• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Creative Assembly's console team jobs are all for Halo Wars 2 (i.e. Alien 2 unlikely)

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So back in 2011, Creative Assembly announced they were starting a team with consoles in mind using some of their Viking: Battle for Asgard staff. While their games are also on PC, they've always been branded as the "Console Team" in marketing and hiring to make it clear they make games that aren't just PC exclusives.

Their first project was Alien Isolation, and it was simultaneously announced that they were working on a more survival horror minded Alien title when the team was unveiled to help with hiring.

Up until today, their jobs were always listed as Console Team on their career page, even when they were working on Alien, with the other being Total War Team (which is technically a collection of four teams working on Total War Historical, Total Warhammer, Total War Arena, and Total War F2P PC/Mobile that share staff and such).

The Console Team itself represented about 100 of their 300 employees, with ~170 on Total War, and judging by their job postings, the rest are on in-house Quality Assurance, Operations, and Marketing and PR, which are listed as separate teams.

Now, however, all their Console Team jobs have been rebranded into Halo Wars Team.

The good news is that this team is rapidly growing, with 20 or so job postings on their site, and judging by the team rename, they probably intend to be working on Halo Wars for quite some time. This is also a good way for Sega to keep all this staff around even if they're not interested in funding 100+ person development team console titles themselves.

The bad news is that fans of Alien who aren't even bigger fans of Halo Wars are probably going to be disappointed.

Here are some shots of Halo Wars 2 in development: https://twitter.com/CAGames/status/628599939640262660

CLk8UEwWwAQVnC_.jpg


CLk8UF7WUAArX3b.jpg


CLk8UDuWcAEw-QM.jpg
Click to expand...
 
This just means Halo Wars is going to be done first, not necessarily that an Isolation sequel won't come.

Just that they are doing one game at a time...


Right?
 
I am okay with CA doing Halo Wars 2, but I really, really hope they get another chance to work with the Aliens franchise at some point. Isolation was just too fucking good.
 
Really looking forward to Halo Wars done right, i.e. mouse and keyboard. I couldn't get into the original, RTS controls on a console feel odd.
 
Do we know what the specifics of Sega's license for the Alien ip are? I know they've done a bunch of games, but I assume they don't have the rights indefinitely?

I can see why Sega would have taken Microsoft's money, but even though I had a bunch of problems with Isolation, I'd have liked them to give it another chance.

Really Microsoft shouldn't have dissolved Ensemble.
 
Finale Fireworker said:
This just means Halo Wars is being done NOW, and that Isolation 2 is an obvious and likely possibility afterward, right?
Click to expand...

This makes the strong assumptions that:

1.) If Sega was happy with how Alien Isolation performed, they would stop development and have Creative Assembly make a game for Microsoft instead, and have to waste time on their Alien license to do so.

2.) They're intending to follow this up by halting Halo Wars to make Alien again instead of making more Halo Wars.

This seems improbable to me.
 
LOL are you even reading the OP people?
[...]all their Console Team jobs have been rebranded into Halo Wars Team.
[...]and judging by the team rename, they probably intend to be working on Halo Wars for quite some time.
Click to expand...

There is pretty much zero chance of Alien Isolation 2 happening.
 
LewieP said:
Do we know what the specifics of Sega's license for the Alien ip are? I know they've done a bunch of games, but I assume they don't have the rights indefinitely?

I can see why Sega would have taken Microsoft's money, but even though I had a bunch of problems with Isolation, I'd have liked them to give it another chance.

Really Microsoft shouldn't have dissolved Ensemble.
Click to expand...

If only :(

It would have been great to see Ensemble develop a Halo Wars title for the PC from the ground up rather than having to worry about making it suitable for consoles.
 
I'm surprised SEGA gave the go ahead to Creative Assembly for this project as I have a hard seeing the benefit for their Consumer Product division (SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS).

Maybe they established a strategy a la Koei Tecmo, where they develop the product with Microsoft funding, and receives back-end profit?

Curious.
 
vinnygambini said:
I'm surprised SEGA gave the go ahead to Creative Assembly for this project as I have a hard seeing the benefit for their Consumer Product division.

Maybe they established a strategy a la Koei Tecmo, where they develop the product with Microsoft funding, and receives back-end profit?
Click to expand...

Yes I'd assume Microsoft is funding the game and they're getting a sizable royalty.

This is presumably because they feel more comfortable not taking risk themselves with this large of a team themselves, especially without a super proven, digital heavy IP like Total War.
 
