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Cancelled BioWare game Revolver AKA Jade Empire 2 (2005-2008)

Spectacle

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I guess there's some pieces from the "R&D" phase of the project (I don't know what would be the term for a video game), where the concept and general art direction isn't nailed down
I believe that is the "pre-production" phase.
 
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Looking at some of that art and that sizzle reel of what they wanted to do, it looks like Revolver kind of became Secret World, and then ideas from it kind of merged with the Mass Effect multiplayer for Anthem. Sounds like they really overthought (or underthought) it if they somehow couldn't figure out how to make their sandbox game work. It just seems like they wanted to make a sandbox RPG, (maybe leveling system like GTA San Andreas? Either way this makes one of the doctor's comments about GTA:SA being one of the best RPGs more interesting) with some parkour like Assassin's Creed, combat like Devil May Cry, and lets you move around like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction...so basically they wanted to make an RPG version of Prototype. Maybe they should have talked with their partner company Pandemic Studios? Pandemic just released Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction in 2005, and that's also the same year they joined together through Elevation Partners, and when BioWare started thinking about this game it.
 
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I don't know I think it looks kinda cool in some aspects and besides it was made before the decline of Bioware so it couldn't have been that bad
 

felipepepe

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If you want more info, there's several pages about many cancelled BioWare games in their new book, Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development.

There's Jade Empire 2/Revolver:

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But also Agent:

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Shadow Realms:

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And even Battleground Infinity:

Qelf5JZ.jpg


There's many more pages, but I'm obviously not gonna post the whole thing here. It's not an amazing book, most of it it's just celebrating BioWare and its fandom with no real insight behind the development process. But the text on cancelled games is really interesting, especially on Revolver.
 
Last edited:

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
*thunderstruck* OMG, that's why it was called the "Infinity engine."

Truly, you learn something new every day.
 

agris

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Feargus continues to demonstrate that he has no instinct more exalted than that of self preservation.
 

Bruma Hobo

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Bioware has yet to make a good game, so who cares about some relatively cool concepts? I'm sure they would have managed to make it bland and generic anyways.
 

Volourn

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"Feargus continues to demonstrate that he has no instinct more exalted than that of self preservation."

No doubt.

He was like,"Your game sucks. GET THE FUKK OUT OF HERE.... wait.. the competition is interested/… I change my mind... YOUR GAME IS AWESOMESAUCE. GIMME!"


Like the ex who says their former significant other that they dumped in the trash and suddenly wants them back. Or the person who says they're not interested but the moment someone else shows interest, they want in.


FUKK OFF.
 
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they cancelled all the cool stuff

Game concepts are full of pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams that are crushed by the reality of development.

Only Revolver didn't sound like some pie in the sky deal. It just sounds like they wanted to do stuff that had already been done...but as an RPG. Given any of their more action oriented games I'd guess the whole action aspect, which looks like they wanted to go harder into than anything they've ever made, was something that hemmed them up. They also admitting couldn't reconcile player freedom with the way they wanted to tell a story; which seems really weird, but whatever.

Agent does however sound weird. Agent means BioWare was working on what basically amounts to two James Bond games. Agent being a more straightforward take on Bond, but Mass Effect is basically them making a Bond game in their version of Star Wars with some '80s aesthetic in there.

It is funny though that the big ideas of Mass Effect never made it to the final game. And then the stuff that did make it in, or seemed to make it in, was dropped in the second game.
 

Narax

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Looks straight out of Tumblr , the art style seems to be catering to a female audience.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
:necro:

Retired BioWare veteran Mark Darrah talks Jade Empire 2/Revolver:



Jade Empire 2, Jade Empire Modern, Revolver.
One project, three lives.
Let's walk through the whole thing.
Why did the project get cancelled?

I'm curious what you think of the concept art driven format.
The Memories and Lessons Series has now caught up to Dragon Age

Chapters:
0:00 How Do we DO this?
0:30 Jade Empire 2
3:09 Stream Arquitect
3:51 Jade Modern
8:29 Revolver
10:13 Vision
12:17 Rationalization
15:09 Cavitate Probability
17:50 EA
20:56 A Watershed for BioWare
23:21 Cancelled on its Best Day
 

Roguey

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:lol: One of the higher-ups made them remove all cars from the game because the player character couldn't drive one and didn't understand why the game should have melee combat when you have guns. Then he made them overcomplicate the lore of the magic to have it "make sense."

Mike Laidlaw said:
“How did it end up rationalizing everything in ways that make no sense?” It’s because your predecessor would not accept simple answers, Mark, and it was -awful-.

It got cancelled because EA had decided that Bioware was getting too big and needed to stick to just its two biggest projects (ME and DA). Darrah ultimately agrees that Bioware was too loose with spending money back then and needed to be clamped down.
 

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