So we can officially get an Arcanum revival now?
Did they actually create a fucking trailer for the acquisition?
Holy fucking shit, this is cringe.
This is the world of Megacorporations
So we can officially get an Arcanum revival now?
Did they actually create a fucking trailer for the acquisition?
Holy fucking shit, this is cringe.
Surprisingly, it's not as bad as you'd expectRaven is no longer what it was, but it is not what it can be.Release Raven Software from CoD servitude.
Surprisingly, yes.But people who made these games are still working at Raven?
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/star-wars-jedi-knight-jedi-academy/credits
Of the nine lead designers+designers+project lead on Jedi Academy, over half were still at Raven as of 2020, with only Steve Raffel (who was there as late as 2015), Robert Bettenberg, Ford Dye (now at Ubisoft), and Scott McNutt not credited on that 2020 project.
They had to fill the trailer with something. Activision doesn't make any games besides Call of Duty, so they had to resort to games they published. Of course Activision didn't even publish Sekiro in the traditional sense, they just helped with distribution outside of Japan.The fuckers used Sekiro footage in that video
Late Bloomer two screengrabs from the video, featuring the Sekiro intro cinematic:
not like it would make a dent in acquisition budgetDid they actually create a fucking trailer for the acquisition?
https://archive.ph/wip/yzZ85
Phil Spencer wants to revive dormant Activision Blizzard franchises like Hexen
A few days ago, Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Since then, questions about Call of Duty exclusivity and existing Activision Blizzard sexual harassment issues have dominated the headlines. However, a new interview between the head of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, and The Washington Post, revealed more information about the company's plans for dormant franchises and why it acquired Activision Blizzard.
The Wall Street Journal said that Spencer will talk to developers about working on a number of old franchises like Guitar Hero and Hexen. Hexen is essentially Doom with magic, and maybe id Software can make a sequel down the line. id Software was also acquired by Microsoft with the Bethesda purchase. Spencer said the following to the outlet.
I was looking at the ... list, I mean, let's go! King’s Quest, Guitar Hero … I should know this but I think they got Hexen ... We're hoping that we'll be able to work with them when the deal closes to make sure we have resources to work on franchises that I love from my childhood, and that the teams really want to get. I'm looking forward to these conversations. I really think it's about adding resources and increasing capability.
Apart from that, Spencer detailed the reasoning behind purchasing Activision Blizzard. The Wall Street Journal said that he's concerned with companies unfamiliar with gaming barging into the industry. Just take a look at Google. The corporation set up its Stadia internal studios and closed them down when it didn't see immediate results. Usually, it doesn't end well.
Microsoft wants to become the corporation out there that's known for gaming because there's a current vacuum in that space, in the West at least. Spencer said the following.
When we look at the other big tech competitors for Microsoft: Google has search and Chrome, Amazon has shopping, Facebook has social, all these large-scale consumer businesses … The discussion we’ve had internally, where those things are important to those other tech companies for how many consumers they reach, gaming can be that for us.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future when the Activision Blizzard deal goes through, barring any objections from the government. Hopefully, franchises like Hexen will return and deliver worthwhile new experiences.
I guess what I'm saying is that they are/were dead IPs, the companies that owned them certainly didn't do anything with them outside selling them on gog.comAtlantico
Phil Spencer has actually mentioned Hexen several times during this process, and worn a Hexen shirt to some industry event. It's pretty clear he seems to have some kind of fondess for the game (series?) and would greenlight some kind of revival. At the very least, I expect MS will add Hexen 2's expansion and Heretic 2 to Steam/GoG relatively soon (and maybe the official patch to Steam's version of Deathkings of the Dark Citadel). Those have been in some weird legal limbo between id and Raven, which MS's current ownership of both should solve.
Fallout 3+ are nothing but shitty fanfiction references to Fallout themselves, so there's nothing good left to corrupt. Time to Tony Hawk through the Fallout rubble.Are you guys looking forward to seeing Halo and Diablo references in Fallout
He’ll have a hell of a golden parachute thanks to this deal. Why stick around when he can swim in a pool of megabucks instead?Do you guys believe Bobby Cockdick will actually leave and retire in 2024?
Phil Spencer was wearing a Hexen t-shirt on the 2023 Xbox showcase, which I found rather curious. Such things aren't done at random, and Hexen is a weird one to foreground given how long it has been dormant and how it is nowadays only familiar to dedicated retro FPS fans.
My guess: MS doesn't have its big exclusive souls-like whereas Sony has a couple. Hexen has grim dark fantasy setting, exploration of interconnected locales, boss fights, multiple classes to chose from, basic leveling in the case of second game. So one can look at Hexen and see a vintage IP whose name can be used for a major exclusive souls-like.