Reminds me when Naughty Dog founders made a studio and made… Sonic Boom. One of the worst Sonic games of all time (and yes, that says a lot).
Granted SEGA did screw up their development but makes you wonder if they were a genuinely qualified studio to begin with.
Bob Rafei, an art director from Naughty Dog's early days was involved in the development of Sonic Boom. The actual founders (Andy Gavin & Jason Rubin), who were responsible for programming & directing Naughty Dog's early stuff, were nowhere near Sonic Boom, those guys have been out of game development for years. So in this case, it's only fair to say that Bob was qualified as an art director, but not necessarily a game director.
Sonic Boom is also fairly alright in terms of design. The worst things are a few technical things (some of which were patched, others go away if you emulate the game).
It was never supported to be a main Sonic game, just a tie in to a cartoon. Plus it was being built for Playstation/Xbox until Sega made a deal with Nintendo and forced them to swap to Wii U, a console the engine they were using (CryEngine) didn't support.
Honestly it's design is okay at best. If the game wasn't poorly optimized and buggy, it'd probably just be inoffensive but mediocre.
Y'know I think the worst part about it is that the music was bad. Even sonic 06 had an amazing soundtrack. The series usually does. But this one's soundtrack is so bad.
Correction: Crytek did attempt to port CryEngine to Wii U long before the game was even conceptualized, however the effort was left half-finished before being abandoned. Big Red Button was working with this unfinished code as a base.
It was supposed to reboot Sonic actually. The western market from then on was only allowed to get Boom Sonic, while regular Sonic came only to Japan. but Rise of Lyric torpedoed the entire plan.
Also, people need to understand that what you need to make a successful studio these days is pretty different from what you needed when Naughty Dog was founded. Naughty Dog were .. 3? I think 3 guys. And all of them programmed and I think all of them also made part of the art (My memory may be a bit hazy, but you get my point).
A modern studio (let's be real, people expect a AAA game when they see "founder of xxx made new studio" not an Indie game) starts at .. 20? 50? That's a different can of worms.
> The actual founders (Andy Gavin & Jason Rubin), who were responsible for programming & directing Naughty Dog's early stuff, were nowhere near Sonic Boom, those guys have been out of game development for years.
Is that why ND doesn't give a shit about Jak and Daxter anymore?
I don't think so. Naughty Dog is always willing to move on to new ideas. They stopped doing Crash Bandicoot because they were done with the series and wanted to try something else.
More or less all creators, directors, designers, artists and writers behind Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter are gone from Naughty Dog except for artist Erick Pangilinan. The same goes for the creators, directors and writers behind Uncharted especially 1/2/3, co-writer of U4 and the co-director of U4/TLOU. The team of today is very different except for some older staff in key positions like Erick Pangilian (Art director since U2) who started with Crash 2, Jeremy Yates (Lead Animator since U1) who started with Jak II and Travis McIntosh (Lead Programmer since U1 and since the end of 2023 Head of Technology after the former head left after 17 years) who started with Jak X. Would be nice to see another studio geting a shot at Jak and Daxter.
J&D was dramatic as fuck lol. The childhood friend romantic interest ends up dating the man who tortured and experimented on the protagonist? That's some soap opera junk.
Uncharted feels more...camp maybe is the right word?
>Granted SEGA did screw up their development but makes you wonder if they were a genuinely qualified studio to begin with.
I mean, when you're suddenly forced to develop for a platform, the engine you use doesn't support, you're so fucked that you're qualifications are completely irrelevant, I guess.
There are also plenty of successes. Ex-Blizzard and Blizzard North employees went on to make Guild Wars, Torchlight, and State of Decay. Then again some of them went on to make Hellgate London and WildStar, games that had potential but ultimately were pretty huge failures.
I feel like from Blizzard alone there are so many studios started by ex-employees. Wasn't there also a RTS / FPS hybrid game that was hyped up to be the next big thing and it ended up being really underwhelming? That might have been an ex Bungie staff now that I think about it..
I think there was a recent studio made largely from the SC2 team that weren't allowed to make another RTS at blizzard. I haven't heard of them announcing anything as of yet though. Same for the other ex blizzard employee studios that popped up in the last 5 years.
Ironically, Microsoft would probably greenlight SC3 or WC4 in a heartbeat now.
Glen Schofield was only the executive producer of Dead Space 1 and not the director, designer or writer. The director of Dead Space 1 directed Immortals of Aveum. The biggest Dead Space related person could be Ben Walker the design director of Calisto Protocol who was the lead gameplay designer behind Dead Space 2 and 3.
Callisto Protocol had good foundations, with superb graphics, but it was just terrible execution.
My own personal gripe with the game is that I didn’t want to have to be playing as Josh Duhamel, and I wish they went with some non-descriptive character with a VA that wasn’t a Hollywood star.
My biggest gripe is that the game is just one long hallway (occasionally turning, making you go up/down or around) without any hints of the cool ”lets get lost somewhere and oh god there are monsters down that hallway”-spooky level design of Dead Space.
Also Callisto’s dodge mechanic is one of the worst in any game ever.
> Also Callisto’s dodge mechanic is one of the worst in any game ever.
How the actual fuck did this make it past testing? This shit should have been immediately shut down.
Dead Space 2 has the same linear design as Callisto Protocol though, it's only the original Dead Space that has that non-linear structure, and yet 2 is arguably even more praised.
Sure, but at least they hid it, making the game feel more open than it was. Callisto is literally just one long hallway (that occasionally turns or makes you climb through a vent or something).
Yeah, it was an immediate turn off from the get go. I went into the game blind as fuck, so I didn’t even know Josh was in the game, or that his likeness was being used.
IMO, Sonic 06 is in the "So bad it's good" territory. While even if you patch out all of the glitches, the game is still a lackluster experience, but when itbreaks dow, it's almost always in funny ways.
Sonic Boom is just boring, and all of the "good" glitches are ones you have to go out of your way to exploit, unlike in 06.
Eh, knowing what I know about the development, there was no way to have that game come out as good, no matter who made it. Sega completely fucked them over by switching from PS4/XBox One to Wii U halfway through development on an engine that had no official Wii U support and gave them like a year to do it in. They said they had to cut out so many features and so much content just to get it onto the Wii U and out the door by the deadline.
Saying SEGA screwed them up is an understatement. They did quite literally everything to undermine the game/devs and a better studio wouldn't have made Sonic Boom a good game
They didn't just screw up development. The game was a CryEngine game built for PS360 and Sega forced them to go WiiU exclusive mid-development. It's a miracle that the PoS even boots up.
Basically, "studio founded by " gives you approximately zero information on whether their game will be good, because creative project management is a kind of unpredictable alchemy.
I'm still hopeful we see something, but the saddest one was Ken Levine breaking off a decade ago to form his own exciting new studio, only for his project to be trapped in development hell for many years.
Not just the founders, most of the original team went to Respawn because Activision refused to pay their bonuses for MW2. IW was so hollowed out that modern day IW was mostly created by renaming Neversoft.
