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The Top 50

en years ago, Game Informer first i introduced its Top 50 Games format for our year-end awards. Our previous formats had worked for over a decade, but we wanted to shake things up. To this day | feel it’s one of the best decisions we ever made, and is far and away my favorite annualized feature that we do.

The concept is simple, but | wanted to explain the method behind the madness. Whenever we looked at the top tens or other award formats from around the games indus- try, it seemed like all the usual suspects were a part of everyone’s list (including our own at the time). In essence, with some slight varia- tion, most video game awards from around the globe endorsed the same 10 or 12 games.

This still holds true today (for the most part), be it in games or movies. For one, it’s easy to market to gamers. Companies, journalists, and gamers like the simplicity of nominations and a clear-cut winner.

We do too. This is why we give individual awards for genres, platform exclusives, reader awards and the like, but | still feel the most important part of our issue is the Top 50.

It’s not just about knighting games that we already know are great; it’s about expanding your gaming experiences and finding those gems that you may have missed.

The Top 50 gives us the chance to be that friend who introduces you to something you may have never heard before, or missed when it released. It’s part checklist, part recommen- dations, and of course, all celebration of the great year in gaming that was 2013.

Believe it or not, it was hard to get it down to 50 games, as it has been every year for the last 10 years (and yes, you are not alone in your anger that a game you love didn’t make the list — that’s how lists work). And if our cover story on Evolve this month is any sign of things to come in 2014, picking the Top 50 next year will be just as difficult.

Enjoy the issue.

Cheers,

contents

Evolve

The team behind Left 4 Dead is abandoning the undead, but continues to embrace its innovative multiplayer focus with a brand-new game pitting a team of humans against one imposing monster. by Jeff Marchiafava

Top 25 Wii Games

regulars

») 4 Feedback

This month readers tell us we were spot on with our Zelda review, way off on our Sonic review, and thank us for calling out some cult games that they may have missed.

»» 10 Connect

To the dismay of fans, LucasArts collapsed last year. We dive in to see what happened and what could have been changed. We also chat with a man who played Defender for 32 hours straight to try and set a world record.

_-

CAN Tisrrers

Sara

») 74 Previews

The developers behind

Total War are taking a break from its strategy series to take on the classic franchise with Alien: Isolation. We also check in on Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune’s spiri- tual successor, Mighty No. 9.

Fall Of The Empire

») 90 Reviews

The Walking Dead makes a return as we review the first episode of the second season. We also take a look at Gran Turismo 6, one of the PlayStation 3’s last hurrahs.

games index

Alien: Isolation ............... 74 Banner Saga, The............. 83 Diablo Ill: Reaper Of Souls...... 86 Division, The................. 78 Doki-Doki Universe............ 94 EVOWG issccscscace aisha ttidceansp ana 38 Fighter Within. ............0.. 94 Gran Turismo 6............... 91 Icycle: On Thin Ice ............ 94 Infinite Crisis: i.e aa wee eaiede aes 85

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, The.... 20

Lego The Hobbit.............. 82

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIll............ 76

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood ... 86

Mighty No.9..............0. 79 NASCAR ‘14 ............-005. 81 No Man’s Sky .............05. 28 Novelist, The................. 94 POGUE 2 cxcwaeeearaeiad Bees 94 Pokémon X&Y...........004. 26 Room Two, The............... 94 Spacebase DF-9.............. 28 SteamWorld Dig.............. 92 Super Mario 3D World ......... 25 TINY EVANS 2.40 ante aceasta 94 WEG is ca crmoink ne Galea alls 80

Walking Dead, The: Season Two — Episode 1: All That Remains .... 90

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»» 100 Game Over

2013 saw the end of a generation, and the release of many games that will

be discussed and highly regarded for years to come. We’ve put together a series of charts and graphs visual- izing the breakdown of the year’s best.

CORRECTION: In issue 248’s Holiday Buyer’s Guide, we incorrectly displayed an image of the HTC One X when talking about the HTC One.

contents 3

feedback@gameinformer.com

a

| : Now that the new-consoles are out, we can get back to | _ what's really important: arguing over review scores. Readers d Iso. meus the limitations of cross-gen games and weigh in

‘the elevancy of fantasy games.

