|
contents | software | |||||||
| THEY - Core Facts  The development team behind THEY shows a new approach in opposite to the standard procedure, which happens in the games business on a daily base. It is the first game from a joint venture between a service provider IMC and an independent developer Metropolis Software. Metropolis has been developing games for over ten years now, and their last title "Infernal" (co-published by Eidos) was quite a success over Europe with ratings up to 84%. Metropolis already proved their skill and ability to provide and use up to date technology and it is also a fact that during their gaming history every next game was superior to the predecessor. Now Metropolis stands at the edge to make real high quality games, and to reach that target, they joint forces with IMC. IMC as a service provider is normally hired by major publishers or developers to take care of production, marketing, licensing and PR issues, or act as a "gun to hire" in urgent cases or problematic productions. In a classic development chain games are refocused quite often towards market demand once a publisher signs it as this is special publisher knowledge. IMC was hired quite often to especially perform this task on behalf of its clients. The problem is that Developers creativity often gets lost during this process as it is simply too late in production to sync between creativity and market demand. It is also quite familiar in our industry that developers starting the game with high hopes and plans but must realize later that they are not able to deliver in a meaningful time what they tried to achieve. For the gamer this means they have to accept over and over again that all the promises made in early stages did not make it into the final game. We all know tons of examples? mainly due to not proper production planning or due to too late refocusing for the market.So with a joint venture like IMC/Metropolis the possibilities and enhancements for our industry are really big. Both companies did start together from scratch / concept stage, to form, plan and finally build a game, that is focusing on the demands and needs of the gamers from creativity point of view but still as well fits into the market and can be done within the given time and money frame. Usually steps like marketing, PR, cooperation etc. are done when a publisher joins in and is responsible for this ? but in THEY both companies take care of every step way ahead of other independent productions. This means a change and an advantage for anybody ? especially for the gamers buying the finished game. So the development of THEY will bring to the industry more professionalism and focus on any need right from the start of the production. In total more than 40 people are now working on THEY ? lead by executive producer Thomas Schaefer and producer Torsten Hess, and studio boss Grzegorz Miechowski. The developers definitely believe that this is one future way of developing independent games ? to secure unique and good gameplay for great games the market needs. (Not the 50th sequel to a successful brand) The creativity of a developer plus the experience and market knowledge of a service provider makes the success. THEY is a Mystery-first-person-shooter, which means the storyline and the gameplay utilizes the fascination and fear every player get from unknown things he could not understand or imagine in the beginning. So THEY tries to get away from standard boring storylines of shooters, which normally could be rather more ignored, but will bring to the genre a storyline driven shooter. The game is set in a near future scenario (2012), where the main character is a soldier of an English army squadron, which was nearly wiped out. Our hero and one of his best friends from the squad ? a pilot ? are the only survivors from a devastating fight against some strange robots which are close to take over the whole country of England. These robots raised from nothing almost one day to another and a simultaneous attack on the key points and sources of the country proven, that the enemy is well organized and structured. What the hero at the beginning does NOT know is the fact, that these robots are only the top of an iceberg, which goes much deeper. In fact the robots are more or less "tools" THEY use, which cannot bee seen by average humans. But during the game ? without naming now how ? the player will get the ability to be aware of them and as well to fight them! What will happen during the storyline with some nice turns, twists and fights in England is not unveiled at the current point stage because THEY is a mystery first person shooter, so the developers will keep things hidden as long as they can. Some of THEY features include: - Unique and cool looking robots, tripods, probe droids and stuff. - THEY are very dangerous and cool looking - with tentacles, claws and so on. - Great new nextgen techniques to create an impressive look based on latest Dx10 3D engine technology. The so-called NextNitrous engine will be used to create Hollywood like effects, (e.g. transparent look of "THEY" with glows and shine effects). - Unique Weapon system ? gamers will have a cool basic weapon, which is the standard weapon of a soldier in the future. It is an extremely flexible gun, which can be customized by its user on HIS special demands and preferences. This means the weapon is YOURS ? it is YOUR baby and YOUR best friend and there are several ways to tune functionality and enhance the look and feel? - You will have a basic weapon with four upgrade slots, which can be individualized on demand to attach the tool and segment of your choice. There are hundreds of updates, modules, upgrades and stuff for YOUR baby to customize it on your own. So the player can create setups and save them to his used 1-0 slots (PC) or defined slots for the consoles ? so you could switch between like each player is familiar with in common FPS games. - Each player will be able to edit his weapon with own skins, so your baby could be really individualized with camouflage, tattoo like tribals, skulls ? even the picture of your girlfriend might be attached on the skin of the weapon, if it would exist in the game. The game will feature a story driven single player mode with many different characters to speak and act with ? it will have a playtime of around 20 hours (for experienced players of course less than that ? for 'newbies' much more) and structured in different levels, which will as well bring you to some spectacular places in England (without naming them yet). The game is currently in development for PC and nextgen consoles, but it is programmed on the PC due to engine issues, as the game "Infernal" was PC only. So the "NextNitrous" engine is superior in many points, ready for DirectX 10 and latest shader models. The developers are not able to tell currently about the options and look on the Xbox360 or PS3, but they are looking forward to show more in the future from the consoles. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Game News :: home page |