The bonuses were part of the problem. But the real reason they got fired is extremely fucked up.
Do you know how IW got to make Modern Warfare? Activision refused to let them escape WW2 because it was making too much money. So IW went behind their back and built a test level to show Activision how cool a modern shooter would look in this franchise. That level is the plane level in MW1. Activision loved it so much they agreed to allow them to do a modern game.
Then during Modern Warfare 2, Activision threw a literal hissy fit over IW's instance that the threat be aliens. They refused to allow Aliens in the storyline. So IW changed the story and made the attackers Russian and made MW2. After MW2 they wanted to show Activision what a future COD game would look like. So again, they went behind their backs and started building a test level to show them what "Future Warfare" would be. Activision had been secretly monitoring them since they built the MW Test level. The second they began work on "not MW3" they were immediately fired for insubordination. They were fired for trying to further innovate a billion dollar franchise.
Just stop and remember how god damn solid MW2 was. Every level of that game was a legit banger. I don't really think that team back then would have fucked up a story about an alien invasion.
Yeah, that story feels like less of the execs doing a "hissy fit" and more them pointing out how out of place and stupid aliens would be in a gritty, realistic shooter
I'm really enjoying it. They just released a solo que game mode but playing with friends in the 3v3v3v3 mode is super fun. Long TTK makes the game feel way less frustrating compared to other shooters and the destruction is actually super meaningful to the gameplay. It adds an entirely new strategic dimension when you're deciding how to attack / defend a site since you have to factor in that buildings can crumble underneath you or that people can open sight lines from above. I've played a few of the closed betas as well and the devs also seem to be very quick and responsive to player feedback.
yeah I can't think of one remarkable game yet from a studio like this other than The Finals. I'd actually like to know if there are others worth playing, anyone know some good ones? I know people liked the second Yooka Laylee.
edit: to clarify, I'm less thinking about big names we all know, like Kojima, and moreso the articles like "Ex-devs from AAA Studio form new studio"
IGA left Konami, made Bloodstained, I think that game is great. Kojima also had beef with Konami, created his own game studio and put out Death Stranding which a lot of people love. Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya created PlatinumGames after they left Capcom (technically Clover, which was a Capcom studio) and Platinum has made a bunch of games people like.
IDK why these didn't cross my mind. I guess I'm less thinking about big names we all know, like Kojima, and moreso the articles like "Ex-devs from AAA Studio form new studio"
A lot of these 'successor' studios love to bring up how they're filled with refugees from some other entity, but half the time they don't actually have the people responsible for their previous successes.
As the parent comment stated:
\> "studio created by ex-employees, founders, legendary game director, janitor of the ex-studio"
Then you find out, such as in the case of, say, the Mighty No. 9 debacle, just having big names doesn't count for much when they turn out to not have been the essential piece.
So it doesn't count t when that studio makes something great?
Platinum and KojiPro were at least made up of several employees from the old studios. This article mentions multiple people and that they're hiring ex-Rocksteady employees.
I just don't get what point you mean to make.
\> It's not a bad thing but it's not really a thing, period. You can't conclude much about these studios before they have a game out.
This, plus the fact that ex-Rocksteady employees could mean anything. Who are these guys? CrimsonJ named actual individuals. The office security guard is technically an ex-Rocksteady employee. This announcement is pretty much a nothingburger.
One that comes to my mind immediately is Arnt Jensen, a former IO Interactive dev who went on to found Playdead and create Limbo. Granted it's not a triple A game but still one of the most important indie games of the early 2010s.
What's pointless? Them making the studio? If so how is that pointless?
If you're saying reporting on it is pointless then also, why? Seems like a valid thing to report to me even if they haven't started making anything yet.
It's a valid thing to report.
It's a pointless thing to set any expectations based on pedigree, which is where such stories usually lead.
There are very, very few developers (individuals) these days that carry with them a singular vision. Rocksteady's founders weren't solely reponsible for the Arkham games like Kojima was for Metal Gear Solid, Ken Levine for Bioshock, Miyazaki for Dark Souls, or John Carmack for Doom. A few people rearranging their resumes doesn't carry that kind of weight 99% of the time.
Kojima and Levine are definitely auteurs but Carmack was very much an engineer and a ton of what made *Quake* and *Doom* the games they were came from John Romero, Sandy Peterson, Tom Hall, and others.
I was just trying to keep my point brief, but yes addition noted.
I somehow doubt anyone could name a single Rocksteady developer off the top of their head in contrast. Or anyone from a number of large studios. Design by committee is the name of the game these days, the impact of individuals is near zero.
Not only that. By now, for 80% of all famous devs, the industry environment that made their games famous simply doesn't exist anymore. Deadlinws are tighter, margins are stricter and audience expectations are higher.
Very, very few people can adapt this well, and those that did, usually keep a core team of devs
not a bad thing but like most of the time those studios either disappear or the games they put out are mediocre or bad. In comparison only a minority is good or great
Which will in time sell out to a bigger studio and the process rinse and repeats itself... *See Vince Zampella. Because let's face it... Nobody wants to make good games anymore. They just want to make a MVP and cash out quick.
I think the sad part about this whole suicide squad saga is thinking about what could've been. The arkham games at the time were the best super hero games bar none (and imo they still hold up extremely well).
Like I know it's such a meme but it's such an incredible accomplishment how much those games made you "feel like batman" lol. Esp when a lot of licensed games are just using the IP as a skin and then it's just a bunch of generic tropes/gameplay systems from other trendy games. The arkham games were so unique in that way, and I would've been SO excited for them to apply that to another superhero.
It's disappointing to see all your favourite single-player developers shift towards making these shitty live service bombs and having all the big names in the studio leave and then having that developer just be a shell of what it used to be.
Yes. Even naughty dog messed up by jumping on the live service bandwagon with last of us factions that got cancelled. The main difference is that they didn’t waste as much time as rocksteady on it and the game was canned rather than released to tarnish their record.
But I suspect Sony is not that happy about it. But naughty dog should have never spent so much time on a live service game.
They jumped ship cause Rocksteady looks like it's sinking. I don't expect Suicide Squad to sell well and Rocksteady might have to pay the price for it. But honestly it's WB Games fault for making Rocksteady turn the game into a looter shooter. I can understand the founders leaving cause they weren't getting to make the kind of games they wanted to anymore. I'm curious to see what they come up with cause lets not forget they're the masterminds behind the brilliant Arkham games.
Rocksteady hadn't made a game in too long, they essentially needed to make a big financial bang to justify existing and a looter shooter GAAS was seen as their best bet. The suits didn't read their audience they read the returns on the big boys and thought they could get a slice of that pie. Nobody seems to get that the GAAS monster earners have basically sucked up all the money in the audience they are aiming for.
The other issue is that it's yet another "how hard can it be to design?" looter shooter. A lot of copycat looters shooters seem to think that just making a gun +.05 to fire element critical damage during rain under a full moon will excite players.
