LucasArts Veterans Form Their Own Rebel Alliance

[Tom Goldman]

LucasArts Veterans Form Their Own Rebel Alliance

LucasArts veteran Haden Blackman doesn't need the force now that he's got his own independent studio.

When 13-year LucasArts veteran and Force Unleashed 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Force-Unleashed-Xbox-360/dp/B000R0URCE], he said it was to "explore new creative challenges." Those challenges apparently include starting up a new independent studio, with Blackman recently announcing the formation of Fearless Studios with partner and former LucasArts director of engineering Cedrick Collomb.

"I've always wanted to run my own development studio," Blackman revealed to Joystiq, negating any talk that he was forced out of LucasArts. "It's been something that I've been thinking about for the last five or six years and have entertained a few other times in the past and this seemed like the right time."

He says that while it was an honor to play in "someone else's sandbox" with Star Wars, he wants to try and fill up his own now. Fearless Studios has "six different concepts" in the works, though its first release will likely scare gamers' pants off. "I'm a big horror buff, and we've got a couple concepts we're exploring in that [hardcore horror] vein," Blackman divulged.

According to Blackman, most of Fearless Studios' concepts are "story-driven action games" that combine genres. He agrees with Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski when he said RPG elements are the future of shooters [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92932-Gears-of-War-Designer-The-Future-of-Shooters-is-RPGs], and embraces the idea of games becoming deeper than their genres. Blackman and Collomb want to create games that constantly surprise players, but admits that in horror games players eventually expect zombie dogs to jump through windows, so it's not easy to pull off.

The scope of Fearless's projects will depend on their individual visions, which means the studio could put out "AAA" console titles or downloadable games on XBLA, PSN, or even the iPhone. "Conservatively, I hope we'll have something to announce in the first half of next year," he added.

The timing of Blackman's move to his own independent studio coincided with a large number of layoffs [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103196-LucasArts-Axes-Staff] at LucasArts, though Blackman also said he'd been through that before and this move just made the most sense for him right now. With another promising independent developer now churning up ideas for new games, I'm not complaining.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/14/fearless-studios-formed-by-lucasarts-vets-haden-blackman-cedric/]

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[Loonerinoes]

Learn and move on - this guy gets it and given what he said his focus would quite likely be, it sounds like I can't wait to give one of his future games a spin to see what their take will be on it.

 

[Bobzer77]

The scope of Fearless's projects will depend on their individual visions, which means the studio could put out "AAA" console titles or downloadable games on XBLA, PSN, or even the iPhone.

Yay another studio that doesn't give a crap about the pc.



/sarcasm

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Hey, a new concept!! Someone who leaves a studio to start their own and *doesn't* badmouth the company they just left...
Of course pissing of the guy who might just have an army of angry stormtroopers at his beck and call might not be the best thing...

 

[hem dazon 90]

I'm glad for him

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Full Throttle Sequel, that is all

 

[Alandoril]

Sounds like an interesting project, I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

 

[Dr Bob]

I wouldn't mind seeing this horror game on Steam, you know...

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I love Haden Blackman. Force Unleashed might have sucked, but the guy wrote Jango Fett: Open Seasons!

 

[Exort]

Hey, a new concept!! Someone who leaves a studio to start their own and *doesn't* badmouth the company they just left...
Of course pissing of the guy who might just have an army of angry stormtroopers at his beck and call might not be the best thing...

One of the developer of runic game, Max Schaefer, said he definely is going to buy diablo 3, and diablo 3 seems pretty good.

Max Schaefer worked at Blizzard, and Blizzard North before.


exact quote:

Schaefer told us, "[Blizzard has] an impossible task. Blizzard can not get away with doing a Torchlight 1. If they put out a single player game, an RPG that's kinda stripped down for $20, people would say, 'What the hell happened to Blizzard?' They don't have that luxury. Everything has to be super epic. More epic than anything that's come before, more epic than World of Warcraft. They have to do that. It puts them in a really tough spot, I don't envy them. It has to be perfect."

Given his deadpan delivery on the subject, we wanted to make sure he was serious about Torchlight's third installment beating the Blizzard behemoth to market, "I really think we will, I'm not joking about it. I'll be the first to buy Diablo 3, I'm a huge fan. I just know what it's like over there."