After reading about Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor in issue 248, | am conflicted. On one hand, I’m ecstatic because the game sounds amazing. At the same time, I’m worried that it won’t live up to expectations. According to the article, the game is coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as the new consoles. Will it still be the same game on the older generation of hardware? My 360 can hardly play Skyrim without five minutes of loading first, and I’m guessing Shadow of Mordor’s groundbreaking Al will push it beyond its limits. Can the older consoles handle the games made for the new generation?

Xavier Kazi

via email

Cross-generation games have become a recent concern amongst gamers, since it seems that concessions are being made to accommodate the Xbox 360 and PS3. Exciting games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Evolve (featured on this month’s cover) are exclusive to the new consoles and PC, but you shouldn’t count out cross-gen games. Titles like Shadow of Mordor and Watch Dogs are still introduc- ing new ideas and technical innovations while benefiting from a broader audience.

Your list of the top 10 launch games (issue 248) was great, but I’m afraid it only served to highlight how disappointing the launch line- ups for the Xbox One and PS4 were overall. I’m beginning to think I’ll never see the terms “system seller” or “killer app” again. You cer- tainly won’t hear those words describing any- thing that accompanied these two systems. Instead, we were treated to another round of sequel mania and re-hashed sports games. Each system also had an original property that received weak-to-mediocre reviews (Ryse and Knack, to name names). Obviously, a console’s launch window is when it will have its fewest number of games, but it’s a shame that between the two systems, we couldn’t

get even one original triple-A title that will find itself in the company of Soul Calibur or Halo someday. Christopher Gast via email

Microsoft and Sony may not have had much for original content, but that won’t matter as this generation continues. Aside from the enjoyment that comes from comparing (and arguing over) launch lineups, releases have a habit

of bleeding together over the years. Ultimately, both systems will end up with their share of new, generation-defining IPs. Building a quality library takes time.

| understand that you receive a lot of biased feedback about your game reviews, and that you have undoubtedly already received many complaints about this holiday’s reviews. | just want you to know that you have one gamer at your back who understands that your reviews are just opinions, and not sacred judgments of the quality of a game. Thank you for shar- ing your opinions; | always respect them, even though | may not always agree with them. Also, Call of Duty: Ghosts is better than Battlefield 4.

Coleman Patterson

via email

Your letter is so well-stated that we don’t even mind your tongue-in-cheek trolling. The following reader, on the other hand...

| have had up to my neck with you guys before, but this is ridiculous. It was bad enough when you guys gave Sonic Colors a 7. But when | went on your website and saw that you gave Sonic Lost World a 5, | was enraged! Not only that, but Tim Turi dares to call himself a freak- ing Sonic fan when he gave these games really low scores. Good day to you!

Charlie Marble

via email

It’s alright, Charlie. Someday you’ll understand that being a fan of something doesn’t mean you have to love it uncondi- tionally. Ignoring a game’s shortcomings won’t fix them, and blindly supporting a series only gives its developer an excuse to continue making the same mistakes. Sonic fans in particular would be better off learning this lesson.

CANDID PHOTOS FROM THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

<a

“| would like to know if there are any more Call of Duty games coming out sooner or later?”

Yes.

“| dated cheerleaders and played football in high school. Now | eagerly await your mag every month. Am | a nerd?”

You’re definitely heading down that path.

“Saints Row IV or GTA V?”

That depends on how much you like fart jokes.

“i have a xbox u want me to review it 4 u?”

Which new system has the better controller: The PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?

Miller hangs out with Harebrained Schemes’ Mitch Gitelman and Jordan Weisman, along with his son Zach Weisman and other table- top gaming pros Mike Elliott and Patrick Day.

