BioWare senior developers who have participated in works such as “Mass Effect” and “Dragon Age” are now targeting the AAA game industry. Studio Reset, founded by several former BioWare members, recently released its new game “The Eventide”. This supernatural mystery game inspired by “The X-Files” made the development team bluntly say: it simply cannot be born in the current AAA market.
Why can’t “The Eventide” do it?
“The Eventide” is a new game that combines supernatural, suspense investigation and deduction puzzles. Players will lead the investigation team to pursue various mysterious cases in which the real world has been invaded by abnormal phenomena. The biggest feature of the game is that different characters have different perspectives and abilities. Therefore, different investigators are sent out, and the clues, testimonies and even reasoning directions obtained may be completely different. Players are encouraged to make repeated deductions and piece together the truth of the incident.
AAA will just keep throwing money away
Studio Reset creative director Kaelin Lavallée and art director Mathieu Lacuna said in an interview with GamesRadar+ that when today’s AAA companies face problems, the first reaction is often not to find new methods, but to increase budgets and manpower, thinking that spending more money can solve everything. Lavallée said more bluntly: “AAA can keep throwing money and manpower at the problem, and things will eventually get done. But is that really the best solution? Not necessarily.” On the other hand, Studio Reset only has a small team, so it must rely more on creativity and design rather than stacking resources.
A small team actually has more creative freedom!
The team also believes that it is precisely because there is no commercial pressure from AAA that they can adopt the design direction of “The Eventide” that favors hand-drawn art and emphasizes narrative and reasoning. Lacuna said that art styles and gameplay like this have little room to survive in today’s AAA environment that pursues high costs and high returns, but independent studios can have the courage to experiment and create truly unique works.
Many players also agree with this view and believe that in recent years, many AAA masterpieces have increasingly relied on mature IP, sequels and fixed formulas in order to reduce risks; on the contrary, many surprising new gameplays come from small and medium-sized teams and independent studios. However, some people believe that AAA and independent games have different missions. One pursues commercial success, while the other is responsible for exploring innovation. There is no absolute distinction between the two.