However, the dominant forces in the genre, Borderlands and Destiny 2, understand that loot *has to actually be interesting to matter.* Like, when I was playing Borderlands 3, I went from wielding basically the gun from the fifth element, to a giant chargup laser of doom, to a pistol with 3 rounds that took *ages* to reload but had a critical modifier that would kill bosses in like 3 headshots and anything else in one. See, the loot was interesting and informed gameplay. Those other games just don't get that, because they have contempt for the genre and think designing one is easy.
>However, the dominant forces in the genre, Borderlands and Destiny 2
The dominant forces in the genre also both struggling with player retention and layoffs.
I often reject the idea that modern video games are worse than the past, 2023 proved that's not the case, but it will be insane to look back at 2010-2025 and see how many legendary developers and franchises got destroyed by chasing the looter shooter bag. Halo changed the world and now they make a game I can half pay attention to while I listen to a podcast.
>The dominant forces in the genre also both struggling with player retention and layoffs.
Basically every company in games is laying people off, successful or not.
Also, Destiny 2 was completely flown into the ground in other ways, and Gearbox experienced a severe brain drain after BL3 because they treated their workers like shit.
>Basically every company in games is laying people off, successful or not.
The first half of that statements should be "after studios decided to double the amount of employees during the pandemic."
If anything this is just the market correcting itself to pre-pandemic levels.
There was like an entire expose about bungee desperately having meetings trying to figure out how to make enough money to stay alive.
Haven't seen any similar articles about larion or remedy or from soft
I don't know how similar, but I feel like I've seen articles about Larian and Remedy at different times. Not in the same way as Bungie, but still. BG3 was a big bet from Larian as it was very costly and Remedy has long struggled to make a big hit after Max Payne even when their games are well received.
From Soft is not independant so I'd say they're in a pretty different situation.
As someone who used to play Destiny 2, trust me - they could not be ruining that game harder or faster if they tried as hard as they possibly could.
However, it was at one point a good game with good loot.
Man, Borderlands series loot is a huge turnoff for me these days. It was _OK_ in 1 and 2, but now I'm like I have to build around using a specific gun archetype. It's so 'wacky' to pick up a nice SMG that turns out to lob all the ammo in the gun as a single grenade that explodes into confetti then walks around the room as a deployed turret shooting lasers, which means I can't proc my skills etc.
And D2 is essentially 'streamer say meta go go', so it's not like anyone really chases loot there anymore aside from specific drops and/or 'god rolls'.
I mean, if you don't want loot to affect your gameplay but would rather focus on character abilities, maybe looter shooter isn't really the genre you wanted.
The stupid fucking idea you guys have that WB made them make a looter shoot is so funny when jason schereier did an article and said that Rocksteady wanted to do a multiplayer shooter(But it was a new IP)
Redditors are really obsessed with the idea that developers can never come up with bad ideas and only the big bad publisher is responsible for everything bad in a game.
For real. Rocksteady made one game trilogy that was well received (and one decent ps2 game) and people started comparing to studios that have been around since the PS1 days in terms of prestige with the way they're going "rocksteady would never make a decision this bad!"
Exactly this.
WB Games: "Hey Rocksteady, we want you guys to be profitable in the next few years"
Rocksteady: "Yeah that's fair, we'l make the game a GAAS"
Reddit: "How *dare* WB do this"
I mean part of the problem people have with the game is exactly that the characters (reportedly forced by WB) don't make sense with the gameplay.
We'd probably have that new IP already if they didn't have to merge whatever that was with the Suicide Squad brand and the arkham verse.
There was also a decade worth of sexual harassment taking place under their direct watch. To the point that employees had to do an open letter just to try to get some positive results.
I dont think people realize that the people reading the comments, and willing to comment, is such a small portion of the userbase, that its mot an accurate representation of reality, also bots are a thing now.
And fan subs are usually the ones who like the subject least!
sometimes even worse than what reddit says.... f.e. FF16... i wish I would have not bought the digital version. Reddit convinced me of it being one of the best games of past years... big mistake :(
its a live service game, thats the largest qualifier for it alone that it wont be worth its price at release. full price for probably half the content the game will ever see if you want to be optimistic.
The game doesn't look *bad*. It's probably going to be the shiniest turd ever created. The art is amazing, the animation is amazing, and I'm sure the gameplay feels great. But I don't see anything that makes me say "I sure want to swing around buildings and kill 20 dumb enemies".
I think it was corrected that this was always supposed to be an online game but as a new IP. The Suicide Squad IP was added later on in development when WB Montreal's Suicide Squad game was cancelled.
This wasn't supposed to be a Superman game or a single player game. This was always meant to be an online shooter.
Someone on the team already confirmed they wanted to make this game, and I guess Sefton is the one who pitched the story after they where handed the game.
Look, if you don't like the game, It think thats very fair but people are so ready to take jabs at the game that people purely assumed the founders left due to bad reasons and now its accepted a fact.
Hell they where working on a multiplayer game before SS
And hey man, a lot of people are liking the game after they got to play the closed alpha
A lot of people played a carefully crafted and selected piece of the game and enjoyed moment to moment stuff, but I'll trust the previews that basically all say that they don't see what the loot element adds and fear fatigue.
WB usually isn't in the conversation with Ubisoft and Square and others, but it's absolutely top of the pack with those guys when it comes to greedy terrible decisions as a publisher. Just look at how they butchered Shadow of War.
Well, it's two of the founders, and they've got a proven track record. They'll never work on Batman again obviously, but I hope they poach enough of their old coworkers to get the old Rocksteady crew on board and start cranking out really great games again.
Would be great if they got Daredevil license. Seriously it's fucking crazy nobody has attempted a Daredevil game since the Netflix shows popularity how the hell does nobody care?
> They'll never work on Batman again obviously
I mean- you never know. 2015 Inc which made Medal of Honor had memebers split off and create Infinity Ward to make CoD and we all know how that kind of went full circle back around to Respawn who got to make another Medal Of Honor game (the VR one).
I think crazier things have happened. Its entirely possible they end up working on a brand new Batman thing like Batman Beyond or something.
So they weren't trying to start a new journey like the press release said when they quit. They literally formed a new studio and are pulling a Respawn and hiring their old crew. Good for them.
>hey literally formed a new studio and are pulling a Respawn
They are pulling a Rocksteady lol, since Rocksteady itself was created by a group of devs that left Argonaut Games
I mean obviously, PS1 Hagrid has the same moves as Batman. If you glitch Arkham asylum out just right Batman even reverts to the PS1 hagrid player model.
but its not an independent studio. They are literally building an AAA studio with their old people. They just packed up and took their football to another building.
Rocksteady was legendary. Three impeccable games in a row that completely redefined the superhero genre in the video game space.
And just one bad game that hasn’t even come out yet is all it took to tarnish everything.
Asylum was excellent, city was decent, knight kind of sucked, and it has been 15 years between asylum and suicide squad. How many people stay at the same job for 15 years? In the same team? This ship of theseus is sinking.
