YouTube channel DidYouKnowGaming? posted a new video that talks about the reasons for the collapse of the studio Capcom vancouverknown for the series Dead raising. The material was prepared based on interviews with former employees of the company.
As you know, in the era of PS3 and Xbox 360, many Japanese studios faced a problem: their games sold poorly in the West. Capcom I tried to solve this problem by giving a number of projects to Western developers. The initiative turned out to be extremely controversial, because many releases were coldly received by the audience.
She showed herself the best Blue castle gamewho was responsible for Dead rising 2. On the wave of success, the Japanese publisher acquired the Canadian studio, renaming it Capcom Vancouver. Canadians had a development plan: to release the spin-off Dead Rising 2 (released under the name Off the Record) and embark on a completely new project, code-named Brazil.
This is a third-person shooter with an open world. Events were supposed to unfold in a futuristic version of Rio de Janeiro, who was the victim of a parasitic alien life form. The main character had to survive in a dangerous space and carefully use a few resources and alien technology.
But the studio ran into a problem: due to creative differences, the staff could not agree on the key elements of the gameplay. The game was under development for two years, after which the project was closed by order of the Japanese office, which transferred the freed resources to completion Dead rising 3.
The development of trikvel also did not avoid problems, but of a different nature. Initially, the game was developed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and the plans had a seamless open world along which the main character had to move using home-made vehicles. But Sony’s console has become Capcom Vancouver’s main headache. Due to the complex architecture of PS3, this version of DR3 worked just disgusting, and the team could not optimize it.
The situation was so deplorable that Capcom wanted to curtail development, but here it intervened Microsoft. The company was preparing to launch the Xbox One and was looking for studios that were ready to collaborate. In exchange for the exclusivity of the project, the American platform holder provided additional funding, which allowed Capcom Vancouver to restart development.
Released in 2013, Dead Rising 3 became the launch exclusive of the Xbox One, and the capabilities of the console made it possible to realize a big world and huge crowds of zombies. However, it was not without losses. Initially, the developers wanted to release four major DLCs: a prequel, as well as three chapters of the epilogue. They should have appeared Frank West and Chuck greenbut in the end, Capcom released more compact missions, which reduced the budget.
In parallel with the development of Dead Rising 3, Capcom Vancouver made another attempt to create a completely new IP, called New frontier. Former employees describe him as “Destiny to Destiny. “In preparing the concept, the studio drew inspiration from the cult series Joss Whedon “Glowworm“. Players had to study alien worlds, moving around the locations on the grabike. The main enemies were space pirates and aliens, and the emphasis was on melee.
The development of New Frontier started at the beginning of 2013, and the developers spent about six months on the prototype, but the head office in Japan closed the project, not wanting to spend huge amounts of money on a risky idea.
Capcom Vancouver has entered an era of change: the founder of the studio Rob Barrett left the team, and the key leadership positions were taken by the people responsible for creating Dead Rising 3. During the development of the DLC for the triquel, they began to build new plans.
According to an agreement between Capcom and Microsoft, a new part of Dead Rising was to be offered to an American company. If the platform holder gave his consent, then the game became an exclusive Xbox One. At the same time, Microsoft was involved in the development of Dead rising 4by inviting Capcom Vancouver to change the setting.
The company needed a game that could compete with The last of us from Sony, so it expanded its portfolio of projects about survival in a dangerous environment. The Americans suggested that Canadians turn the restart of Dead Rising into a “killer” of the brainchild Naughty Dog.
Project codenamed Climber led by Josh Bridge, who had previously worked on DR3 (codename Walker) But there was one problem: the changes were not consistent with Capcom japan. The fact is that the head office issued a huge credit of trust to the Canadian division, therefore, control over the subsidiary studio was not constant.
During this lull period (several months in mid-2014), work began to boil. The main resources of the studio were transferred to the Dead Rising 4 prototype. According to the idea, the players were waiting for a project about survival of the open world with an emphasis on stealth and quiet finishing off zombies. The trash and fumes of the originals were thrown aside: the new part of the series was much darker than its predecessors. The mechanics of crafting and combining items to create new weapons remained, but became more mundane.
Canadians drew inspiration from zombie projects of that time, and the franchise became the main The Walking Dead. In addition, the team itself wanted to do something new, tired of the main work.
