Cliff 'Gears of War' Bleszinski has called the Call of Duty-style dev cycle of handing out IP to a different developer "soulless", and warned that it damages the franchise in question.
Speaking in an interview with Develop mag, the Epic designer said that moving a franchise away from its creator studio means quality is "lost in translation".
"Sometimes I feel a franchise loses something when it's shifted off to another shop," said Bleszinski. "You get the primary studio that really understands about the franchise, and sometimes the other studio that takes it over can do well, but there's something lost in translation, like the game's soul has gone."
Call of Duty 4's "leapfrog" strategy will be seen in action this Christmas, when Treyarch-developed CoD: World at War hits current-gen consoles.
Original developer Infinity Ward is confirmed to be working on the fifth game, due for release next year.
We're not keen on seeing Gears of War 3 from Gearbox, to be honest. Read our own interview with Bleszinski right here.
What it does do, is give us a game each year. OK not every game is perfect, but what is? I love the COD games, the more the better. Besides if you don't like that years game then don't buy it.
Yeah, the guy's got a point...it's always a gamble if you 3rd Party out a successful franchise to another dev. which is why I'm hoping that Halo 4 stays firmly with Bungie, as I just can't see anyone else doing it justice.
I know Cliff gets a hard time but I think he's a great Producer and more importantly a Gamer at heart. Reading and listening to interviews he's done it's easy to see that he likes and plays games himself.
Some people may take offence to his comments and call him all the usual but he does have a point, I'd be worried about a new Max Payne without Remedy or new Halo (Masterchief) without Bungie.
I know Cliff gets a hard time but I think he's a great Producer and more importantly a Gamer at heart.
No doubt & yes I do agree with some things he says, like this. But it doesnt stop him from being a complete prick personality wise. I just wish they'd shut him up & get him back to making the games.
I know Cliff gets a hard time but I think he's a great Producer and more importantly a Gamer at heart.
No doubt & yes I do agree with some things he says, like this. But it doesnt stop him from being a complete prick personality wise. I just wish they'd shut him up & get him back to making the games.
The problem is he's classed as a major figure in the games industry, so it's inevitable that he's going to get various magazines & websites asking his opinion on everything from gaming, to, ways to fix the credit crunch.
It's part of his job to stay in the limelight and keep the name of Epic in the headlines by association...same thing with Molyneux, Kojima etc...although he does tend to say what he thinks which does wind people up, but no bad thing really, better than being a "Yes" man!
I can understand it being an issue with a continuing story based game, but each COD is a seperate scenario / entity so who cares who handles each as long as they are up to quality
The guy wasn't always such a complete c**k. Back when UT2003 was in development he was ok, and on a leash. Now he's not and barking out all sorts of s**t. Trev only had a small amount of time to produce CoD3 and that I believe was due to the pressure to get a game made and out quickly. I'm quite happy to see what they do with the next CoD given that they've had more time on it. I'm sure IW would have come up with the same results if they were given such a short development time. I think it's a good thing that 2 different teams handle the CoD games.
Well, what if (insert favourite bands name here)'s record label decided that they could make more money if they hired a different band to put out an album between each of their own, under their name? Would saying that "they used the same instruments as the real band" make it ok?
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