would get threatened by ANYTHING and start shooting. They'd wander into the decoy casino, panic, and start murdering civilians, see the bodies, and raise the heat level, summoning more soldiers. Rinse, repeat, until there were 5+ times the number of soldiers on the island as minions.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Why yes, I do like to see more bunkbeds just explode by being punched on.
Seriously, I'd love a fully fletched sequel with the same weird humor.

 

[Borty The Bort]

Huh, there's a game I did not expect to ever get a sequel. Call me pleasantly surprised.

pleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegame

The article says right up that they're starting with PC.

ohthankchristididn'treadthatpart

 

[Quazimofo]

Yeah the first game had a problem balancing the global alertness or whatever, minion attrition (and speed of replacement), and having enough space to put any kind of decent defenses without taking up way too much room in your base, hindering the room progression. I'm sure there's an optional solution I didn't see, but it's rather unforgiving as you look for that solution.

Also the pace of gaining money was GLACIAL if you didn't want to have agents so far up your ass 24/7 you were crapping their spent shell casings. And if you did have a decent income you had to spend most of it on new dudes and replacing broken shit because of said agents.

Basically, if they made it a little easier by adding more viable options for dealing with agents (it even just had fewer frigging agents), it'd be fantastic.

Also hope they don't change the art style much. That 60s cheese was perfect.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Huh, there's a game I did not expect to ever get a sequel. Call me pleasantly surprised.

pleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegamepleasedon'tbeaphonegame

The article says right up that they're starting with PC.

Doesn't mean they won't load it with micro out the arse
The thing is. I don't think that devs can actually handle that sort of gameplay. Not any more. It's strictly single player focused and ius about patience and planning. And setting giant killedr bee traps.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Yeah the first game had a problem balancing the global alertness or whatever, minion attrition (and speed of replacement), and having enough space to put any kind of decent defenses without taking up way too much room in your base, hindering the room progression. I'm sure there's an optional solution I didn't see, but it's rather unforgiving as you look for that solution.

Me, I just made the one entrance to the base a corridor just long enough so that the agents wouldn't hit the door after falling into harmless the wind trap I put in there, put a couple doors between that and the meat of the base, and agents just keep trying to get through and blown back to exit door over and over again, and eventually they'd just end up leaving and lowering my heat. In the unlikely event any gained heat I'd just cap and torture them with the mixer and escort them out. I hardly even encountered any agents above investigators this way, and when I did I prefer to just kill them anyway. Later on, I just put a bunch of shacks with nothing in them with high level security doors near my base entrance and the agents hardly even go in my actual base anymore, and all that even takes care of the first couple Super Agents pretty easily. Speaking of Super Agents, I typically just keep my Infamy down to the point just before the first Super Agent will show up until I've unlocked everything and keep infamy gain afterward to a minimum so I can just get to the second island and start killing them off not long after they appear.

Also the pace of gaining money was GLACIAL if you didn't want to have agents so far up your ass 24/7 you were crapping their spent shell casings. And if you did have a decent income you had to spend most of it on new dudes and replacing broken shit because of said agents.

Yeah, which is why I always gain tons of money and preplan in all the regions during the tutorial before agents start showing up, so I can have plenty of money for the rest of the game and just focus on managing my base instead of my heat levels. Heat, money, and planning is just too difficult to manage otherwise even while using the best minions for each.

Basically, if they made it a little easier by adding more viable options for dealing with agents (it even just had fewer frigging agents), it'd be fantastic.

I just wish killing agents was a much more viable option myself. There's all these fun military minions, traps, henchmen, all of it, but the heat one gets for killing agents means that you're better off never actually using them for anything.

On that note, there's a few other mechanics that bug me. One is the only place to put bodies is a freezer, what kind of IDIOT would put dead bodies is the one place they would be preserved? Why not an incinerator?

Then there's an obvious oversight, there's security options for your security doors but they forgot one. There's "Anyone can use this door," "Only minions can use this door," "Only your evil self can use this door," and "Only your evil self can use this door and you want it guarded to make sure." How hard would it have been to put an option of "Only minions can use this door and you want it guarded to make sure" to help keep agents out of sensitive areas?

Then, there's the tourists. The Hotel and Valet minions are supposed to be there as a built in mechanic to keep them busy while they're on your island, but the tourists hardly ever use any of the hotel equipment or even go IN the Hotel, the Valets don't really interact with them much unless specifically told to, and the tourists seem to go out of their way to sneak into my base. Then they start panicking in 5 seconds because they can't get out of the base despite having no issue getting in and either die or escape raising my heat level unless I constantly have my valets escort them out. I found dealing with the tourists to be much more of a hassle than dealing with the agents because of this.

Finally, the invention mechanic. Whoever on the development team decided that having your science minions wander around randomly examining things to invent stuff was a good idea I hope got fired. It's just an immense timewaster that probably made it take way longer just to be able to get the useful stuff than it took to do anything else in the game. There's even the turret that generates heat that need to leave outside your base for your science minions to just randomly stumble upon and pray that it happens quickly before too many agents and tourists run into it.

Also hope they don't change the art style much. That 60s cheese was perfect.

Agreed. The whole thing is like a slightly less goofy Austin Powers movie if you were playing as Dr. Evil. I've never seen another game that really got the whole "Mad Genius Dominating The World" angle done so well.

 

[Nurb]

I haven't been this excited in a long time. Evil Genius was great.

 

[putowtin]

loved this game when I first had it, it was in the steam sale supper cheap so I will be having another go this weekend

 

[Squilookle]

Just make a game soundtrack as good as the first one and I'm sold.

 

[Mike000]

On that note, there's a few other mechanics that bug me. One is the only place to put bodies is a freezer, what kind of IDIOT would put dead bodies is the one place they would be preserved? Why not an incinerator?

Well...you put the bodies in the freezer to lower heat.
Yeah, it was just a big pun.

 

[KayeFaye]

I dunno. I loved the first one, but I'm always skeptical when it is so late in the game and we are talking about a developer with a pretty miss-laden track record.

But I'll give it a shot. The first one was fun for its time and if they succeed in continuing with its fun setting and sense of humour while working out its many, many kinks - maybe it'll be okay.

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

I could never get passed the first island. Never could beat the 'be making $100,000 a minute in operatives stealing' mission. Never had enough goons, and roll a D6, on a 5+ they die on mission and your threat level goes up.

When I saw the announcement I thought, brilliant, them I remember I was bloody awful at it. Seeing your comment, perhaps not as bad as I thought.

 

[Tanis]

It's a shame the original game wasn't very well balanced and seemed to be hard only for the lack of skill on the developers side.

Still...if they manage to fix the 'pants on head' retard things from the first...sure?

 

[Bad Jim]

Then, there's the tourists. The Hotel and Valet minions are supposed to be there as a built in mechanic to keep them busy while they're on your island, but the tourists hardly ever use any of the hotel equipment or even go IN the Hotel, the Valets don't really interact with them much unless specifically told to, and the tourists seem to go out of their way to sneak into my base. Then they start panicking in 5 seconds because they can't get out of the base despite having no issue getting in and either die or escape raising my heat level unless I constantly have my valets escort them out. I found dealing with the tourists to be much more of a hassle than dealing with the agents because of this.

Hotels have a few issues:
1) Hotel doors default to 'employees only' just like other doors.
2) If tourists are tagged for psychological weakening, valets will distract them from their fun and lead them out of the hotel.
3) Tourists will eventually leave and go exploring. You really want a bunch of little hotels so they bounce from one to another.