It came from G4: Epic Games interviews and more

G4tv.com has 3 massive interviews with Epic Games’ finest (talking about Dark Corners) and a detailed look at Muramasa: The Demon Blade in a brand new video feature.

G4 talks to Cliff Bleszinski in a interview about Unreal, the importance of creating original IP’s, game mechanics, his thoughts on motion control, pricing on premium downloadable content and using community feedback to tweak his games. You can check out that interview here.

Next up is Epic Games Founder Tim Sweeney, who talks about new Unreal 3 Engine tools, using Unreal 3 Engine for online game development, his thoughts on OnLive, the current generation of gaming consoles, the challenges of digital distribution, and a whole lot more. That interview can be found here.

Finally, Gears of War Franchise Executive Producer Rod Fergusson talks about the Dark Corners sneaking mechanic, talk of adding more campaign DLC (like Baird and Cole’s side adventure through the sewers), designing proper pacing into Gears of War and new Gears of War avatar items. You can find that interview here - and be sure to check out G4’s hands-on with Dark Corners for even more information.

On an unrelated front, X-Play takes a closer look at Muramasa: The Demon Blade, including new gameplay video featuring one of the bosses, the game’s RPG elements, info on the 108 different swords, the game’s difficulty, and more. Find that after the break.

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CliffyB Dings COD Method of Development

In an interview with Develop Magazine, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski said that the Call of Duty method of developing games convolutes a franchise. Bleszinski made the comments in reference to a question about outsourcing Gears of War 2.

“We’ve got a lot of ideas about where the franchise will go. But sometimes I feel a franchise loses something when it’s shifted off to another shop,” said Bleszinski. “You get the primary studio that really understands about the franchise, and sometimes the other studio that takes it over can do well, but there’s something lost in translation, like the game’s soul has gone.”

The Call of Duty method he refers to is the switch-off between two of Activision Blizzard’s two internal studios: Infinity Ward and Treyarch, who have taken turns developing the franchise over the years. While there is some merit to the comment, Epic has certainly had its share of outside help in developing some of its prior core franchises like Unreal Tournament and Unreal. The company’s first title in the Unreal series had a lot of serious help from Canadian developer Digital Extremes, who also helped the company develop Unreal Tournament.

Still the point is valid. When publishers own IP rights they also have the power to decide who develops sequels and follow-ups. For example BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights 2 and Knights of the Old Republic 2 were developed by Obsidian Entertainment. While these games were certainly solid endeavors they didn’t quite stand up to the level of the BioWare originals.

Perhaps Bleszinski is simply looking forward, instead of back. You can read the comments in the full context at Develop Magazine.

Dissenting Opinion: Let Them Talk

If you didn’t happen to agree with Crispy Gamer’s pre-E3 feature, The 10 People We Hope Will Shut the F*** Up at This Year’s E3, then you might want to check out N’Gai Croal’s rebuttal, Let Them Talk.

In this editorial at Edge Online, Level Up’s N’Gai goes over the reasons why all of the industry heavyweights we mentioned in our article should never shut up. He also raises some interesting points on why developers can never jump into a public discussion and play the role of the “regular guy,” despite actually being regular guys (Dennis Dyack can tell you some war stories about that for sure). Here’s a sample from the article:

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