Obsidian Gestating Alien In Metaphorical Abdomen
Rubbing inky black shoulder against inky black shoulder, the legendary Alien franchise has been presented to similarly well-pedigreed and aptly-named game developer Obsidian Entertainment, which will develop a next-gen RPG based on the Alien mythos. Sega acquired the license to the IP from 20th Century Fox and tapped Obsidian for the job; given the history of tremendous RPGs from the talent that’s currently at Obsidian, this is hardly unwelcome news. (Is somebody starting to notice that EA is a franchise game’s death sentence? Or a death sentence, period?)
There’s a little Alien love at Sega’s teaser site for the game, but since the game is being developed for the PC and next-gen consoles and will probably not hit stores for several years, don’t get your hopes up for some Sigourney fun until at least 2008. The same goes for Gearbox’s FPS for the franchise, also a Sega property.
Till then, be on the lookout for skinny little monsters who want to jab their baby-pipe down your throat. And also for aliens.
Obsidian Brings Sega’s Alien To Life [Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 13 December 2006
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: alien, alien fps, alien rpg, gearbox, obsidian, sega
Whoa… where did the EA slam come from? If by “franchise game” you mean a movie tie-in, a quick scan of metacritic shows that there are plenty of non-EA movie tie-in failures: “Reservoir Dogs”, Eidos, 53; “Star Trek: Encounters”, Bethesda, 54; “Sopranos”, THQ, 48; “Flushed Away”, D3, 45. Also, there has been at least one successful tie-in from EA: The Godfather, 75. I think the lesson is that movie tie-ins are hard to do well.
“given the history of tremendous RPGs from the talent that’s currently at Obsidian, this is hardly unwelcome news.”
The only problem is that Obsidian Entertainment has been squandering their staff. So much promise with KotOR2 but then it was such a let down near the end. Whole storylines never fixed or finished, the ending felt like it was slapped on. I haven’t played NWN2 just because of how let down I was with KotOR2.
I dunno… they’ve been letting themselves fall in with the “bullies” of gaming and end up not delivering a great product because of the demands to get it out of the door. Talent or not, the team at the top needs to push back a little before they’re reputation is totally destroyed.
The EA slam is totally justified. I can’t think of a single franchise that has gone on to greater glory under EA’s banner after being acquired by them. EA has a long history of buying companies and properties, milking them ruthlessly for a short period, and then letting them fade into obscurity.
But why EA? Why not slam Eidos or THQ? The story is about Obsidian and Alien. Targetting EA is totally random.