Dan and Bryan met up with wrestling legend Steve Austin at a WWE 2K14 event. Despite our pleading, Austin refused to perform a Stone Cold Stunner on Dan.

continued on page 8

feedback 5

On Your Mind BEE EE EEE Se BEEBE EER aS BEEBE BEEBE Se BEEBE E EEE a BEEBE E ERE eS Eas 8 |e ga E a ie g B a ia a & 7 7) a i a]

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@ 26% Review Score Talk

@ 22% Next-Gen Hype

® 16% Favorite Cult Classics

16% Fantasy Game Responses @ 12% Battlefield 4 Server Woes

@ 8% Zelda Love

Generation Next | thoroughly enjoyed your article on current- generation cult classics (issue 248). As a solo gamer who is slow on adopting new consoles, your list gave me new games to look for that will extend the life of my current-gen systems. | also have to say that Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a fantastic game, and | was glad to see it included on the list. The voice acting and story really make it a game worth pick- ing up on the cheap. | look forward to seeing more lists of classic games in the future.

Josh Radcliffe

via email

Our old systems certainly had some exceptional lineups, and we bet you’re not the only reader who missed out on a few great games. The only problem is now that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are out, the next-gen systems are now current-gen systems, and the old current-gen systems are now last-gen systems. If you’ll excuse us, we need to lie down for a minute.

Keep It Simple There are plenty of players who read every tome, complete every quest, and uncover every secret in a game. | respect these gamers for their diligence, but offer this mes- sage to developers: Some of us just want to beat the damn thing. I’m not into the stories, quests, or histories of any game. | spam buttons like nobody’s business during cut scenes, dialogue, or any sequence that inter- rupts gameplay. | buy games to play them, after all. If | wanted to watch something, I’d put on a movie; if | wanted to read something, I'd pick up a book. | want a video game to be so intuitive, real, and easy to play that | instantly become immersed in it. Developers, please keep the impatient gamers in mind. All we want to do is play.

Reed Erickson

via email

Fleshing out a game’s lore with extra con- tent is tricky. Developers want to expand their stories in a meaningful way without interrupting gameplay with lengthy expo- sition. Optional audio recordings and sidequests are one way developers try to give interested players more insight into their fictional worlds, but it’s far from a perfect solution. Hopefully, we see some new approaches to marrying story and gameplay in 2014.

On To Something

I’m confused. As a lifelong Nintendo fan, | can’t help notice how often you badmouth the Wii’s library, but you also gave pretty high scores to most of the big games for the system. You fell head over heels in love with Skyward Sword and Donkey Kong Country Returns, and in issue 248, you praised

Twilight Princess and No More Heroes. Your reviews don’t reflect your supposed dislike for the company, and sometimes | suspect you only bash them because that’s the trendy thing to do given how out of place they look in the modern gaming scene. Am lin the ballpark, or do you guys just have a love/hate relationship with the Big N?

David Otto

via email

So you’re saying that, despite the pre- conceptions some diehard Nintendo fans have about our coverage, we actually have a history of fair review scores and acknowledging the company’s triumphs? Nah, that can’t be right. For more of our rampant Nintendo bashing, check out our hate-filled list of the top 25 Wii games on page 96.

(Left) A few of the talented folks at Turtle Rock posed for a pleasant picture during our studio visit, right before annihilating us in Evolve. (Right) Studio heads Chris Ashton and Phil Robb also showed us their awesome trucks. Pictured here is Phil’s ridiculously souped-up 1937 Ford.

| have a rant that I’m quite sure you hear on a daily basis. Why do PC gamers continually berate console gamers for being behind the times? Does their given platform offer any- thing different than what a console offers? Graphically, yes, | understand the upgrade. Other than more horsepower under the hood, what exactly is their bragging point?

Dustin Heath

via email

Some gamers will always exhibit a sense of elitism over their platform of choice

in a vain attempt to impress their peers. PC gaming does have its advantages, including a much greater selection of indie titles, as well as access to mods and user- created content. Fortunately, consoles have begun adopting these trends, largely in response to consumer interest. Rather than chastising others platforms, play- ers should celebrate the growing array of options we have at our disposal.

| highly enjoyed the recent interview with the League of Legends World Championship winners (Gamer, issue 248). Even though | favor DotA 2, it was still cool to see a MOBA being recognized. | have been getting into eSports a lot these past few years and am loving them so much. One thing that disap- points me is there really isn’t much coverage on eSports, so | was pleasantly surprised to see that piece in the magazine. I’d like to see more interviews with different eSports casters or teams in the future, and coverage of LoL’s season cups and DotA’s International. Andrew via email

The popularity of eSports is certainly on the rise, as evidenced by the massive turnout for the League of Legends’ World Championship tournament, which sold out the Los Angeles Staples Center. You can definitely expect to see more coverage of MOBAs and eSports in the future, both in the magazine and on gameinformer.com.

