Game news “We proposed 20 to 30 ideas over these 12 years” but unfortunately, nothing was retained for this cult video game license
Proposals by the dozen and no positive feedback. This is what the protégés of the RARE studio, for many years, experienced. And according to the testimony of one of their colleagues, they were far from being the only ones…
Ideas, but no validation
The life of a creator is rarely a smooth river and this is all the more true when the work in question symbolizes an expenditure of several million dollars. After its acquisition by Microsoft, the British studio RARE was faced with a real dialogue of the deaf with the new management. Long linked to Nintendo, the developers were faced with a transition which turned out to be much more delicate than they thought at the time of the takeover by the Redmond firm. After the release of StarFox Adventures on Gamecube and a few titles on Game Boy Advance, the English studio focused on the Xbox, Microsoft’s first console, with games like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live & Reloaded.
It was then the turn of the Xbox 360 to appear and the studio continued, still in its philosophy, to propose concepts. You are probably wondering where your servant is going with this, but know that this period was terribly delicate for many RARE developers. They proposed innovative ideas, but the door was closed to them by asking them to work, instead, on consumer licenses like Viva Piñata or games for Kinect, Microsoft’s camera-based motion detection system. And when finally, the door was ajar, it was to exploit an inherently gamer license (Banjo-Kazooie) to make a sort of construction/platform game that divided. In short, for these creators, it was really not fun, they who were at the origin of incredible games during the 1990s.
A big license put on hold?
A recent tweet from Kevin Schmitt, lead designer and game designer who worked at several prestigious studios (Rockstar, LucasArts and 343 Industries), echoes these unheard creators. In a message in response to a question about the number of abandoned concepts for the Halo series, the person said that nearly 20 to 30 ideas have been proposed over the last twelve years for the franchise’s universe. There were notably ideas around the ODST, or Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, a team of elite soldiers. These concepts took different forms and one of them was very dark, but unfortunately they never saw the light of day.
Simply put, if the creators within 343 Industries had been heard, the lore of the Halo series would likely be much more extensive today. There was no shortage of ideas, but reading the messages from Kevin Schmitt, who avoids saying too much, we guess that there was a strong misunderstanding with management (without knowing whether it came from 343 Industries or from Microsoft). This demonstrates how difficult it is to make your voice heard as a creator, even more so when the financial stakes are high. And this explains why, over time, we find so many concepts – very promising – which have been abandoned. Because the creation of a new license is never easy and studios prefer to turn to what works, namely (very often) sequels and remakes.