The prototype was radically different from the canons of Dead Rising. And this led to disaster. Capcom Vancouver interacted with Microsoft, but not with Capcom Japan. The head office was kept in the dark about a change of course throughout the development period. When in mid-2014 the Japanese were informed about the concept, to put it mildly, the authorities were not enthusiastic about the arbitrariness of subordinates.
As former Capcom Vancouver employees explained, the Dead Rising franchise wasn’t as flexible as Canadians thought. The new game was supposed to compete with other serious zombie projects on the market, while DR was always about fun mockery of crowds of the living dead. Therefore, the Japanese demanded a complete restart of the development of Dead Rising 4.
Capcom Vancouver was put in tight limits: the game had to be completed in just 18 months, and nobody was going to compensate the millions of dollars spent on the reboot prototype. About six months have been wasted. Available developments also had to be thrown into the bin.
Following the negotiations between Capcom and Microsoft, an agreement was reached that the fourth part would choose a safer development path. They took as a basis a new concept: Frank West returns to the city of Willamet, where a zombie epidemic flares up again at Christmas. A key innovation was combos using exoskeletons and futuristic weapons.
In October 2014, the Japanese cleaned out an office in Vancouver, firing executives who were appointed scapegoats. We are talking about key studio employees, including the executive producer Josh Bridge, senior producer Mike Jones and design director Jason Lee. Because of this, chaos began in Capcom Vancouver: panic rumors spread around the studio that Dead Rising 4 would be canceled and the team would be dispersed.
In 2014, there was a massive exodus of employees: the Canadian office lost 40% of staff, including veterans. This was also influenced by the fact that in the period from 2013 to 2014, the Japanese leadership rejected a series of pitches of Canadians who suggested rethinking the classic games from Capcom.
We are talking about Onimusha, Mega man, Resident evil x and Dino crisis. The last two are the most interesting. REX was supposed to be an action offshoot of the series, but Capcom Japan believed that such a project did not need an audience, given the criticism of Resident Evil 6. As for Dino Crisis, former employees suggested that the publisher did not want to invest in a project that required additional costs of new technologies.
New Capcom Vancouver Head Joe Nichols was able to establish the production process of DR 4, but the team still lost valuable personnel. So, in January 2015, the scriptwriter of the franchise Annie Reed quit the studio, which they could not replace.
Dead Rising 4 was released in December 2016 and was defeated by journalists and players. Most of all, the audience was outraged by the lack of a classic timer, crazy bosses, a new image of Frank West and so on. As former employees explained, the work on the design of the missions and the plot was carried out in conditions of severe lack of time, taking only 12-18 months.
Everything was so bad with game design that executive producers demanded to borrow ideas from other popular games that they liked. For example, from Batman: Arkham Asylum detective mode was taken. The team offered to expand the functionality of West’s camera, allowing players to use it to open new areas on the map in the Metroid style, as well as to search for serial killers, studying crime scenes. Ideas did not get into the final version.
Crazy survivors, who in the previous games of the series acted as bosses, were supposed to appear in the fourth part. One of the first people came up with a mask in a reindeer. But as the development progressed, it was decided that beating people with mental problems was “unacceptable.” In addition, Canadians simply did not have time and money to create bosses, each of which in the previous games of the series had unique behavior, a set of animation, cutscenes and a musical theme.
As a result, part of Capcom Vancouver employees still insisted on adding loonies, indicating that fans would be furious because of their absence. Due to budgetary constraints, a compromise path was chosen: the game has so-called maniacs acting as mini-bosses.
As for exoskeletons, the development team literally hated this concept. It was invented by the former leadership, and Microsoft required to leave in order to use it in an advertising campaign. The new management of the studio did not find the strength to defend their vision. The same can be said of evolved zombies. It was originally supposed that they would have a more important role in the plot. A new type of enemy was to be created by an adversary named Queen. As a result, due to lack of time, the value of evolved zombies fell, but they were not completely cut out due to the position of Microsoft.
A significant part of the criticism of DR4 is associated with the loss of the timer, which was a key feature of the franchise. The system was abandoned for a number of reasons: the developers did not have time to complete several endings; most designers did not like the timer; Japanese leadership believed that abandoning the concept would expand the target audience.