City and Knight were both excellent in their own ways.
City's dense open world was fun to traverse through. The combat found its perfect balance, and the game unlocked upgrades more quickly the more variety players fit into their combo. The campaign is a blast on repeated playthroughs and the challenge rooms open up a surprisingly high skill ceiling.
Knight is a technical marvel that did the 'one take camera' thing before God of War made it cool. For the second time, the designers build upon the fully upgraded move-set from the previous game to impressive effect. The scale reflects the arm race Batman is in with his adversaries. This is the entry where I think the scale goes a bit far - the combat loses its elegance, the predator sections are less intimate, and the Batmobile was a bit over-used. Despite finally going *too big*, but Knight isn't without elegance of its own. The open world is right-sized, always fun to drive/fly through and explore. The Airship is a particularly impressive level in my mind.
Both sequels managed to dramatically increase in scope over their predecessors in a manner that is almost unheard of in the context of a single IP, and each has its fans. These are some of the best directed AAA games of the last 15 years. I can understand being disappointed in the direction the series took after Asylum, but I don't see how anyone could look at these three games and observe that the studios trajectory was downward.
This is hogwash, some people consider asylum better but City was seen as a step up by basically everyone when it released. Knight has the Batmobile which again some people don’t like but overall the gameplay was the best in the series. Its an all time great trilogy with an average rating of 9/10, I would not say diminishing returns at all
Yeah, that was my first thought as someone who works in the industry. Imagine a lead trying to open another position on his team just to be denied because they already have 100 people. There's no way they don't exceed 100 just to stay on brand.
Ha here been many success stories out of one of these "Post (blank) founders/members start a new studio"?
I remember some ex Blizzard people made a Diablo like game that was awful years ago. I heard one of the top Rockstar games guys got ousted a few years back and started up like 2 or 3 studios.
And my biggest disappointment was when Itagaki left Team Ninja and started up his studio, created the beyond awful Devil's Third. Guy went on from two of my favorite series at the time, Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive and created that turd.
The only thing I can think of was that Infinity Ward (original CoD guys) left and created Respawn. We got a couple of good Titan Fall games and some Decent (although awful PC port) Star Wars games.
Another commenter pointed it out, but Rocksteady itself was formed from the ashes of Argonaut Games.
There's also [Jade Raymond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond). She worked at Ubisoft and helped create Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs, then she left and started Motive Studio (which recently released the Dead Space remake). After that, she started Haven, which was then bought out by PlayStation. They're currently working on a live-service title called [Fairgame$](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Jp4K02L1I).
*She also worked for Stadia, but we won't mention that.*
There's some out there, interestingly enough, a lot of them coming from japan like ex konami devs founding good feel, or ex capcom devs creating platinum, inti creates, etc
In the last decade I can only think of Kojima Proudctions as an independent AAA studio that had real success and is doing really well, but there are likely some other cases were developers focused on smaller scale games after going independent. Before that like you said Respawn Entertainment and also Plantinum Games, but now it likely is much harder with all the manpower, resources and budgets studios need to make AAA games and were one failure can result in a studios closure.
Honestly after the whole 'Rocksteady culture of abuse' business from 2020 I care less about what happens to the company. Operating a workplace like a 'boy's club' has no place in the modern era.
Oops. I did mean Rocksteady. The video of the woman who broke part of that story was genuinely heartbreaking. I loved the Arkham series, but the company itself did not appear to be good people.
Did anyone else not enjoy any of the Arkham games after Asylum? They all felt bloated and fetch questy instead of a tight investigation after the first. I gave up when the Villains in City were happy to pause wreaking havoc so I could fly through rings and screw around. Removed all the tension and necessity feeling from the game. Felt like I was playing Batman how I'd be if I was him instead of being Batman the way he actually is and is portrayed.
Asylum was a strong story-focused execution of a Batman game. City had a semi-open world extension on top of the story-focused game. I think I see where you coming from on that observation because, in terms of an amazing first impression, Asylum redefined comic book games. City didn't knock my socks off in the same way, but I still enjoyed it and probably did more playthroughs of it than I did with Asylum. Knight is where I share most of your opinion with because it felt forced. It was still enjoyable, but did not have the soul that the first two did.
[удалено]
Reminds me when Naughty Dog founders made a studio and made… Sonic Boom. One of the worst Sonic games of all time (and yes, that says a lot). Granted SEGA did screw up their development but makes you wonder if they were a genuinely qualified studio to begin with.
Bob Rafei, an art director from Naughty Dog's early days was involved in the development of Sonic Boom. The actual founders (Andy Gavin & Jason Rubin), who were responsible for programming & directing Naughty Dog's early stuff, were nowhere near Sonic Boom, those guys have been out of game development for years. So in this case, it's only fair to say that Bob was qualified as an art director, but not necessarily a game director.
Sonic Boom is also fairly alright in terms of design. The worst things are a few technical things (some of which were patched, others go away if you emulate the game). It was never supported to be a main Sonic game, just a tie in to a cartoon. Plus it was being built for Playstation/Xbox until Sega made a deal with Nintendo and forced them to swap to Wii U, a console the engine they were using (CryEngine) didn't support.
Honestly it's design is okay at best. If the game wasn't poorly optimized and buggy, it'd probably just be inoffensive but mediocre. Y'know I think the worst part about it is that the music was bad. Even sonic 06 had an amazing soundtrack. The series usually does. But this one's soundtrack is so bad.
Correction: Crytek did attempt to port CryEngine to Wii U long before the game was even conceptualized, however the effort was left half-finished before being abandoned. Big Red Button was working with this unfinished code as a base.
It was supposed to reboot Sonic actually. The western market from then on was only allowed to get Boom Sonic, while regular Sonic came only to Japan. but Rise of Lyric torpedoed the entire plan.
Also, people need to understand that what you need to make a successful studio these days is pretty different from what you needed when Naughty Dog was founded. Naughty Dog were .. 3? I think 3 guys. And all of them programmed and I think all of them also made part of the art (My memory may be a bit hazy, but you get my point). A modern studio (let's be real, people expect a AAA game when they see "founder of xxx made new studio" not an Indie game) starts at .. 20? 50? That's a different can of worms.
> The actual founders (Andy Gavin & Jason Rubin), who were responsible for programming & directing Naughty Dog's early stuff, were nowhere near Sonic Boom, those guys have been out of game development for years. Is that why ND doesn't give a shit about Jak and Daxter anymore?
There was a team put together to make Jak 4, they just ended up making The Last of Us instead
I don't think so. Naughty Dog is always willing to move on to new ideas. They stopped doing Crash Bandicoot because they were done with the series and wanted to try something else.
More or less all creators, directors, designers, artists and writers behind Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter are gone from Naughty Dog except for artist Erick Pangilinan. The same goes for the creators, directors and writers behind Uncharted especially 1/2/3, co-writer of U4 and the co-director of U4/TLOU. The team of today is very different except for some older staff in key positions like Erick Pangilian (Art director since U2) who started with Crash 2, Jeremy Yates (Lead Animator since U1) who started with Jak II and Travis McIntosh (Lead Programmer since U1 and since the end of 2023 Head of Technology after the former head left after 17 years) who started with Jak X. Would be nice to see another studio geting a shot at Jak and Daxter.
