Nintendo to the Patent Office: “We invented farming games with the introduction of berries in Pokémon. Please ignore all other prior art that wasn’t ours.”
This interview is really phenomenal. Among other things, they talk about why it took so many years to release the game.
“We’ve been having fun,” Gibson said. “This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyway. It’s nice to make fun things.”
The lengthy production wasn’t the result of development challenges or obstacles, they said. They just needed all these years to ensure that Silksong was exactly the game they wanted to make.
“It was never stuck or anything,” Gibson said. “It was always progressing. It’s just the case that we’re a small team, and games take a lot of time. There wasn’t any big controversial moment behind it.”
“I think we’re always underestimating the amount of time and effort it’ll take us to achieve things,” Gibson said. “It’s also that problem where, because we’re having fun doing it, it’s not like, ‘It’s taking longer, this is awful, we really need to get past this phase.’ It’s, ‘This is a very enjoyable space to be in. Let’s perpetuate this with some new ideas.’”
The longer development lasted, the more pressure Gibson and Pellen felt to ensure that everything was as fine-tuned as possible. They’d already spent four years on it — why would they rush now? The more time they spent polishing some parts, the more time they needed to apply it consistently across the rest.
“There’s a level of finish that has to be met throughout the entire game,” Pellen said. “All the way the systems interact, all the hidden work that pops up later on. It’s multiplicative. As you add stuff, the process of tying it all back together just increases.”
Gibson and Pellen say they’re happy that the game is finally coming out — and even happier that they will get to keep working on it, which they still find enjoyable even after seven years. They haven’t burned out or shown any desire to take a break. Instead, they’re already making big plans to add extra content to Silksong in the months and years to come.
This is, of course, what work is supposed to be. But we have lost the way.
So this is a hiring drive for a studio that laid off half of its personnel about a year ago? For a series that lost its way a long time ago with no indication that it’ll get back on track?
Sounds about right. I suppose they also want to distance themselves as much as possible from the antics of frank o’connor’s 343i with a brand move like this.
I wonder which retcons they’ll retcon. Will the foreunners be human again? Will the events of 4, 5 and infinite just be one big fever dream?
It does stand to reason that if they’re dropping all in house engine development, a lot of roles will be freed up. It’s not great and I’m personally not a fan of this consolidation of engines.
You might want to root for Capcom’s REX engine licensing to take off then, because off the shelf AAA game engines are going to be much more necessary as time goes on. Then stuff like Godot for lower end games.
Oh as someone very familiar with the field, I perfectly understand why things have come to this point and I honestly have no idea if there’s any way things could retain the way they’ve been before. I just find it worrying in different ways.
Even if keeping the money on on a bank account for nine years was an honest mistake: Don’t tell that every penny will be donated and then deduct expenses.
Is it not normal for a charity to deduct expenses from donated funds? I didnt think that was the scandalous part, I always thought that was standard practice for charities in general.
Yes, it is normal but then credible organizations then won’t make the claim that everything will be donated. When such statements are made, the reasonable expectation is that costs are covered by 3rd parties.
This is why it is so important to find exploits for current gen consoles. It is not about piracy, it is about preservation. You don’t own a game that requires the internet, or a fucking download code Nintendo.
A PS3 with Evilnat custom firmware is truly a thing of beauty. A great era for videogame creativity and experimentation, when F2P was just a twinkle in Tim Sweeney’s eye.
Just in terms of timeline, Dragon Age 4 was teased at about the same time with the same level of teaser trailer. It’s releasing this fall.
So a full modern RPG being fully developed in that time by a smaller studio, and for elder scrolls we haven’t heard squat.
Who knows how DA will turn out, but we know modern Bethesda quality thanks to starfield. Not having any news in 6 years proves this trailer was made just to shut fans up
Often times trailers that early are used as a hiring tool, too. Cyberpunk’s original CG trailer was back in like 2012, and that game came out in 2020, but we know from an interview at E3 before The Witcher 3 came out that there was a very small team working on Cyberpunk before Witcher 3 was done, and Cyberpunk at that point was mostly just design documents.
Who knows how DA will turn out, but we know modern Bethesda quality thanks to starfield. Not having any news in 6 years proves this trailer was made just to shut fans up
“Bethesda and Todd Howard announced Elder Scrolls 6 when they did because of fan demand, or in the words of Skyrim’s lead designer Bruce Nesmith, because ‘the pitchforks and torches were out.’” Source
That skull crushing weapon is so satisfying to watch.
Judging from the trailer it looks like we will see more open arenas. Good to see they won’t try to make a repeat of Eternal and instead try new ideas. Looking forward to see how it plays out.
Yeah the fact that this already exists and it is pretty much perfect just makes me think that it is a lame move from Nintendo, even if it was meant to be a joke lol.
There’s also an emulator for the oculus quest, the moment you launch a game you understand why it wasn’t that successful and why VR was abandoned for a while.
Monochrome games are all good and fun when the screen is not a few cm from your eyes and that’s the only color you can see hahahah
that is a very bold statement. I would wait until release before I make any conclusions.
I must admit that the first seconds of the trailer are looking beautiful but the gameplay then suffers from the same issues (strange controls and a horrendous framerate) of the base game.
After all this time and for a singleplayergame without any server issues, this is quite alarming.
It’s an absolute joke that fans of SC say ‘when you get a clear server it runs perfect’, because it doesn’t. I’ve been in a brand new, freshly populating, rebooted server. The game runs like ass, the bugs are still everywhere. it’s just a badly made game and the design ethos is “we added more time wasting for realism!” (when they’re pretending not to just be ship salesmen)
Also, haven’t they STILL not decided on the final flight model for the game?
If I can be a little nitpicky here: In the beginning the dwarf said: “Ah, the Mines of Moria. I hope this will lead to Dwarrowdelf.” Now the Mines of Moria is just a nickname for Khazad Dum. Which translates to Dwarrowdelf.
So basically he just said: “Ah, Dwarrowdelf. I hope this will lead to Dwarrowdelf.”
(Alright fine, they probably refer to the actual mines of Khazad Dum. And with “Dwarrowdelf” possibly just the Pillar-hall. But that’s still wrong so I win.)
Would you happen to know whether the “platinum” rating on protonDB is applicable the GOG version as well ? I’m gradually switching to Linux and would like to do as much as possible there (including games). Cheers
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