Budgetary and time constraints became the main leitmotif of the collapse of the project. The situation was not saved even by the fact that Microsoft gave the studio a few extra months to bring the game to mind. The final stage of development consisted of continuous refining and stress. Since the foundation of Dead Rising 4 was based on the ideas of the dismissed leadership, the employees got the impression that they act as cleaners, forced to clean up the trash for others. The new squad did not have time to implement their own ideas. Everyone knew that the game would be bad.
The plot was seriously damaged. As you know, Frank West from the fourth part does not look like that “sarcastic freak” that appeared in other games of the series. Recall that the screenwriter quit, and for the remaining time, the developers did not have time to shove the necessary amount of information into dialogs and cutscenes. According to the script, they went with scissors, and no one even tried to finalize the image of the protagonist.
Despite the failure, already at the beginning of 2015, work began on Dead rising 5. The prototype was answered by a new small team located in another building and controlled by a former employee Crystal dynamics.
The project was based on a graphics engine Unreal engine 4which is poorly suited for games with a large open world and crowds of enemies. It was decided to abandon the open world in favor of several more compact locations (as in DR 1-2), relying on brutal battles in a limited space. The developers planned to add new mechanics: home-made traps, an interactive environment and the ability to combine almost any objects that catch your eye to create a weapon.
The main characters of DR5 were to become Chuck Green and his grown daughter Kate, and events unfolded in the fictional city of Santa Catarina (the Mexican city of Leon de los Aldama was chosen as the basis), which fell under the onslaught of a zombie infection, which began at the height of the celebration of Day of the Dead. Chuck again had to look for the Zombrex drug, which did not allow his daughter to turn into a zombie. The development team drew inspiration from the dilogy “Assassin“(Sicario), therefore, the role of opponents was played by members of the Mexican drug cartel, crushing the market for drugs. For completing missions, the hero would be given a “Zombrex”.
Chuck and Kate had to get unique abilities, and two people could go through the campaign at the same time. The head of the family relied on close combat and the ability to combine items. An infected girl could use telepathic abilities to set a horde against opponents. According to the second idea, Kate used a mobile phone to hack into other devices.
The setting of Dead Rising 5 was more vibrant and cheerful, playing in contrast with the gloomy third and fourth parts. The development was carried out in a more relaxed atmosphere, but in November 2015 the leading game designer left the Canadian studio in search of new career prospects. After that, the team began to storm. So, the idea was worked out of using Chuck as a motorcycle as the main means of transportation, but in the conditions of compact locations for transport there was no place.
In the early stages of production, Capcom Japan supported the production of the fifth, although the project was constantly undergoing changes. In April 2016, creative control passed to a former employee Ubisoftworking on Assassin’s creedand he didn’t like the ideas about brutal battles in the style of The Last of Us and combining everything and everything. The new game designer decided to return to the system of pre-prepared combinations of items, so as not to confuse the players.
In addition, the implementation of the parkour system began: the protagonist could climb onto buildings, which a number of employees did not like. Instead of constantly contacting the zombies, the player could simply avoid the enemies by climbing to a height. The concept of compact locations has also begun to undergo changes towards more open levels. Outposts from Far cry when the player could get to the goal from any direction
At the end of 2016, the production of Dead Rising 4 was completed, after which the freed resources were transferred to the fifth part. New projects began to be discussed again, consisting in rethinking Capcom franchises.
So, a sci-fi concept codenamed Lost starwhich was a reboot of the 1988 game Gun.Smoke. Sideskroller in the aesthetics of the Wild West at Capcom Vancouver proposed to turn into a cooperative shooter about exploring other worlds about mercenaries inspired by the film “Guardians of the Galaxy“and anime”Cowboy bebop“
The second idea was to restart the series Lost planet. Project codenamed Broken horizon was supposed to allow four players on furs to explore the dangerous world in search of resources, engage in fights with giant creatures and defend the base.
Both proposals were rejected by the Japanese office: Lost Star required huge investments in production, and the Lost Planet franchise was too niche. However, the publisher approved the third option: restart Ghosts’n gobins in the form of a third-person shooter. The project was codenamed Panther, and events unfolded in an alternative New York model of 1970, where demons, werewolves and other supernatural beings became commonplace.
The player had to take control of an employee of a government organization Knights of agesthat hunts for monsters. Panther placed a strong emphasis on the politics and problems of racism, and the main character gradually began to question the principles of the state’s work with supernatural creatures. As the plot progressed, it also became clear that the girl herself is a golem.
