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[McBradders]

All those meltdowns and assumptions about the game being turned into a MP focused GAAS tho.....

But that’s what the official statement alludes to it becoming. The concern is warranted if somewhat misdirected.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Anyone who speculated about project mismanagement is basically vindicated. I always felt like that was a believable reason for the game to be canned, among others.

Feels good.

But that's what the official statement alludes to it becoming. The concern is warranted if somewhat misdirected.

Emphasizing player agency and replayability isn't something that is only inherent to MP focused titles.

 

[Hero]

I have a strong feeling that Mass Effect Andromeda bombing hard this year helped influence the decision to scrap this Star Wars game.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

I dont understand how an easy single player game with uncharteds director could be a mess. is amy still the director or did she get fired?

"easy" someone doesn't know shit about game or software development.

 

[Marcel]

I had fear this was the case and that would make it Hennig's second strike

Game development is more than any one person but it doesn't necessarily look good on her, yes.

 

[LastNac]

What did he see though? If was cutscene clips and maybe even staged gameplay shots then its not surprising it would look good. That doesn't mean that it was fun to play or coming together on time and budget.

He had seen a big amount

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Still used that opportunity to go full on GAAS though it seems.

 

[OKK]

Read Blood Sweat and Pixels, it will tell you what you want to know. Uncharted 4 was in some serious creative trouble before Amy departed and Neil/Bruce came in to rescue the project by bringing focus to it.

Uuh, I didn't know the book was released. Thanks for the info. Definitely going to pick this up.

 

[Okami Haundo]

Jason is really on top of things with these insider stories! It just plain makes sense given how long the game has been in development for. If it was shaping up nicely and on schedule/budget EA would be much less likely to make this move.

If he ever does another Blood Sweat and Pixels book, I hope this story makes it in. I'd be curious to see whether Frostbite caused problems for this game too.

 

[Jeronimo Jones]

I mean this is fine, and I didn't even know about the cancellation until this afternoon, but much of the speculation seemed to be based on the official statement.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

How much of a mess are we talking?

Could be the same kind of mess the original Metal Gear Rising was in.

 

[Marcel]

Still used that opportunity to go full on GAAS though it seems.

Of course they did. It looks good with shareholders. They aren't going to announce a cancellation that is simply doom and gloom statements. This is a huge business after all.

 

[Gamesgbkiller]

... Screw EA for closing Visceral .. and many many studios!!

But good to know that.

 

[Trago]

Emphasizing player agency and replayability isn't something that is only inherent to MP focused titles.

This. Post-release content falls under that umbrella.

 

[Thewonandonly]

Damn that's disappointing to hear but give me hope that jade and stigs Star Wars games will see the light of day.

Mostly excited for stigs becuase a Jedi god of war sounds like a dream come true. EA if you fuck with that game I can promise you that I will make it my goal to have gamers boycott you.

 

[Sou Da]

But what will the investors think now?

Press Sneak fuck gets em again.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I dont understand how an easy single player game with uncharteds director could be a mess. is amy still the director or did she get fired?

No dev has ever used Frostbite to make a game like Uncharted. Which also isn't an easy game to make at all.

 

[Scrawnton]

"easy" someone doesn't know shit about game or software development.

I don’t know anything about game development but wouldn’t a scripted single player experience be harder to make than an online only shooter?

 

[Blam]

Welp at least we know the game wasn't gonna be good.

 

[Callibretto]

oh man, sad for Hennig. I think she need to move away from AAA cinematic linear game for a while. make something in different genre, going back to her adventure root like Legacy of Kain could be cool.

 

[benicillin]

I trust Jason's reporting for sure.

 

[black070]

But single-player games are dead though..

 

[iSnakeTk]

Now we also know why uncharted 4 was scrapped, and amy etc. was fired.

 

[Nirolak]

All those meltdowns and assumptions about the game being turned into a MP focused GAAS tho.....

To be fair, they most likely are taking this opportunity to turn this into a games as a service title since they have to start over with nothing but the tech and art assets anyway.