Alien Isolation is a game that never should have been greenlit in today's market, but I'm so glad it was. It's a game that's on my top 10 list all-time, and one that I'll certainly play again in the future.

If MS comes with the funding to make things financially secure, then it makes a lot of sense for the employees and viability of the team to go do that.

Isolation was fantastic, and would have been incredibly hard to top.

Maybe someday.
 
Nirolak said:
Yes I'd assume Microsoft is funding the game and they're getting a sizable royalty.

This is presumably because they feel more comfortable not taking risk themselves with this large of a team themselves, especially without a super proven, digital heavy IP like Total War.
Click to expand...

I mean, management claimed that Alien underperformed relative to their expectations; I'm assuming they don't like the risks associated to console AAA development, and would rather have a PC & Mobile strategy, as mentioned in their briefings, and have their console team re-purposed to partnerships like Microsoft where the publisher foots the bill and SEGA in turn, receive royalty payments.

An educated guess would be that Alien Isolation 2 is canned based on the above.

Edit: I see that you already came to that conclusion too based on your header lol
 
I'm not so sure we have seen the end of Alien Isolation or its future iterations. We do know that a VR implementation is in the works, although likely doesn't demand much resources.

Also, I really badly want more Alien from Creative Assembly. So damn good
 
vinnygambini said:
I'm surprised SEGA gave the go ahead to Creative Assembly for this project as I have a hard seeing the benefit for their Consumer Product division (SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS).

Maybe they established a strategy a la Koei Tecmo, where they develop the product with Microsoft funding, and receives back-end profit?

Curious.
Click to expand...
They're getting a new development team up and running on someone else's dime so it's not that surprising. It beats betting your own money on a game that may or may not be successful.
 
It's ok. We only need the one good Alien survival horror game. It goes well with the only one good Alien horror film.

Now we just need that one good Aliens action game to go with the one good Aliens action film.

No, really. I'm fine. You don't have to make a follow up to maybe the only survival horror game I just couldn't stop playing. It's not like I wanted more Alien scares and creepy old shitty androids. Nope. I'd much rather have another Halo RTS. I mean, that first one was such a huge success and everyone loved it so much. I mean, ALL UNITS? You remember that? that was the best.
 
6 years will go by and we'll get a sequel to A:I.

It'll draw more from Aliens (though still be survival horror) and we'll love it.
 
A publisher FINALLY makes a big budget survival horror game again and nobody buys it.

THANKS GAMERS

I'm looking forward to Halo Wars 2 though.
 
lord_lad said:
Halo Wars 1 killed Esemble studios so Fuck Halo Wars
Click to expand...

Ensemble got killed for being an expensive PC studio in a company that wanted to reinvest their game development R&D budget into console games.

When push came to shove, their talent was at making PC titles, so their console projects rarely got off the ground, and Microsoft decided they'd rather lay off 150-200 Ensemble staff and instead hire 150-200 people with a console background to work directly on Halo.

Since this was still the era where the Xbox brand ROI was more shaky, and they weren't even trying to act like a PC friendly publisher, the idea of leaving both open wasn't really on the table.
 
Halo is a bigger opportunity for them. I would choose to do Halo Wars 2 over an Aliens Isolation sequel, even if most people loved the latter.
 
hamchan said:
Halo is a bigger opportunity for them. I would choose to do Halo Wars 2 over an Aliens Isolation sequel, even if most people loved the latter.
Click to expand...

Well the thing is that they're not actually an independent studio picking between Alien with Sega and Halo Wars with Microsoft.

They're fully owned by Sega, so it points to some structural decisions on that end as well.
 
I love Alien Isolation but this is good news to me. As I've stated I adore Halo Wars so the fact they are naming it the "Halo Wars Team" and expanding rapidly shows they are putting some major effort into Halo Wars 2.

Music to my ears
 
Nirolak said:
Yes I'd assume Microsoft is funding the game and they're getting a sizable royalty.

This is presumably because they feel more comfortable not taking risk themselves with this large of a team themselves, especially without a super proven, digital heavy IP like Total War.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the massive amount of marketing money Microsoft likes to throw around for Halo. This is pretty much as low-risk as it comes in the industry. A famous IP which sells itself, fans who are dying to see a sequel to the spinoff in question, the guarantee that Microsoft is going to market it like there is no tomorrow, its pretty much a solid business decision that you can't fault them for

I'm sad they aren't going to be doing an Isolation 2 considering they nailed the first one out of the park, but I'm even more excited that we are finally getting Halo Wars 2.
 
