More Earth no More

Not long ago we brought you the news about the new 3D Realms / Recoil Games IP, "Earth No More". The reception to that news has been great, with a lot of questions. Well, that's partly why we're here to bring you this update.

Posted a couple of days ago was an interview with Recoil Games' own Samuli Syvahuoko. Samuli you may remember was one of the founders of Remedy, and has worked with us many times in the past, going all the way back to the release in 1996 of Death Rally, and more recently with Max Payne. Here's a few snippets from the interview with Samuli:

Q: In Earth No More, instead of falling victim to an attack of spooky, bionic aliens, mankind produced its most dangerous enemy completely on its own. Does this have a deeper meaning on today's world? Should we possibly stop wasting our planet?

A: Yes, we do want to deliver a message. In Earth No More, we will witness the consequences of humankind's ongoing mistreatment of the planet's environment and resources. In essence, that's the game's central theme. So, an important part of the storyline deals with global warming, pollution, and resource abuse, and the ramifications that are being caused by the climate crisis. We do like the fact that the game is rooted in modern realities rather than the game being about another been-there-done-that alien attack.

Q: A large part of your team is used to developing in self-created engines. Earth No More, however, will be using the Unreal Engine 3. What are the reasons that made you choose this engine?

A: Basically, with licensed tech, we can start prototyping right away. This means we can nail the core gameplay down a lot sooner than with tech built from scratch. This fact alone was reason enough to go this route. With UE3, the UnrealEd level editor is an especially useful piece of software.

You'll definitely want to check out everything that Samuli has to say in the full interview, which can be read over at the Extreme-Players website.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:58 AM | Discuss this story on our forums

Earth No More

We've got some exciting news to bring to you today. Hitting subscribers mailboxes today, and newsstands later this week (likely Thursday) is the July 2007 issue of Game Informer Magazine.

What makes this issue so special, and of great interest to 3D Realms fans is the huge four page spread which talks in great detail about us, our past (including a brief look back at titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Prey, Max Payne, & Descent - yeah Descent), and how we work with external companies. One of these external companies is Recoil Games, a new game company founded by ex Remedy staffer Samuli Syvahuoko. Samuli worked on Max Payne with Remedy and us (and as well as 1996's Death Rally), but the exciting part here is the future. In this article is some detail on our newly announced game, "Earth No More".

Earth No More will be produced for the PC, the Xbox 360, and the Playstation 3 and is currently slated for 2009 according to the article. There's plenty of info in this piece about Earth No More, including text, a few screenshots, and interviews with Samuli Syvahuoko from Recoil, as well as Scott Miller & Raphael Von Lierop from 3D Realms. Here's a few quotes from the article:

"The development team is specifically moving away from what they call the 'lone hero,' while also avoiding a squad-based direction."

"'We're going to design almost every weapon in the game to where it's going to have a sort of collaborative mode to it,' says Miller. One gun called the Linker works like a reverse proton pack from Ghostbusters."

"The good guys aren't the only ones who can team up, however. Enemies are being designed to complement each other's skills as well."

"The team is intricately analyzing how group dynamics work in movies like the Alien, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 28 Days Later, hoping to emulate that kind of tension in game form."

We don't want to give away too much here - you are going to want to go to your newsstands and check out the full article. We think you're going to like it.

Oh, and it can't be a magazine article about 3D Realms without talking about Duke Nukem Forever. There is a small sidebar article about DNF in here, including... a new screenshot from the game that hasn't been seen before anywhere. Go check it out.

Finally, you'll also want to keep your ears open for another big announcement coming soon (which doesn't have anything to do with DNF).

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:25 PM | Discuss this story on our forums

Scott Miller Interview

Don't quite know how we missed this one, but we want to draw your attention towards a really good interview with our own Scott Miller over at the newly relaunched Adrenaline Vault site. The interview (with an oh so exciting title of "Interview with Scott Miller") is quite good, and has some interesting, up to date thoughts with Scott about the 360/Wii/PS3 development situation, future developments at 3D Realms, and what Scott does when not at the computer. Here's a couple of previews from the full interview:

Q: What other major issue facing the interactive entertainment industry has drawn your interest?

A: Generally, the issue of making us care about game characters. This is so easy in TV shows, movies and books, yet so difficult in games. We have an unannounced game that will be a giant experiment toward making characters far more memorable. I think that once we, as an industry, get better at this, games will finally be seen as equal as an art form as other media.

Q: You've been in the industry a long time. Over time, though, people change. At the end of the day, are you still passionate about computer and video games? If so, how do you resolve your love of games with the toil of running a business?

A: The industry is as exciting as ever, if not more exciting than 20 years ago. First, running a business is a minor effort, and I certainly don't deal with the day-to-day activities like accounting, ordering supplies and whatnot. My end of "running a business" revolves around initiating and closing deals with publishers and other partners. In the end, that's a small amount of work. Most of my work is in game design. That's why I'm still so excited about being in the industry, because game design is a creative endeavor.

You'll definitely want to read this to see what Scott has to say. The full interview is available here at Avault.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:09 PM | Discuss this story on our forums