Living In A Fantasy World

Mike was blown away by Sam Lake’s real-life bullet time abilities, which rely heavily on help from Remedy’s 0zz Hakkinen and Kai Auvinen.

After a long and produc- tive term, Gl interns Isaac Perry, Mike Trinh, and Katie Seville battled each other to the death. We wanted to stop them, but they seemed to be enjoying it.

feedback 7

ir 2 Enrique Morales (“4 Considering how long Yoshi's flutter jumps . 1 Dylan Sherman last, this should be a short sleigh ride / AI | You | think Batman would 3 Jason Romano ) y reconsider his “no killing” One of The Joker's most useful cards ' rule after catching the same 4 Tracarris Wince Jerk 500 times in a row Dracula may be a bit of a homebody, but he really oughta head to a walk-in clinic for that hand situation

Submit your art for a chance to win our monthly prize. Please include your name and return address. Entries become the property of Game Informer and cannot be returned. Send to: Game Informer Reader Art Contest | 724 First Street North, 3rd Floor | Mpls, MN 55401 or Email to: ReaderArt@gameinformer.com

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NOTABLES

afterwords: the legend of zelda: a link between worlds

afterwords: super mario 3d world

afterwords: pokémon x & y

the state of the

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gamer: the returning defender champion

ike a farm boy look- ing contemplatively upon two suns, in 2004 LucasArts was

searching for answers

and ways to right a video game business in disarray. Although Star Wars fans were pleased with several of the studio’s latest endeavors with the license — namely BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic and Raven Software’s Jedi Academy — George Lucas felt that his beloved galaxy created far too many mediocre games. Even the popular titles weren’t generating the revenue needed to sustain a healthy business model.

Lucas entrusted the future of the company to newly appointed president Jim Ward, who previously held the position of Lucasfilm’s senior vice president of marketing, global distributions, and online. During his tenure at Lucasfilm, Ward was a key player in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’s media blitz, which raked in over $400 million in the box office despite its poor critical recep- tion. He also helped guide Star Wars: Attack of the Clones to a successful run on the silver screen.

Ward didn’t waste much time altering LucasArts’ battle plans. In a press release he stated, “To make LucasArts thrive and to position ourselves for the long-term future, we need to make some fundamental changes.” The new focus led to the slimming of LucasArts’ workforce from roughly 450 employees to 190*, and a shift in develop- ment for internal and external studios.

Months after taking his new position in gaming, Ward told Game Informer, “Five years from now, | want to have been able to put the ‘Lucas’ back in LucasArts. To have that same ‘pixie dust’ feeling when people see that logo that they maybe did in the ‘90s. For them to think, ‘If | pick up this game, | know it’s going to be kick ass; | know it’s going to be of the highest quality and the most creative thing out there.”

That sentiment was echoed by gamers and critics alike late in 2004 after they played Pandemic Studios’ Star Wars: Battlefront,

The LDAC houses a movie theater, gym, restaurant, and a coffee shop named “‘Javva the Hutt” =

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Lucasfilm, Industrial Lights & Magic, and LucasArts all shared space in the Letterman Digital Arts Center

a multiplayer-focused shooter that capitalized on the immense scale of this universe’s wars and vehicles. The game was backed by an impressive marketing campaign that coordi- nated its release on the same day as the re- issue of Star Wars’ original trilogy on DVD. This move, masterminded by Ward, created a huge Star Wars event at retail.

In 2005, LucasArts’ portfolio of releases con- sisted of just five titles, yet, according to NPD data, the company’s sales ranking rose to eighth, up from thirteenth in the previous year. Out of the top ten selling games that year,

Star Wars: Battlefront Il ranked sixth, and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith held the eighth slot. The other titles - Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Lego Star Wars (published by Eidos), and Star Wars: Republic Commando — all sold well.

