2199

Daily users, not concurrent. Still a staggering huge number of course.

2200

Thanks for the article. Interesting tidbit:

I absolutely loved The Three-Body Problem so I was interested to see that he’d be writing for a video game. But I am super disappointed to hear that he’s pro-genocide.

2201

The Chinese government is also taking a heavier hand in video games content since this year, seeing them as an important art in the propagandists tool kit, so there’s that to keep in mind too…

2202

It’s a truly massive game. The scale of games in China (and SEA) makes what happens in the West look miniscule.

2203
2204

Cthulhu meets Saints Row?? Man, I kind of wish I had never heard of that now, I’ll just dream of what might have been …

2205

Aw, I liked Mafia 3 a lot, and thought Hangar 13’s next project would be even better.

2206

I adore Mafia 3. It has my favorite driving and shooting mechanics of any open-world game. Since that game, the studio’s spread across four studios, two Czech studios in Brno and Prague, one UK one in Brighton and the headquarters in Novato next-door to where Bioshock 4’s being made by Cloud Chamber, and with the work from home situation I would imagine that’s very tricky to organize.

2207

Sounds like a different thing here:

codenamed Volt and was an online game featuring superheroes.

2208

It could still be the same game. Aren’t Saints Row characters pretty much superheroes, at least in the later games?

2209

“While the Hangar 13 name and Volt ’s working title are not being shared publicly, T2 is announcing today that 2K had made the difficult decision to stop developing on the project,” studio head and founder, Haden Blackman, wrote in an email to staff, according to a copy viewed by Kotaku . “I know this likely comes as a shock, but I wanted you to hear it from me first and provide some context.”

Blackman wrote that despite high tests internally, Take-Two had determined the costs of development amidst the current “industry challenges” would make it “commercially unviable.”

“We are confident that there are many opportunities for H13 employees to work on other games in development, both at H13 and across the label,” he wrote. “2K has also assured me that the company believes H13 can deliver a critical and commercial success, and we will begin developing future projects soon.”

As first reported by Bloomberg , Volt had been in development since 2017, and gone through different iterations. Sources told Kotaku that one of the unique aspects of the three-player coop game was tech that could see enemies combine together into more challenging foes. The action was described as arcadey, with tank, healer, and DPS roles, and lots of traversal. The code name was short for Voltron

.

2210

It was Cthulhu meets Saints Row!

It was online-only superheroes!

It was co-op Voltron!

Combine them all and you get a cancellation.

2211

Unbelievable…

2212

Maybe “Indefensible” is more accurate for the cynical.

2213

Kotaku updated their story with a comment from 2K:

Hangar 13’s latest project was creatively ambitious and exciting. When we pursue new intellectual properties, we occasionally may encounter situations that call for cancellation. We encourage our teams to pursue their passions and take creative risks, balanced against prudent commercial and financial decisions and our unwavering commitment to delivering the best entertainment experiences. We have full confidence in Hangar 13’s leadership and development team and believe that they can and will deliver critical and commercial successes in the future. Hangar 13’s leadership is working closely with 2K to ensure that Hangar 13 team members continue to do meaningful work, either as part of Hangar 13 or on one of our other development teams.

2214

Online superhero nonsense? Good riddance.

Now, make a proper 70s Vegas Mafia 4 thx

Or the cold war berlin spy game that was rumored.

2215

That’s the problem right there. Coop-only games are a tough sell, even with only 2 players.

Yes, please.

2216

I gotta say though, game in development since 2017 cancelled…how fucking annoying must working in gamedev be?

When a game Moscow Rhapsody was in development at Illusion Softworks, and after few years (at very advanced stage) was canceled and its people assigned to Mafia 2, those people were so pissed lot of them just decided to leave the company altogether.

Then when Mafia 3 was in prototyping/writing phase and the final script, after some 18 months of work was presented, it was cancelled too. Which led to Warhorse Studios being founded. And Mafia 3 dev was restarted from scratch, to terrible reviews (though I love the game).

Illusion Softworks/2K Czech/Hangar 13 sure is a tumultuous company when it comes to working on something for a long time and getting it cancelled…

2217

Most games die earlier, but there are plenty that don’t, even if they still stay on a simmer rather than a boil (as far as team sizes go). If I included cancelled games in my resume - most of which were never even whispered about outside the company - I’d have more than double the amount of projects on there, easily. If you’re lucky, the work you did just gets shoved (sometimes ungracefully) into the next game in some form, or the next prototype is a reskin with a couple different features.

2218

Yep, me too. Most of my career I’ve been close to a 50/50 released/unreleased split. Some of those unreleased games were 2-3 years of my life. Right now–more due to luck than anything else–I think I’m up by a couple of released titles.