Maybe just some confusion on why it’s been this long for a partnered studio to be involved. Wouldn’t say concerning.
Gonna wait and see if Matty does a video for more context. I would be interested to see who they’ve been talking to for co-development (we’ve had rumors about Coalition for a while).
Yeah I’d love to know what the specific concern about timing means.
Feels sometimes like people are just automatically predisposed to looking at any Xbox news in a negative light.
I doubt that ‘it took this long for the studio to get involved’. We heard a year ago that The Initiative aimed to remain small and agile and also that they had a novel new approach to AAA game dev from a studio-operations pov. Seeing as the team’s lead was running Crystal Dynamics when he was talking to Phil about forming the studio it seems much more likely that Crystal Dynamics was always on board and just waiting for pre-production to finish up.
I see this approach as akin to how films changed how they were made a while back. It used to be that a group of ppl in a team made film productions but over time that morphed into the teams being brought in as contractors to handle highly specific elements of production after the pre-production vision and script and screenplay and pre-viz/etc were all nailed down. As a result, films are made MUCH more efficiently and the small team in charge of the pre-production generally have their vision more faithfully put on screen in the end since there isn’t room for reqriting the entire thing typically once production begins.
I am guessing this is what The Initiative is all about. Hell, I bet their studio name is even a nod to acknowledge this new approach. Not simply contracting out tedious stuff like art or testing, but finding highly specialized teams with AAA experience they can work with to produce the vision of the core creatives, with CD being the first of such partnerships.
Agreed!
Goes to show you that there is an indeed a separate scale on how media and fans react to Xbox news. The reaction from everybody is weird, and surprised to see prominent xbox media members leading the charge of spreading FUD. Anyways, I think these days too many people look too much into job postings, linkedin changes and othr things and pretend they know about industry. i think overreaction shows many don’t know how development work these days, which is many AAA studios outsource work, but shame on Microsoft for working with an established AAA developer.
If this is the way The Initiative is indeed handling the creation Perfect Dark by doing the creative and directive work, then contracting out the actual development to another studio, does that open up the door for them to be working on multiple games at the same time? They plan and scope out Perfect Dark and once it goes into production with CD, they start planning the next game or IP have it ready for production then contract it out to another Studio, and so forth? That would seem like the small and agile definition right there. Of course they would assign a few people to work with each studio once into production, but in theory the core of The Initiative would always be planning and pre-devving a new IP?
That would honestly be an interesting thing to see.
It would be. They could be working on 4 or 5 games at a time with that development model. The only issue I could see arise, is what happens when theortically they are ready for PD2 and CD is busy or SE doesn’t want them to work with Xbox or the Initiative again.
It serves as a way to have the workforce to create multiple AAA games quickly, without hiring and expanding, but I guess it could also run into it’s own issues down the line. Sort of like how Killer Instinct ran into an issue when the original dev was acquired. I could see them maybe wanting to Purchase CD or these studios they work with, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of contracting out to other studios for The Initiative unless Xbox wants to make the Initiative it’s own publishing wing like Bethesda, with multiple studios underneath it.
This was discussed here not too long ago actually. It is a distinct possibility but I think that is potentially further down the line and the studio is more focused getting their fist game out of the door.
This partnership is a little unorthodox, but using Crystal Dynamics won’t be cheap, so MS clearly sees potential in Perfect Dark. I’d say all things considered it’s a positive news.
Wouldn’t this way of doing things be cheaper than if they staffed up The Initiative to a similar number of people as CD and had that many workers full time? Not that they don’t have big ambitions for the IP itself.
Exciting news, I mean they should have hired me but this is good I guess.
There a lot of cheaper studios than CD. Crystal Dynamics is a major AAA developer, with a long history and “Legacy” 
Also they are based in California. Outsourcing is a standard practice in AAA development. But having major development house, which is owned by third party publisher, co-developing first party game is a first. It would be like Dice or Infinity Ward helping with development of Halo
I’ve said it before.
Ooh, I think you might have discovered the master plan.
For me stuff aligns now even more with the Initiative and PD and iam looking forward to it.
With the announcement trailer and interview, i immediately thought about the concept Rare did for a sequal to PD, Perfect Dark core.
The first mission was to supposed to be played in… cairo
The artwork shows physical combat
From Rare’s PD prototype:
Words from TI, at the game awards interview:
We reallly wanted to play up the physicality and being in the world. Getting some of that camera movement that we see watching body cameras, GroPros and trying to get that excitment of moving in places and in ways that you and i don’t
sounds to me like Mirrors Edge/Dying Light like movement. Also here the Prototype from Rare
the world also looks pretty … parcour friendly?!
Exchange with other studios like… the coalition https://twitter.com/DrewMaru29/status/1208182320911437824
what engine are the coalition master at…
and didnt the coaltion back as “black tusk Studios” had a trailer in 2013 with… some kind of future spy agent prototype, that got scrapped with Xbox aquiring gears?! surely some cool ideas somewhere in the office there for this genre…
So i feel like i got a general idea what PD may be… but i was always curious how they want to accomplish a ambitious project as a < 100 studio.
With the Crystal Dynamics announcment they maybe solve things with lots of positive side effects. Darrell and Dan had over 10 years worked there, knows the team, the workflow and culture. They also for sure have kept a lot of that while forming TI. It’s much easier and efficent to merge with a well known studio/team as co developer, as of bringing a new one on board. And i don’t believe the whole CD team joins, it’s just a portion so i don’t think it will be a loss to Square, even less with Xbox payment is a save bet for them.
Not to mention that expierience is worth so much in development and CD has experience with something possibly important for PD:
I trust MS and TI will be way better at managing PD with Crystal then Square were with Avengers
Avengers is a good cinematic single player game dragged down by the GAAS elements mandated by Square. Should be great.
Would be cool if they looked at the old concepts for Perfect Dark Core.
I’m still waiting on Avengers to hit Game Pass, lol.