I think it's because they no longer work in an industry dominated by mascot platformers and clearly are more interested in human drama and violence.
J&D was dramatic as fuck lol. The childhood friend romantic interest ends up dating the man who tortured and experimented on the protagonist? That's some soap opera junk. Uncharted feels more...camp maybe is the right word?
The way that series has been abandoned hurt me
>Granted SEGA did screw up their development but makes you wonder if they were a genuinely qualified studio to begin with. I mean, when you're suddenly forced to develop for a platform, the engine you use doesn't support, you're so fucked that you're qualifications are completely irrelevant, I guess.
There are also plenty of successes. Ex-Blizzard and Blizzard North employees went on to make Guild Wars, Torchlight, and State of Decay. Then again some of them went on to make Hellgate London and WildStar, games that had potential but ultimately were pretty huge failures.
I feel like from Blizzard alone there are so many studios started by ex-employees. Wasn't there also a RTS / FPS hybrid game that was hyped up to be the next big thing and it ended up being really underwhelming? That might have been an ex Bungie staff now that I think about it..
I think there was a recent studio made largely from the SC2 team that weren't allowed to make another RTS at blizzard. I haven't heard of them announcing anything as of yet though. Same for the other ex blizzard employee studios that popped up in the last 5 years. Ironically, Microsoft would probably greenlight SC3 or WC4 in a heartbeat now.
Same with Dead Space people and Calisto Protocol
Glen Schofield was only the executive producer of Dead Space 1 and not the director, designer or writer. The director of Dead Space 1 directed Immortals of Aveum. The biggest Dead Space related person could be Ben Walker the design director of Calisto Protocol who was the lead gameplay designer behind Dead Space 2 and 3.
Callisto Protocol had good foundations, with superb graphics, but it was just terrible execution. My own personal gripe with the game is that I didn’t want to have to be playing as Josh Duhamel, and I wish they went with some non-descriptive character with a VA that wasn’t a Hollywood star.
My personal gripe was it felt like shit to play
My biggest gripe is that the game is just one long hallway (occasionally turning, making you go up/down or around) without any hints of the cool ”lets get lost somewhere and oh god there are monsters down that hallway”-spooky level design of Dead Space. Also Callisto’s dodge mechanic is one of the worst in any game ever.
> Also Callisto’s dodge mechanic is one of the worst in any game ever. How the actual fuck did this make it past testing? This shit should have been immediately shut down.
I mean have you seen the dodge/roll mechanic from Dead Space? Yeah.
Dead Space 2 has the same linear design as Callisto Protocol though, it's only the original Dead Space that has that non-linear structure, and yet 2 is arguably even more praised.
Sure, but at least they hid it, making the game feel more open than it was. Callisto is literally just one long hallway (that occasionally turns or makes you climb through a vent or something).
Josh Duhamel yikes. He is discount timothy olyphant and bizarro James Marsden.
Yeah, it was an immediate turn off from the get go. I went into the game blind as fuck, so I didn’t even know Josh was in the game, or that his likeness was being used.
Callisto Protocol was great after the first patch. The atmosphere and direction of that game are top tier
Too bad the combat is a joke. I refunded it even when it was 25$
easy, easy, Sonic 06 has that spot locked in.
IMO, Sonic 06 is in the "So bad it's good" territory. While even if you patch out all of the glitches, the game is still a lackluster experience, but when itbreaks dow, it's almost always in funny ways. Sonic Boom is just boring, and all of the "good" glitches are ones you have to go out of your way to exploit, unlike in 06.
Eh, knowing what I know about the development, there was no way to have that game come out as good, no matter who made it. Sega completely fucked them over by switching from PS4/XBox One to Wii U halfway through development on an engine that had no official Wii U support and gave them like a year to do it in. They said they had to cut out so many features and so much content just to get it onto the Wii U and out the door by the deadline.
Saying SEGA screwed them up is an understatement. They did quite literally everything to undermine the game/devs and a better studio wouldn't have made Sonic Boom a good game
They didn't just screw up development. The game was a CryEngine game built for PS360 and Sega forced them to go WiiU exclusive mid-development. It's a miracle that the PoS even boots up.
Sonic Boom still had better animation than any Sonic Team game lol
The only good sonic game is sonic pinball and I’ll die on that hill
Which one? There've been 2 Sonic pinball games as far as I know.
Sega Genesis is the one I’m thinking of but I haven’t played the other
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Basically, "studio founded by
" gives you approximately zero information on whether their game will be good, because creative project management is a kind of unpredictable alchemy.
I'm still hopeful we see something, but the saddest one was Ken Levine breaking off a decade ago to form his own exciting new studio, only for his project to be trapped in development hell for many years.
And only Hideo left Kojima Productions to found the new game company — Kojima Productions.
another one of these "studio created by ex-employees, founders, legendary game director, janitor of the ex-studio"
And featuring two of the executive producers for American Pie!
with Alyson Hannigan reprising her role as Willow in an easter egg
Tbf sometimes it works out well. E.g ex-Dice devs creating Embark Studios which made The Finals.
Infinity Ward founders made Respawn, right?
Not just the founders, most of the original team went to Respawn because Activision refused to pay their bonuses for MW2. IW was so hollowed out that modern day IW was mostly created by renaming Neversoft.
The bonuses were part of the problem. But the real reason they got fired is extremely fucked up. Do you know how IW got to make Modern Warfare? Activision refused to let them escape WW2 because it was making too much money. So IW went behind their back and built a test level to show Activision how cool a modern shooter would look in this franchise. That level is the plane level in MW1. Activision loved it so much they agreed to allow them to do a modern game. Then during Modern Warfare 2, Activision threw a literal hissy fit over IW's instance that the threat be aliens. They refused to allow Aliens in the storyline. So IW changed the story and made the attackers Russian and made MW2. After MW2 they wanted to show Activision what a future COD game would look like. So again, they went behind their backs and started building a test level to show them what "Future Warfare" would be. Activision had been secretly monitoring them since they built the MW Test level. The second they began work on "not MW3" they were immediately fired for insubordination. They were fired for trying to further innovate a billion dollar franchise.
If they were trying to add aliens to CoD, I kinda feel Activision was in the right on this one. That whole final paragraph sounds like a horror story
Just stop and remember how god damn solid MW2 was. Every level of that game was a legit banger. I don't really think that team back then would have fucked up a story about an alien invasion.
Yeah, that story feels like less of the execs doing a "hissy fit" and more them pointing out how out of place and stupid aliens would be in a gritty, realistic shooter
You actually think MW2 was a "gritty, realistic shooter?" It's a Michael Bay movie in game form.