I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least open world if it is singleplayer heavy.

 

[RedlineRonin]

No dev has ever used Frostbite to make a game like Uncharted. Which also isn't an easy game to make at all.

This is a fantastic point I had not considered. If Jason's Mass Effect Andromeda article is at all telling, EA is not putting nearly a high enough risk premium on projects that are using FB for the first time. ME:A sounded like a nightmare initially.

 

[McBradders]

Feels good.


Emphasizing player agency and replayability isn't something that is only inherent to MP focused titles.

Absolutely not but looking at EA’s portfolio... I mean what are people to expect?

 

[QisTopTier]

TBH These days I typically just wait until Jason puts something out about something and just glance at current stuff with a grain of salt otherwise.

Unless it's history or fact related stuff Jason feels like the only guy that puts in real solid work and doesn't try to hot take/click bait too hard typically.

 

[sjay1994]

NVM

Misunderstood the point of the post you made

 

[Duxxy3]

To be fair, they most likely are taking this opportunity to turn this into a games as a service title since they have to start over with nothing but the tech and art assets anyway.

I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least open world if it is singleplayer heavy.

GaaS isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the base is good.

 

[-Plasma Reus-]

I don't believe it.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Not surprising. Its been in development for years and they've released barely any info on it. A studio has to be really poorly managed to be closed in the middle of a project like that.

 

[zelas]

But single-player games are dead though..

Polygon: Whoops.

linear single-player experiences

^ From the polygon article and what was heavily implied yesterday. EA is turning to open world.

There is only confusion because there are single player only diehards jumping to conclusions with their knee jerk defense of single player anything combined with anti-digital transaction people who think GaaS only includes multiplayer games and not any single player games like Horizon, BotW, The Witcher 3. Open world games like those are better platforms for GaaS titles than a linear single player title would be.

 

[OG Loc]

I dont understand how an easy single player game with uncharteds director could be a mess. is amy still the director or did she get fired?

Nothing in this industry comes easy.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

^ From the polygon article and what was heavily implied yesterday. EA is turning to open world.

There is only confusion because there are single player only diehards jumping to conclusions with their knee jerk defense of single player anything combined with anti-digital transaction people who think GaaS only includes multiplayer games and not any single player games like Horizon, BotW, The Witcher 3. Open world games like those are better platforms for GaaS titles than a linear single player title would be.

There was absolutely no inside knowledge to that article.

 

[Sou Da]

^ From the polygon article and what was heavily implied yesterday. EA is turning to open world.

There is only confusion because there are single player only diehards jumping to conclusions with their knee jerk defense of single player anything combined with anti-digital transaction people who think GaaS only includes multiplayer games and not any single player games like Horizon, BotW, The Witcher 3. Open world games like those are better platforms for GaaS titles than a linear single player title would be.

Did Mirror's Edge Catalyst not make that painfully obvious?

 

[Alienous]

I don't believe it.

Have you heard about the original version of Uncharted 4?

 

[mckmas8808]

Single players games still make plenty of money if they are good enough (not to mention this would have the Star Wars name attached to it). It was obvious it wasnt the main reason for the cancellation.

The Witcher 3 is like "HI THERE!"

 

[Marcel]

I don't believe it.

I mean I'm willing to believe Jason more than I believe in Plasma Reus, some guy on NeoGAF. I don't always like his personality but he goes against my poor expectations of game journalists consistently.

 

[Absoludacrous]

I mean, it seemed like that's what he was implying from the jump. But everyone wanted to get their lootbox posts in. This is what I said yesterday:

I know people's reaction is to blame EA for wanting to put in loot boxes and make it a PUBG clone or whatever, and it's entirely possible/plausible that that's the direction they take it in now, but they wouldn't just close down the entire studio this far into production if all they wanted to do was retool the game into a GaaS.

Like this coupled with Jason's tweet and the length of development time with almost nothing to show for it points to more fundamental problem within the studio, and the game people are crying about might not have ever come together at all. Hard to say until more details about the state of the game come out.