From a numbers standpoint, LucasArts seemed like it was well on its way to becoming a publishing powerhouse. Ward’s hope was that LucasArts would be a top-five publisher by 2008.

Behind the scenes, however, all was not well. Numerous LucasArts employees, all who wish to remain anonymous, recall the

company spiraling out of control during this prosperous time.

“Jim Ward’s leadership style was not for everybody,” one source says. “He was a challenging person to get to understand.

He came from the film side. His objective was nothing less than changing the way the entire industry worked by the sheer force of his own will. He was quoted several times basically saying, ‘| don’t understand why video games can be late. When Industrial Light and Magic works on Harry Potter, they don’t have a choice to be late. The movie’s going to open. The effects have to be done. You don’t get it. There’s no choice. So | don’t understand why we get in this situation where games can be late.’ It turned out that he couldn’t change the way the industry worked in the way he desired. But he was the type of guy who wouldn’t take, ‘That’s just how it’s done’ for an answer.”

Another LucasArts employee remembers a particularly divisive decision made by executives for Star Wars: Battlefront Il, a game that was already in danger of quality issues due to LucasArts only giving it one year of development time. “It was originally being designed as a multiplayer-only game,” this staffer recalls. “It remained that way for most of its development cycle. New people who came in after the game was in develop- ment basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to make money off of a multiplayer-only game, you have to put in a single-player campaign. Pandemic screamed bloody murder and said it couldn’t be done, but [LucasArts] said that they had to figure it out. Battlefront II’s producer at LucasArts basically had a break- down bringing the game in, but the team made their deadlines and the game sold like crazy. It was probably a bad lesson for Ward to learn, because LucasArts was successful at doing something that everyone thought was impossible.”

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*from Rob Smith’s book, Rogue Leaders: A History of LucasArts

** Jim Ward, Lucasfilm, and executives from both teams could not be reached for comment

connect 11

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When a development team would reach a milestone, a “core meeting” would be assembled on LucasArts’ campus, consist- ing of roughly 40 to 50 people spread across development, marketing, management, public relations, quality assurance, business devel- opment, among others. Ward and LucasArts’ top brass conducted these meetings, which played out like show-and-tells where devel- opers would detail the progress made to their projects.

“Those are the infamous ‘Jim Ward losing his s---’ meetings,” a former employee remem- bers. “If you were sitting at the table, it meant you were in the firing line for any number of crazy business questions. People would arrive at the meeting early and sit around the perim- eter of the room. If you got there a couple min- utes before the meeting started, and only table seats were left, you were like, ‘F---!’

“It would be the type of thing where a team would show a build and [Ward] would say something like, ‘Alright, [Quality Assurance], based on the playthroughs what are we rating this right now?’ And it would be a 22-year- old QA person who showed up late and was sitting at the table that answered. He would say something like, ‘84,’ and Jim would say, ‘That’s not good enough. What gets this game to a 90?’ QA would nervously say, ‘Oh, adding online co-op,’ which is not at all in the schedule or budget, and Jim would say, ‘Let’s look into that.’ The dev team wouldn’t know how to respond to that. That addition wasn’t in the books. We became this forum for democratization, but nobody really had any idea of what was going on. At the same time, nobody wanted to tell the truth, because they didn’t want Jim to lose it and fire a water bottle across the room.”

ars: Force Unleashed’s protagonist iller almost earned a “Darth” moniker

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LucasArts’ operations were run out of the Letterman Digital Arts Center, which was built on the site of the anterior Letterman General Hospital, named after Jonathan Letterman, a civil war doctor

CREATIVE DIFFERENCES

In 2006, LucasArts teamed with Day 1 Studios to bring a new intellectual property to market. The vision for this new title was a first-person shooter that allowed the player to shape a battlefield’s terrain by using vari- ous science-fiction weapons. That ambitious design became Fracture, a game that was announced on May 3, 2007.