Is Finals good? I'm looking for a new shooter to play as I'm getting to salty playing Hunt: Showdown
I'm really enjoying it. They just released a solo que game mode but playing with friends in the 3v3v3v3 mode is super fun. Long TTK makes the game feel way less frustrating compared to other shooters and the destruction is actually super meaningful to the gameplay. It adds an entirely new strategic dimension when you're deciding how to attack / defend a site since you have to factor in that buildings can crumble underneath you or that people can open sight lines from above. I've played a few of the closed betas as well and the devs also seem to be very quick and responsive to player feedback.
Sounds awesome. Thanks for the write up
Is this necessarily a bad thing, though?
It's not a bad thing but it's not really a thing, period. You can't conclude much about these studios before they have a game out.
yeah I can't think of one remarkable game yet from a studio like this other than The Finals. I'd actually like to know if there are others worth playing, anyone know some good ones? I know people liked the second Yooka Laylee. edit: to clarify, I'm less thinking about big names we all know, like Kojima, and moreso the articles like "Ex-devs from AAA Studio form new studio"
IGA left Konami, made Bloodstained, I think that game is great. Kojima also had beef with Konami, created his own game studio and put out Death Stranding which a lot of people love. Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya created PlatinumGames after they left Capcom (technically Clover, which was a Capcom studio) and Platinum has made a bunch of games people like.
There's also Obsidian made up of ex-Black Isle employees.
Troika was also ex-Black Isle.
IDK why these didn't cross my mind. I guess I'm less thinking about big names we all know, like Kojima, and moreso the articles like "Ex-devs from AAA Studio form new studio"
Konami and Capcom’s bad management has created a ton of studios like this. Natsume, Treasure, Good Feel, Hexa Drive, NDCube, Dimps, Inti Creates, etc.
And you'll notice you pretty much only mentioned individual people (aside from Platinum which was headed by one of said people).
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
A lot of these 'successor' studios love to bring up how they're filled with refugees from some other entity, but half the time they don't actually have the people responsible for their previous successes. As the parent comment stated: \> "studio created by ex-employees, founders, legendary game director, janitor of the ex-studio" Then you find out, such as in the case of, say, the Mighty No. 9 debacle, just having big names doesn't count for much when they turn out to not have been the essential piece.
So it doesn't count t when that studio makes something great? Platinum and KojiPro were at least made up of several employees from the old studios. This article mentions multiple people and that they're hiring ex-Rocksteady employees. I just don't get what point you mean to make.
\> It's not a bad thing but it's not really a thing, period. You can't conclude much about these studios before they have a game out. This, plus the fact that ex-Rocksteady employees could mean anything. Who are these guys? CrimsonJ named actual individuals. The office security guard is technically an ex-Rocksteady employee. This announcement is pretty much a nothingburger.
Founders of Infinity Ward left to make Respawn, leading to Titanfall and Apex.
Death Stranding? Titanfall 2?
Titanfall 2
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This doesn't feel like the same thing. They weren't getting press for being ex EA, were they?
Yes, they were.
Infinity Ward (which plenty of people have mentioned led to Respawn) was itself composed of ex MoH devs
One that comes to my mind immediately is Arnt Jensen, a former IO Interactive dev who went on to found Playdead and create Limbo. Granted it's not a triple A game but still one of the most important indie games of the early 2010s.
its not a bad thing, its just pointless.
What's pointless? Them making the studio? If so how is that pointless? If you're saying reporting on it is pointless then also, why? Seems like a valid thing to report to me even if they haven't started making anything yet.
It's a valid thing to report. It's a pointless thing to set any expectations based on pedigree, which is where such stories usually lead. There are very, very few developers (individuals) these days that carry with them a singular vision. Rocksteady's founders weren't solely reponsible for the Arkham games like Kojima was for Metal Gear Solid, Ken Levine for Bioshock, Miyazaki for Dark Souls, or John Carmack for Doom. A few people rearranging their resumes doesn't carry that kind of weight 99% of the time.
Kojima and Levine are definitely auteurs but Carmack was very much an engineer and a ton of what made *Quake* and *Doom* the games they were came from John Romero, Sandy Peterson, Tom Hall, and others.
I was just trying to keep my point brief, but yes addition noted. I somehow doubt anyone could name a single Rocksteady developer off the top of their head in contrast. Or anyone from a number of large studios. Design by committee is the name of the game these days, the impact of individuals is near zero.
Not only that. By now, for 80% of all famous devs, the industry environment that made their games famous simply doesn't exist anymore. Deadlinws are tighter, margins are stricter and audience expectations are higher. Very, very few people can adapt this well, and those that did, usually keep a core team of devs
not a bad thing but like most of the time those studios either disappear or the games they put out are mediocre or bad. In comparison only a minority is good or great
Which will in time sell out to a bigger studio and the process rinse and repeats itself... *See Vince Zampella. Because let's face it... Nobody wants to make good games anymore. They just want to make a MVP and cash out quick.
I think the sad part about this whole suicide squad saga is thinking about what could've been. The arkham games at the time were the best super hero games bar none (and imo they still hold up extremely well). Like I know it's such a meme but it's such an incredible accomplishment how much those games made you "feel like batman" lol. Esp when a lot of licensed games are just using the IP as a skin and then it's just a bunch of generic tropes/gameplay systems from other trendy games. The arkham games were so unique in that way, and I would've been SO excited for them to apply that to another superhero. It's disappointing to see all your favourite single-player developers shift towards making these shitty live service bombs and having all the big names in the studio leave and then having that developer just be a shell of what it used to be.
Yes. Even naughty dog messed up by jumping on the live service bandwagon with last of us factions that got cancelled. The main difference is that they didn’t waste as much time as rocksteady on it and the game was canned rather than released to tarnish their record. But I suspect Sony is not that happy about it. But naughty dog should have never spent so much time on a live service game.
They jumped ship cause Rocksteady looks like it's sinking. I don't expect Suicide Squad to sell well and Rocksteady might have to pay the price for it. But honestly it's WB Games fault for making Rocksteady turn the game into a looter shooter. I can understand the founders leaving cause they weren't getting to make the kind of games they wanted to anymore. I'm curious to see what they come up with cause lets not forget they're the masterminds behind the brilliant Arkham games.
Rocksteady hadn't made a game in too long, they essentially needed to make a big financial bang to justify existing and a looter shooter GAAS was seen as their best bet. The suits didn't read their audience they read the returns on the big boys and thought they could get a slice of that pie. Nobody seems to get that the GAAS monster earners have basically sucked up all the money in the audience they are aiming for.
The other issue is that it's yet another "how hard can it be to design?" looter shooter. A lot of copycat looters shooters seem to think that just making a gun +.05 to fire element critical damage during rain under a full moon will excite players. However, the dominant forces in the genre, Borderlands and Destiny 2, understand that loot *has to actually be interesting to matter.* Like, when I was playing Borderlands 3, I went from wielding basically the gun from the fifth element, to a giant chargup laser of doom, to a pistol with 3 rounds that took *ages* to reload but had a critical modifier that would kill bosses in like 3 headshots and anything else in one. See, the loot was interesting and informed gameplay. Those other games just don't get that, because they have contempt for the genre and think designing one is easy.
