New Game Plus August 26 - September 1
Resident evil
This week we got a little information from Capcom regarding the next entry in the Resident Evil series. With the Tokyo Game Show coming up in just a few short weeks, we got a little tease of what’s will be coming soon. There was a website title Project REsistance with the RE highlighted in red, stating the obvious, that it will be taking place in the Resident Evil universe. The trailer for the new game will be shown on September 9th, with the game playable at TGS. It is also stated that the game will be playable on the modern consoles as logos for Xbox One and PS4 are featured. Initially the obvious guesses would be that it would be the follow up to Resident Evil 7, which was a great reboot that the franchise desperately needed after the RE6. RE7 came out in January of 2017, so it has been almost 3 years since that game was released with the franchise due for another fresh entry. I doubt that it would be the often rumored Resident Evil 3 Nemesis remake as the RE2 remake just came out a few short months ago and it wouldn’t make sense to call it project resistance if you were just going to show off the Nemesis remake.
Being 2019, nothing on the internet can stay a surprise for too long as a few reddit users did some digging and pulled a few images from the link to the teaser trailer. The images that were pulled clearly show a group of four, younger people armed which has led people to wonder if this will be a spiritual successor to Resident Evil Outbreak. Outbreak was released in 2004 for the PS2 and was the first Resident Evil that featured co op gameplay. It also featured the use of online that the PS2 supported. This was well before online gameplay was what it was today. This begs the question is the next Left 4 Dead that we have been asking for going to be developed by Capcom in the Resident Evil series.
My personal opinion is that as of late Capcom has been on a real hot streak, especially when it comes to the RE engine and the Resident Evil series. Both RE7 and RE2 remake were great games that helped the series regain its status as top tier horror. RE2 remake is high on most peoples list for game of the year including mine as of now. I am open to whatever and wherever Capcom wants to take this franchise next. First person, third person, survival horror or coop shooter, my body is ready.
TellTale Games
Another big announcement this week was that telltale games was back in business. Although just how much DNA remains from its previous iteration remains unseen. Immediately my first thought was that this was a bad idea. Telltale doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of cache to it’s name anymore and things didn’t end well between the company and the employees. For most of the employees, the rug was pulled out from beneath them without any notice.
The original story can be found on Polygon by Colin Campbell if you want to read the whole article. It was announced that this week LCG entertainment had purchased assets from Telltale and according to an anonymous employee this happened back in the spring when it was basically a yard sale. Yard sale or not, I really wonder how purchasing the companies assets makes sense for a number of reasons. One of the reasons could be that the LCG now has the ability to sell some of the back catalog of telltale games to make some money. This comes across as a problem for many reasons including that the farther we get from the launch date of those games, the worse the look, play and become less relevant. Secondly and more importantly is that a lot of the licensing that telltale had in place has reverted back to the original IP owner. Walking dead went back to Skybound as they came in shortly after the closing of telltale to help finish the final season of the walking dead as well. According to an article on IGN marvel IP went back to Marvel, Minecraft went back to Microsoft and Stranger Things went back to Netflix. The latter of the group was apparently one of the games that could have propelled the studio in the right direction based on quality and popularity of Stranger Things. There are also plenty of other IPs that currently are unknown where the rights lie including Game of Thrones among others. According to the article about the only IP the LCG was able to acquire in the deal was WB properties: The Wolf Among Us and Batman.
Another huge issue with the reformation of Telltale games is that according the LCG entertainment, the studio will be based in Malibu, California or as it’s better known, one of the most expensive places to live in California. This doesn’t seem like a good idea for a studio that had trouble with budget and sales before. According to LCG the plan for the studio is “stay small for the next six months”
As for the question of will any of the original members of Telltale be back with the company, LCG did say that some former members would be offered free lance roles with full time positions possible in the future. If I am one of the former members of Telltale and that is the statement they try to win me back with I am passing on that opportunity. That doesn’t sound promising at all and just rings true of some of the horror stories we have heard from the world of video game development as of late. It’s always the carrot of full time work while using the employees as freelancers so that when it’s time to restructure its a lot easier and less costly for the company. Fool me once shame on me.
It also doesn’t sound like the actual members of what Telltale used to be have any interest in the new venture. Former telltale developer told IGN that it definitely won’t be the telltale from before the closure as it’s been too long and a a lot have moved on.
Recapping everything, Telltale is back but without anyone from before, without most of the popular IP’s the company had, based in one of the most expensive places to live in California and the last thing many people remember about Telltale was how they shut the doors abruptly on 90 percent of their employees or around 250 people. LCG entertainment must see something that I don’t and have access to numbers and data that the public doesn’t see because from the outside looking in this looks like just another chapter in the tumultuous telltale saga.