Chobel said:
LOL are you even reading the OP people?


There is pretty much zero chance of Alien Isolation 2 happening.
Click to expand...

Well, this is goddamn tragic.

A:I was absolutely brilliant. Its entire design felt like a legitimate labor of love. Not getting a chance to go further with that property just makes me incredibly sad.
 
It's gonna be unfortunate if Creative Assembly is done with Alien. It was an incredible game, and one of the best horror games in years. It truly deserved better.
 
hamchan said:
Halo is a bigger opportunity for them. I would choose to do Halo Wars 2 over an Aliens Isolation sequel, even if most people loved the latter.
Click to expand...

I'd guess a big part of their decision probably is 'Holy shit we are allowed to do Halo'.
 
i was really hoping to see "the bitch is back" tagline for another Isolation game. Makes me sad to know that it may never come.

Not sure why it didn't do well...are gamers jaded from the previous alien titles that they didn't bite on this? Does the Alien franchise have limited appeal? Not enough exposure?
 
GOD DAMMIT.

I got Halo Wars, but I lost Alien now. I feel conflicted.
 
It's Sega's own fault that Alien Isolation didn't do as good as it should have. Colonial Marines was insanely shitty, and they allowed it to exist. Also the two games came out only 18 months apart.

Oh well...it's not impossible that Isolation could get a sequel, but without the same development team I'm not sure I'd want it.
 
Bummer, Alien Isolation could've been a successful franchise instead of a single title. Hope they go back to it after Halo Wars 2. As for Halo Wars, I hope at least the PC version is its own game similar to what EA did with C&C 3 on PC/Consoles.
 
Isolation 2 would be great, I'm really excited for this. I'm not a huge fan of Halo as in I enjoy the games if I can, but won't go out of my way to get them, but Halo Wars really intrigued me coming from such a respected RTS developer and using the Halo lore in a more unique way. Of course, it was extremely simple and didn't really hit the mark 100%, but I'm hoping CA can pull off making it playable on a console without simplifying the gameplay too much. I'm really hoping that's why kb+m support was announced for the X1. This would be the perfect game for that.

CA is doing it all these days. I feel like they need to make a Total War: Game of Thrones game at some point after Warhammer since it'd be perfect for it. Maybe with all the trust they're getting with other licenses, it might actually be a possibility at some point in the future.

I feel like they've proven themselves with Isolation at least. They have teams that can make more than just TW games which is good news. Their stock is rising (despite pissing a lot of us off with their latest TW games).
 
Feared as much when I checked their jobs page last night but waited to see who the creative leads were on the project before I jumped to that conclusion. Doesn't seem likely though, which is a shame, was hyped for the possibility of Alien: Isolation 2 :(

Though this deal has obviously been in the pipe line a lot longer than thought. Since its coming out in Autumn 2016 and Isolation released in Winter 2014, development cycle seems pretty short.

vinnygambini said:
I mean, management claimed that Alien underperformed relative to their expectations; I'm assuming they don't like the risks associated to console AAA development, and would rather have a PC & Mobile strategy, as mentioned in their briefings, and have their console team re-purposed to partnerships like Microsoft where the publisher foots the bill and SEGA in turn, receive royalty payments.

An educated guess would be that Alien Isolation 2 is canned based on the above.

Edit: I see that you already came to that conclusion too based on your header lol
Click to expand...

This isn't entirely correct. SEGA Sammy said the consumer division didn't hit expectations, not single out Alien: Isolation. During that period they had Sonic Boom, Phantasy Star Nova and Hero Bank 2 which all underperformed from over a million units to 300,000. So did Isolation, but they were expecting sales of 2.3 mil as opposed to the 2.12 mil they got.

They did seem to have this project ready as soon as Isolation finished though, so I don't think sales played too much into their minds at that point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Alien: Isolation 2 will use Unreal Engine 5, and not the Cathode Engine | Creative Assembly is planning a multi-year release plan for the game
Business Game Dev Platform 
44
715
PontificationEngine replied
Alien Isolation 2 | Summer Game Fest Trailer
2 3 4
162
453
Alex11 replied
Rebs Gaming: Halo 2 & 3 Remakes Are In Development
40
613
Arachnid replied
Team Fortress 2 - Mann VS Zombies
News 
0
74
Holammer replied
Team Fortress 2 Classified (originally Team Fortress 2 Classic) is now available on Steam
Trailer Platform 
9
484
Red Crayon Aristocrat replied
Top Bottom