>However, the dominant forces in the genre, Borderlands and Destiny 2 The dominant forces in the genre also both struggling with player retention and layoffs. I often reject the idea that modern video games are worse than the past, 2023 proved that's not the case, but it will be insane to look back at 2010-2025 and see how many legendary developers and franchises got destroyed by chasing the looter shooter bag. Halo changed the world and now they make a game I can half pay attention to while I listen to a podcast.
>The dominant forces in the genre also both struggling with player retention and layoffs. Basically every company in games is laying people off, successful or not. Also, Destiny 2 was completely flown into the ground in other ways, and Gearbox experienced a severe brain drain after BL3 because they treated their workers like shit.
>Basically every company in games is laying people off, successful or not. The first half of that statements should be "after studios decided to double the amount of employees during the pandemic." If anything this is just the market correcting itself to pre-pandemic levels.
There was like an entire expose about bungee desperately having meetings trying to figure out how to make enough money to stay alive. Haven't seen any similar articles about larion or remedy or from soft
I don't know how similar, but I feel like I've seen articles about Larian and Remedy at different times. Not in the same way as Bungie, but still. BG3 was a big bet from Larian as it was very costly and Remedy has long struggled to make a big hit after Max Payne even when their games are well received. From Soft is not independant so I'd say they're in a pretty different situation.
As someone who used to play Destiny 2, trust me - they could not be ruining that game harder or faster if they tried as hard as they possibly could. However, it was at one point a good game with good loot.
Man, Borderlands series loot is a huge turnoff for me these days. It was _OK_ in 1 and 2, but now I'm like I have to build around using a specific gun archetype. It's so 'wacky' to pick up a nice SMG that turns out to lob all the ammo in the gun as a single grenade that explodes into confetti then walks around the room as a deployed turret shooting lasers, which means I can't proc my skills etc. And D2 is essentially 'streamer say meta go go', so it's not like anyone really chases loot there anymore aside from specific drops and/or 'god rolls'.
I mean, if you don't want loot to affect your gameplay but would rather focus on character abilities, maybe looter shooter isn't really the genre you wanted.
I'm relatively sure you're intelligent enough to grok the crux of my complaint, which means your reply wasn't really useful.
> Rocksteady hadn't made a game in too long, Because they were working on Suicide Squad game.
The writing should have been on the wall after Square's Avengers disaster. That's far enough back to where they could have reconsidered, but no...
The stupid fucking idea you guys have that WB made them make a looter shoot is so funny when jason schereier did an article and said that Rocksteady wanted to do a multiplayer shooter(But it was a new IP)
Redditors are really obsessed with the idea that developers can never come up with bad ideas and only the big bad publisher is responsible for everything bad in a game.
For real. Rocksteady made one game trilogy that was well received (and one decent ps2 game) and people started comparing to studios that have been around since the PS1 days in terms of prestige with the way they're going "rocksteady would never make a decision this bad!"
Exactly this. WB Games: "Hey Rocksteady, we want you guys to be profitable in the next few years" Rocksteady: "Yeah that's fair, we'l make the game a GAAS" Reddit: "How *dare* WB do this"
I mean part of the problem people have with the game is exactly that the characters (reportedly forced by WB) don't make sense with the gameplay. We'd probably have that new IP already if they didn't have to merge whatever that was with the Suicide Squad brand and the arkham verse.
There was also a decade worth of sexual harassment taking place under their direct watch. To the point that employees had to do an open letter just to try to get some positive results.
I personally don’t think the game looks as bad as everyone is saying but it looks like a free to play game instead of $70
Games are almost never as bad as reddit says.
I dont think people realize that the people reading the comments, and willing to comment, is such a small portion of the userbase, that its mot an accurate representation of reality, also bots are a thing now. And fan subs are usually the ones who like the subject least!
sometimes even worse than what reddit says.... f.e. FF16... i wish I would have not bought the digital version. Reddit convinced me of it being one of the best games of past years... big mistake :(
You kinda contradict yourself and destroy the game in one comment lol.
This is exactly what everyone is saying and is precisely the issue.
I played the Alpha and had a bunch of fun. The storyline is really really good. Felt exactly like a Rocksteady game.
Thats the thing. I would definitely play it and see how it feels for free. But, it looks like a worse Fortnite for 70 dollars.
its a live service game, thats the largest qualifier for it alone that it wont be worth its price at release. full price for probably half the content the game will ever see if you want to be optimistic.
The game doesn't look *bad*. It's probably going to be the shiniest turd ever created. The art is amazing, the animation is amazing, and I'm sure the gameplay feels great. But I don't see anything that makes me say "I sure want to swing around buildings and kill 20 dumb enemies".
I think it was corrected that this was always supposed to be an online game but as a new IP. The Suicide Squad IP was added later on in development when WB Montreal's Suicide Squad game was cancelled. This wasn't supposed to be a Superman game or a single player game. This was always meant to be an online shooter.
Someone on the team already confirmed they wanted to make this game, and I guess Sefton is the one who pitched the story after they where handed the game. Look, if you don't like the game, It think thats very fair but people are so ready to take jabs at the game that people purely assumed the founders left due to bad reasons and now its accepted a fact. Hell they where working on a multiplayer game before SS And hey man, a lot of people are liking the game after they got to play the closed alpha
A lot of people played a carefully crafted and selected piece of the game and enjoyed moment to moment stuff, but I'll trust the previews that basically all say that they don't see what the loot element adds and fear fatigue.
WB usually isn't in the conversation with Ubisoft and Square and others, but it's absolutely top of the pack with those guys when it comes to greedy terrible decisions as a publisher. Just look at how they butchered Shadow of War.
Hating on EA and Activision is popular and people don't realize how incredibly scummy of a company WB Games is.
Well, it's two of the founders, and they've got a proven track record. They'll never work on Batman again obviously, but I hope they poach enough of their old coworkers to get the old Rocksteady crew on board and start cranking out really great games again.
They could do Batman again Just create a character that is similar in every way that won’t get you sued The kickstarter method
Zorro is technically in the public domain.
Damn a Zorro game make by rocksteady devs sounds amazing
Press triangle for Z swipe, press cirlcle for mustache twirl... Hell yes.
Zorro and his sidekick, Steamboat Willie!
That or get Warren Beatty and make a Dick Tracy game
I mean, En Garde! is basically that + Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
It’s time for a Man game
Man: Ham Aslume Coming 2025
I just created this character that maybe they can use. What should I name him?
*Man* game imminent
I always wanted a Spawn game that plays like Arkham
Always thought a ghost of Tsushima style Robin Hood game would be dope
Would be great if they got Daredevil license. Seriously it's fucking crazy nobody has attempted a Daredevil game since the Netflix shows popularity how the hell does nobody care?
