Pikachu Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/adhoc-studio-telltale-ubisoft-1203128704/ Quote The death of Telltale Games left a vacuum, and the game industry is starting to figure out how best to fill it. While Skybound is carrying “The Walking Dead: The Final Season” to its conclusion, what happens next for the franchise and games like it is a question mark. A team of four Telltale alumni recently founded AdHoc Studio to carry the interactive narrative torch into the future. Three members of the team departed Telltale in February 2017 and joined Ubisoft to work on an unannounced project. AdHoc CEO Michael Choung spent time at Night School Studio after he left Telltale in 2016. Telltale’s history of crunch and long hours may have had a hand in the creation of AdHoc Studio, as the team tells it. According to Nick Herman, AdHoc’s chief operating officer, the first discussion of striking out on their own came during a late night conversation at Telltale. The team had long dreamed of taking interactive narrative beyond what they were doing at the now-defunct studio. To do that would require a smaller group willing to take risks. Dennis Lenart and Herman, former Telltale creative directors, and Pierre Shorette, a former director of writing, had hopes of forming a new studio at Ubisoft. Unfortunately, that didn’t come to fruition, so the trio teamed back up with Choung to build something original on their own. “Having to pitch something that ultimately fifty people need to understand and approve means a lot of the more adventurous or risky ideas often die early on for a bunch of different reasons,” Lenart, AdHoc’s chief technology officer, tells Variety. “We liked the idea that if it was just the four of us, we’d be able to more confidently wade into unfamiliar water.” Continued Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Good to hear, that genre is timeless and there can never be enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moa Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 The silver lining of Telltale going out of business is that now a lot of talented people are no longer tethered by making shovelware for tired licensed IPs on creativity-stifling timetables. I think interactive narratives are the future of video games as art and while Telltale wrote the book on the genre I think that they ultimately were holding it back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 I'd love if they focused more on classic adventure gaming as opposed to how telltale was an interactive book. I'm playing Mages Initiation which is inspired from Quest for Glory, and it's awesome It's well worth the 13 or 15 bucks that it is, feels so classic and old school but with a modern day. Check it out if any of you are into the classic adventure games. It just came out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Step 1: stay the hell away from licensed IPs (as @Moa correctly stated!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paperclyp Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 I will be interested to see what they can do without Telltale’s absurd structure (or lack there of). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moa Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 The Night School Studio connection is also encouraging. Their game Oxenfree was excellent and its more fluid real time dialogue system was promising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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