 

[Crossing Eden]

To be fair, they most likely are taking this opportunity to turn this into a games as a service title since they have to start over with nothing but the tech and art assets anyway.

I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least open world if it is singleplayer heavy.

I'm thinking it'll be open world or at least open ended in some way since they already have an MP focused GAAS title in the form of Battlefront which seems to be on a schedule that coincides with the film releases.

 

[iTehDroiD]

The original window for the game "late in our fiscal year 2019" was suspicious to me when I read it. That could mean early 2020.
Viscerals last game BF Hardline came out early 2015. That would mean it would have taken them 5 years to make this game. Five years for a linear adventure game? Seems a little too much to me. As Jason indicated this project seemed to have some development problems (Frostbite strikes again?)

 

[shortsoptional]

That's great that it wasn't the reason for canceling the game, but that still doesn't change the fact that they said they were going in a different direction.

Who knows what it means exactly, but it wasn't a sentence that gave confidence it would still be single player focused.

The words they chose to use in the current climate of microtransactions/loot boxes makes the recent "hot takes" understandable imo.

Edit: I thought the "hot takes" people were talking about was it being turned in to a GaaS model. There are lot of single player games coming and will continue to come. Nintendo and Sony 1st party's are still churning those out.

 

[Nirolak]

I mean, it seemed like that's what he was implying from the jump. But everyone wanted to get their lootbox posts in. This is what I said yesterday:

Yes, that's how I read it too.

The project was totally derailed, and it wasn't in tune with the market, so it made more sense to cancel it than try to get it on course again.

I'm thinking it'll be open world or at least open ended in some way since they already have an MP focused GAAS title in the form of Battlefront which seems to be on a schedule that coincides with the film releases.

I'm potentially imagining something like Ghost Recon, where it's an optional co-op campaign game that might have a multiplayer mode in addition, but I'd need some job postings before I feel especially confident in that.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

I mean, it seemed like that's what he was implying from the jump. But everyone wanted to get their lootbox posts in. This is what I said yesterday:

Most people in that thread just wanted a pat on the back from others. Childish name calling was everywhere.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Thank god someone decided to throw a soaked tarp over this raging fire of hottakes. No, Single Player AAA games aren't all over because a troubled shitty Star Wars game got cancelled after 4 years of nothing to show.

Have a read up on what happened to the cancelled Uncharted 4 and ponder if this might have been history repeating itself.

 

[Callibretto]

If I'm not mistaken, Naughty Dog is known to have unique management setup, right? they have 2 director for their game and essentially share responsibilities between gameplay and story.

does Visceral have that kind of co-director setup as well? I wonder if Hennig coming in being used to the way Naughty Dog does thing just clash with the normal way Visceral does thing.

 

[daveo42]

Welp at least we know the game wasn't gonna be good.

It still had two years left in production. But yeah, the game totally blew and we all know that cause we've seen more than 2 seconds of it.

 

[0racle]

What was the game that was cancelled?

 

[CrichtonKicks]

To be fair, they most likely are taking this opportunity to turn this into a games as a service title since they have to start over with nothing but the tech and art assets anyway.

I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least open world if it is singleplayer heavy.

Does EA even have any studios that could handle a single player focused game that aren't already tasked? Respawn (obviously not actually a part of EA) is presumably working on something single player friendly (an assumption perhaps just based on Stig being director). Motive is handling the single player for Battlefront so they hare already tasked,

It just seems like large scale, GAAS non-linear games are probably what they have more experience dealing with at this point. Makes total sense they would go that route.

 

[Rosstimus]

So... What does this situation tell us about the Amy Hennig - Naughty Dog situation?

Probably nothing. Totally different situations. Amy came on to this project with 2+ years of dev time already in the books, put in charge of a team that was inexperienced with the engine and genre they were working in. Also from what I understand, EA corporate culture is very different from Sony. Sony wants critically acclaimed games for it's platform to help sell PlayStations, thus they're more willing tolerate long dev time/ high budget games. EA lives and dies by software sales.