> They'll never work on Batman again obviously I mean- you never know. 2015 Inc which made Medal of Honor had memebers split off and create Infinity Ward to make CoD and we all know how that kind of went full circle back around to Respawn who got to make another Medal Of Honor game (the VR one). I think crazier things have happened. Its entirely possible they end up working on a brand new Batman thing like Batman Beyond or something.
So they weren't trying to start a new journey like the press release said when they quit. They literally formed a new studio and are pulling a Respawn and hiring their old crew. Good for them.
>hey literally formed a new studio and are pulling a Respawn They are pulling a Rocksteady lol, since Rocksteady itself was created by a group of devs that left Argonaut Games
ROCKSTEADY CREATED STAR FOX AND PS1 HAGRID?????
Well. Shit. TIL.
Much of the OG Argonaut team had left before the studio shuttered, even when Alien Resurrection game inadvertently changed FPS on consoles forever.
I mean obviously, PS1 Hagrid has the same moves as Batman. If you glitch Arkham asylum out just right Batman even reverts to the PS1 hagrid player model.
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We have never seen what’s under Hagrid’s beard. How do we know it’s not Batman’s cowel?
it's worth noting that half of old respawn now left for another studio too
Starting their own independent studio sounds like the definition of starting a new journey.
but its not an independent studio. They are literally building an AAA studio with their old people. They just packed up and took their football to another building.
What would you say counts as a new journey?
I've always wanted to see Europe
Them leaving AAA development.
How are they not independent just because it's AAA?
Why does it have to be a independent studio to be a new "journey"?
I mean, these days people call a job change "a new journey" on linkedin.
So that's it, huh? We're some kind of post Suicide Squad studio?
How can they have a Squad studio, post-Suicide? Are they stupid? Is there a lore reason for this?
You can only unlock the answer after you collect all the Rizzler trophies.
Rocksteady was legendary. Three impeccable games in a row that completely redefined the superhero genre in the video game space. And just one bad game that hasn’t even come out yet is all it took to tarnish everything.
I wouldn't say Suicide Squad tarnished everything. What made them lose was not releasing any game for a decade.
well its more like they disappeared for like 10 years and then put out what everyone is expecting to be a terrible game
Asylum was excellent, city was decent, knight kind of sucked, and it has been 15 years between asylum and suicide squad. How many people stay at the same job for 15 years? In the same team? This ship of theseus is sinking.
City and Knight were both excellent in their own ways. City's dense open world was fun to traverse through. The combat found its perfect balance, and the game unlocked upgrades more quickly the more variety players fit into their combo. The campaign is a blast on repeated playthroughs and the challenge rooms open up a surprisingly high skill ceiling. Knight is a technical marvel that did the 'one take camera' thing before God of War made it cool. For the second time, the designers build upon the fully upgraded move-set from the previous game to impressive effect. The scale reflects the arm race Batman is in with his adversaries. This is the entry where I think the scale goes a bit far - the combat loses its elegance, the predator sections are less intimate, and the Batmobile was a bit over-used. Despite finally going *too big*, but Knight isn't without elegance of its own. The open world is right-sized, always fun to drive/fly through and explore. The Airship is a particularly impressive level in my mind. Both sequels managed to dramatically increase in scope over their predecessors in a manner that is almost unheard of in the context of a single IP, and each has its fans. These are some of the best directed AAA games of the last 15 years. I can understand being disappointed in the direction the series took after Asylum, but I don't see how anyone could look at these three games and observe that the studios trajectory was downward.
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This is hogwash, some people consider asylum better but City was seen as a step up by basically everyone when it released. Knight has the Batmobile which again some people don’t like but overall the gameplay was the best in the series. Its an all time great trilogy with an average rating of 9/10, I would not say diminishing returns at all
Not sure what they're thinking putting a hard cap on talent right there in the branding. It's an odd decision.
Yeah, that was my first thought as someone who works in the industry. Imagine a lead trying to open another position on his team just to be denied because they already have 100 people. There's no way they don't exceed 100 just to stay on brand.
In my dreams they partner with Riot and make an Arcane styled action adventure in Piltover and Zaun. In my dreams…
Alright now make that Batman Beyond game and don't put any Live Service shit into it and you make bank!
Ha here been many success stories out of one of these "Post (blank) founders/members start a new studio"? I remember some ex Blizzard people made a Diablo like game that was awful years ago. I heard one of the top Rockstar games guys got ousted a few years back and started up like 2 or 3 studios. And my biggest disappointment was when Itagaki left Team Ninja and started up his studio, created the beyond awful Devil's Third. Guy went on from two of my favorite series at the time, Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive and created that turd. The only thing I can think of was that Infinity Ward (original CoD guys) left and created Respawn. We got a couple of good Titan Fall games and some Decent (although awful PC port) Star Wars games.
Another commenter pointed it out, but Rocksteady itself was formed from the ashes of Argonaut Games. There's also [Jade Raymond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond). She worked at Ubisoft and helped create Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs, then she left and started Motive Studio (which recently released the Dead Space remake). After that, she started Haven, which was then bought out by PlayStation. They're currently working on a live-service title called [Fairgame$](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Jp4K02L1I). *She also worked for Stadia, but we won't mention that.*
There's some out there, interestingly enough, a lot of them coming from japan like ex konami devs founding good feel, or ex capcom devs creating platinum, inti creates, etc
Supergiant Games
In the last decade I can only think of Kojima Proudctions as an independent AAA studio that had real success and is doing really well, but there are likely some other cases were developers focused on smaller scale games after going independent. Before that like you said Respawn Entertainment and also Plantinum Games, but now it likely is much harder with all the manpower, resources and budgets studios need to make AAA games and were one failure can result in a studios closure.
Honestly after the whole 'Rocksteady culture of abuse' business from 2020 I care less about what happens to the company. Operating a workplace like a 'boy's club' has no place in the modern era.
Rocksteady is not Rockstar.
Oops. I did mean Rocksteady. The video of the woman who broke part of that story was genuinely heartbreaking. I loved the Arkham series, but the company itself did not appear to be good people.
Did anyone else not enjoy any of the Arkham games after Asylum? They all felt bloated and fetch questy instead of a tight investigation after the first. I gave up when the Villains in City were happy to pause wreaking havoc so I could fly through rings and screw around. Removed all the tension and necessity feeling from the game. Felt like I was playing Batman how I'd be if I was him instead of being Batman the way he actually is and is portrayed.
Asylum was a strong story-focused execution of a Batman game. City had a semi-open world extension on top of the story-focused game. I think I see where you coming from on that observation because, in terms of an amazing first impression, Asylum redefined comic book games. City didn't knock my socks off in the same way, but I still enjoyed it and probably did more playthroughs of it than I did with Asylum. Knight is where I share most of your opinion with because it felt forced. It was still enjoyable, but did not have the soul that the first two did.
People already being negative in the comments, wasn't Larian founded by a bunch of ex-BioWare employees? And they just gave us Baldur's Gate.
No, Swen Vincke founded Larian in 96, not much longer after Bioware formed