 

[samsonguy920]

Spinoff companies have a good startup reputation so far, so this promises good things for gamers. Yay!

 

[Something Amyss]

IT'S A TRAP!

sorry, "Rebel Alliance" just made me want to shout that.

Good for them.

 

[The Random One]

I think I'll be cautiously pessimistic about this one. Call me back when they actually develop something.

 

[sylekage]

Sounds interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for these guys. If they can bring great horror games to us, then hell I'll support them.

 

[Brotherofwill]

"story-driven action games"

Wow! Never played one of those before.

that combine genres. He agrees with Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski when he said RPG elements are the future of shooters [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92932-Gears-of-War-Designer-The-Future-of-Shooters-is-RPGs], and embraces the idea of games becoming deeper than their genres.

I disagree so strongly it almost hurts. Adding RPG elements and combining genres doesn't make anything deeper. It just dilutes them.

If you 'level up' while playing a shooter then the shooter experience you have doesn't get deeper. You get a shallow RPG experience on top of your diluted shooter experience.

Look, for example a shooter is 'deep' when your skill controls the character and when your success depends on your skill at aiming, circle strafing and pattern recognition of enemies etc etc. That's a deep shooter. It's purely action and skill driven, NOT stat driven. RPGs become deep because of stats and calculations among other things. If you add RPG elements to shooters like say, Mass Effect, then you remove a whole chunk of the skill driven 'deepness' and thus make a worse shooter experience.

Mario is probably on of the deepest platformers out there because it's platforming at its most refined. It's simple to jump and you get better at it the more you try and your skill governs your jumping. Would a Mario game with RPG elements, in which you are able to jump higher after you gain levels, make the game any 'deeper'? Hell no. It would just add another genre and reduce the depth and complexity of the jumping mechanics.

Mixing genres never makes them 'deeper'. It might make them more fun, easier to grasp or potentially interesting for a new audience, but it just dilutes them.

 

[Tom Goldman]

that combine genres. He agrees with Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski when he said RPG elements are the future of shooters [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92932-Gears-of-War-Designer-The-Future-of-Shooters-is-RPGs], and embraces the idea of games becoming deeper than their genres.

I disagree so strongly it almost hurts. Adding RPG elements and combining genres doesn't make anything deeper. It just dilutes them.

If you 'level up' while playing a shooter then the shooter experience you have doesn't get deeper. You get a shallow RPG experience on top of your diluted shooter experience.

Look, for example a shooter is 'deep' when your skill controls the character and when your success depends on your skill at aiming, circle strafing and pattern recognition of enemies etc etc. That's a deep shooter. It's purely action and skill driven, NOT stat driven. RPGs become deep because of stats and calculations among other things. If you add RPG elements to shooters like say, Mass Effect, then you remove a whole chunk of the skill driven 'deepness' and thus make a worse shooter experience.

Mario is probably on of the deepest platformers out there because it's platforming at its most refined. It's simple to jump and you get better at it the more you try and your skill governs your jumping. Would a Mario game with RPG elements, in which you are able to jump higher after you gain levels, make the game any 'deeper'? Hell no. It would just add another genre and reduce the depth and complexity of the jumping mechanics.

Mixing genres never makes them 'deeper'. It might make them more fun, easier to grasp or potentially interesting for a new audience, but it just dilutes them.

But... adding RPG elements doesn't always mean making things stat driven. For example, Modern Warfare already has RPG elements. Your character raises in rank, increasing ability, but "leveling up" has nothing to do with the basic game mechanics. This is mostly what these guys are talking about, not necessarily making every shooter an RPG with shooter mechanics.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Well good for them! I hope they do well

 

[Brotherofwill]

But... adding RPG elements doesn't always mean making things stat driven. For example, Modern Warfare already has RPG elements. Your character raises in rank, increasing ability, but "leveling up" has nothing to do with the basic game mechanics. This is mostly what these guys are talking about, not necessarily making every shooter an RPG with shooter mechanics.

I know what they're talking about. All these elements do is add a grinding game to MW. If anyone finds that adding depth to the game as a shooter, well keep enjoying your playtime and hope they won't turn it into a subscription service I guess.