ReportWire

Tag: Yager

  • Spec Ops: The Line Removed From Steam Due To Expiring Licenses

    Spec Ops: The Line Removed From Steam Due To Expiring Licenses

    [ad_1]

    Earlier today, players noticed that Spec Ops: The Line was no longer available to purchase on Steam, leading many to fear that the acclaimed third-person shooter had been quietly delisted without warning. Sadly, 2K has since confirmed that is the case, and the publisher has also explained why it pulled the landmark shooter.

    How Alan Wake 2 Builds Upon The ‘Remedy-Verse’

    Developed by Yager and released back in 2012, Spec Ops: The Line was a reboot of the lesser-known Spec Ops franchise. Like those past games, The Line was a third-person military shooter. However, the 2012 reboot garnered critical acclaim at launch thanks to its narrative which depicted a solider in the deserts of Dubai slowly losing his grip on reality, offering a meta-critical take on the way some military shooters glorify the horrors of war. While it didn’t sell as many copies as 2K would have liked, the game has gone on to become a cult favorite among shooter fans. And now, it’s no longer on Steam.

    On January 29, folks began to notice that Spec Ops: The Line had been removed from Steam and other storefronts, like Fanatical. People wondered if 2K had delisted the game, possibly due to expiring licensing rights on some music featured in it. And that seems to be the case, according to a 2K spokesperson.

    “Spec Ops: The Line will no longer be available on online storefronts, as several partnership licenses related to the game are expiring,” explained 2K in a statement sent over to Kotaku. No specific licenses were named, but among the noteworthy music tracks included in the game are Jimi Hendrix’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Rooster” by Alice in Chains. 

    The publisher assured players that owners of the game will still be able to download and replay Spec Ops: The Line “uninterrupted” but it will no longer be easy to buy a digital copy moving forward. Currently, the game is still for sale on GoG, but the above statement seems to indicate that will change soon.

    “2K would like to thank our community of players who have supported the game, and we look forward to bringing you more offerings from our label throughout this year and beyond,” said 2K in its statement.

    While there had been talks of a sequel for years, it seems 2K isn’t even willing to tease that and instead is just letting Spec Ops: The Line fade away like a mirage in the desert. It’s just one more game—on an ever-growing list—that will be harder to play as the years go by.

    .

    [ad_2]

    Zack Zwiezen

    Source link

  • Dead Island 2 Devs Think ‘Development Hell’ Wasn’t So Bad Actually

    Dead Island 2 Devs Think ‘Development Hell’ Wasn’t So Bad Actually

    [ad_1]

    Image: Dambuster Studios

    Dead Island 2, the open-world zombie RPG that passed through so many hands someone done forgot it in the development oven for over a decade, is finally coming out on April 21. This is a week earlier than originally anticipated, which we love to see. What’s funny, though, is that developer Dambuster Studios is out here saying the game’s development hell gave the studio “quite a lot of goodwill in the end.”

    In case you forgot, Dead Island 2 was announced at E3 2014, with work reportedly starting sometime in 2012. Dying Light studio Techland was originally set to spearhead the project, but pivoted to Dying Light 2 instead. This led publisher Deep Silver to shop around for a developer to helm Dead Island 2 until Spec Ops: The Line creators Yager Development stepped up to the plate. Yager toiled away on Dead Island 2 for a few years, with the game making a couple appearances at conventions after being announced in 2014. Unfortunately, Yager didn’t stick. Deep Silver dropped the studio in July 2015, leaving Dead Island 2 lifeless until Hood: Outlaws & Legends studio Sumo Digital took over development in March 2016. Again, like Yager, Sumo didn’t stay long. Deep Silver shifted development hands one more time, this time putting the game in the lap of Homefront: The Revolution creator Dambuster Studios. If you lost track, this means Dead Island 2 has been worked on by at least four different studios throughout its over a decade of development.

    Read More: Dead Island 2, Due In 2015, Now ‘Coming Out A Week Early’

    Development hell resulted in some goodwill

    Now, Dambuster Studios is asserting a VGC interview that after all this reshuffling and restarting, Dead Island 2‘s development hell actually wasn’t all that bad.

    “It definitely concerned us at the start,” technical director Dan Evans-Lawes said. “I remember when we took the project on, I was thinking ‘Is this a poisoned chalice,’ you know what I mean? I think, though, that once we announced the game, people were interested because they knew it had been in ‘development hell’ for however long, and I think people were expecting it to be terrible, and so we were pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. And I kind of feel like it’s actually given us quite a lot of goodwill in the end. But that’s obviously reliant on people liking the game. But as long as they do, which I think they will, then I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all.”

    Dead Island 2 was a total restart for Dambuster

    With going through so many hands, you’d be correct to assume that Dead Island 2 was restarted once Dambuster Studios got a hold of it. It was, though not everything was scrapped. Some stuff, such as the Los Angeles location, stayed intact. Most of everything else, however, was rebuilt from the ground up.

    G/O Media may get a commission

    HP Envy Desktop Bundle

    28% Off

    HP Envy Desktop Bundle

    Gaming time
    This PC has an RTX 3070 GPU, a 12th gen Intel i9 processor, 16GB of SDRAM, and a 1 TB SSD, and it comes with a mouse and keyboard included as well.

    “It was basically a complete restart,” Evans-Lawes said. “Obviously there were some things that had been communicated out already, the [Los Angeles] setting and things like that, and when we looked at it the setting was something that we definitely did want to keep. We felt that it as an opportunity to have a really crazy, diverse cast of characters, and also it’s a very iconic location, so obviously we wanted to keep that. Other than that, it was totally from scratch.”

    Read More: Sorry Y’all, Dead Island 2 Weapon Breaking Isn’t Going Anywhere

    Kotaku reached out to Deep Silver for comment.

    In a way, Dead Island 2 could be considered a normally developed game under typical circumstances. I mean, Dambuster Studios apparently started working on the game in August 2019, not long before the global pandemic impacted development on a plethora of games. Despite the challenges that come with development, especially under the effects of a widespread health crisis, Dead Island 2, under Dambuster Studios, has only been in the oven for almost four years. That’s not a bad timeline. It’s just wild for Dambuster Studios to insinuate that development hell has, in a roundabout sort of way, helped them. You know, if the game ends up being any good.

     

    [ad_2]

    Levi Winslow

    Source link