Panther pre-production launched in 2017, and UE4 was chosen as the graphics engine. The player could use firearms and magic, which made it possible to manipulate the interactive environment. For example, blow up water pipes so that with the help of geysers jump into the air and land in the enemy rear.
In parallel with the development of Panther and Dead Rising 5, the Canadian studio also tried to fix the fourth part using the DLC. Studio employees were hit by a popular video from a YouTube blogger Crowbcat entitled Dead Rising 4 is nothing like Dead Rising, in which the degradation of the franchise was clearly demonstrated. The developers wanted to take into account the criticism and patch up as many holes as possible before the release of DR4 on the PlayStation 4. Crowbcat video had such a strong impact on the team that in one of the trailers they recreated a frame from the work of a blogger to demonstrate progress.
In 2017, the Dead Rising 5 project also continued to change. It was decided to abandon the cooperative for two people, instead the player had to switch between characters using their unique abilities at the right time. It was planned to return a full-fledged cycle of day and night and the battle with psycho bosses. Так, одним из оппонентов был боец-лучадор, с которым приходилось биться на арене.
Рассматривалась даже возможность возвращение таймера, но в этот момент по проекту был нанесен мощный удар. Из-за творческих разногласий с руководством были уволены главный геймдизайнер и ведущий дизайнер, а исполнительные же продюсеры вновь изменили курс. Из-за недостатка опыты работы с Unreal Engine 4 было решено отказаться от больших локаций в пользу линейных уровней, что шокировало сотрудников. Источниками для вдохновения руководителей почему-то стали Uncharted 4, Batman: Arkham Knight and GTA 5, тогда как DR5 вообще не имел с вышеперечисленным ничего общего.
Но уже летом 2017 года проект вновь был пересмотрен. Теперь канадцы делали экшен, вдохновленный… Dark souls and Bloodborne. Чак и Кейт все еще исследовали Мексику, но геймплей переосмыслили: появились полоска выносливости и захват цели, а игрок должен был осторожно избегать атак врагов в ожидании появлении окна для удара. Фокус с борьбы с толпами зомби сместился в сторону схваток с разнообразными видами врагов, вдохновленных празднованием Дня мертвых. Например, с вооруженной косой женщиной, которая носит костюм Смерти.
В июне 2017 года была нанята режиссер Гиги Сол Герреро, которая пополнила группу сценаристов и должна была сыграть одного из персонажей. Удалось завершить первый вариант сценария (включая несколько концовок), стартовала работа с актерами для записи анимаций. В конце года удалось заключить контракт с компанией локализаторов из Мексики, что позволило записать на испанском языке выпуски новостей и мыльную оперу для внутриигрового ТВ.
Несмотря на более линейный дизайн, проект очень понравился представителям Sony, которые встретились с сотрудниками Capcom Vancouver. Дело в том, что игра более не являлась временным эксклюзивом Xbox One.
Однако данная итерация Dead Rising 5 также была похоронена. Новое руководство повторило ошибки, допущенные предшественниками. Как и прототип DR4, пятая часть слишком сильно отличалась от предыдущих игр серии, а лидеры канадской команды не уведомили об изменениях издателя.
В начале 2018 года Capcom Japan выступила против концепта. В феврале того же года канадский офис был реструктуризирован, дабы сфокусироваться на разработке исключительно Dead Rising 5, закрыв остальные направления, включая Panther и новый Puzzle Fighter. 30% сотрудников уволили, включая ключевых лидеров, отвечавших за Souls-версию DR5.
В итоге в офисе осталось всего около 50 человек. Пятая часть должна была поступить в продажу в 2018 году, а геймплей вновь откатился к канонам франшизы. Но канадцы постоянно не укладывались сроки, а ошибки накапливались. Понимая, что она не оправдывает своего существования, команда в отчаянии попыталась перезапустить Panther в качестве кооперативного экшна, но издатель опять наложил вето.
Спустя всего шесть месяцев после первой волны сокращений японский офис решил минимизировать потери, закрыв офис в Ванкувере. 158 человек остались без работы в сентябре 2018 года. Потери Capcom из-за отмененных проектов оцениваются в 40 миллионов долларов, причем инсайдеры отмечают, что Dead Rising 4 разошлась тиражом в миллион копий, но так и не отбила затраты. Издатель также принял решение сфокусироваться на создании новых игр исключительно силами японских студий.
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