“The plan [for Fracture] was turned completely upside down in a meeting,” a LucasArts dev who worked on the title says. Although the team was far into development, a decision was made by LucasArts’ executives to turn it into a third-person shooter. “We were told to ‘pull the camera out.’ We had to make a character model, create anima- tions, plot the levels differently, stream it differently. It was a nightmare for everyone involved.”

When Fracture was revealed to the public, its protagonist was a character named Mason Briggs. By the time the game launched, his name was changed to Jet Brody. A person who helped give this gun-toting rebel his original name recalls going through weeks of naming conventions. “Literally, whole teams sitting together, brainstorming what looks good — the first name, the last name, etc. Done, good to go.”

But then a phantom menace struck. George Lucas would peri- odically check in on the status of the games his company was making, lending creative input and advice. The developer | talked to sighs, and agitatedly says, “In one viewing of Fracture, [Lucas] said it looked really good, but he didn’t like [Mason Briggs’] name. We’re like, ‘What do you mean, George?’ He responded to the effect of, ‘It doesn’t really fit. When he jumps on stuff, he moves pretty fast. | like B.J. Dart.’

“So everybody’s like, ‘No, he’s gotta be f---ing with us.’ He’s absolutely not. So when something like that happened — in the middle of the campaign, mind you — we have to go back through that entire naming convention again... from scratch.” From that second session, Jet Brody was born. Coincidentally. Jett is the name of Lucas’ son.

A similar situation arose with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’s protagonist, Starkiller. “[That name] was only supposed to be a nickname or call sign, not a proper name from the beginning,” a former LucasArts employee says. The development team hoped that Lucas would give Vader’s apprentice a Darth moniker, which at the time, was something that didn’t happen often.

“The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have more credibil- ity if the apprentice had a ‘Darth’ title,” a Force Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose from. “He threw out ‘Darth Icky’ and ‘Darth Insanius.’ There was a pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say ‘just kidd- ing,’ but it never comes, and he just moved on to another point.”

Team members involved in the decision to not use these ridiculous Darth titles could not be reached for comment, but three LucasArts employees believe an excuse was made to push the Darth title to the sequel. By the time development on that title commenced, the names were long forgotten by Lucas and weren’t muttered by the development team again. Starkiller remained Starkiller in the games, but was also named Galen Marek in the greater Expanded Universe fiction.

“These name problems may sound like funny stories, but the quality of these games suffered from these curveballs thrown by people not directly tied to the development process,” another employee angrily adds.

“It got to a point that it became difficult to hire new talent because these stories got out there. People thought we were running a madhouse.”

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

In 2006, LucasArts’ internal development structure consisted of three teams, one work- ing on Force Unleashed, another on Indiana Jones, and a third called “Team Three.”

A LucasArts employee remembers the third studio being in a state of constant flux. “They had this interesting, tortured history where there was an effort for them to create a full- fledged game, but they could never get any- thing greenlit for various reasons. Ideas went all the way up to Lucas, and he didn’t approve them, or ideas never made it to him. The team was recast to become the handheld division.

They came up with quite a few concepts, five or six different ideas that could be DS games, but none of them got off the ground, either.” Numerous LucasArts personnel provided details for some of these projects. One was a platformer starring a furry woodland creature scampering around and going on adventures. Another pitch was for a crime-solving game in which the player was a detective with the abil- ity to examine photographs from within their proofs. One concept that gained traction and entered development before being scrapped was a downloadable shooter titled Caveland. LucasArts’ push for more internally devel- oped Star Wars titles left behind a tantalizing trail of unreleased projects. Star Wars: Imperial Commando, a sequel to Republic Commando, would have put the player in control of an Imperial assault team, but never made it out of the conceptual phase of development. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic III was almost greenlit, but none of the people | talked to involved in the project knew why it was canceled. “Most of the conceptual and story groundwork for the title was there,” a LucasArts employee says. Star Wars: Jedi Knight Ill - Brink of Darkness and Jedi Master were two different directions LucasArts hoped to take its Jedi Knight series, but neither made it to proper development. Other scrapped Star Wars titles included Smuggler, a linear action game that focused on a Han Solo-like charac- ter; Rebel Warrior, a violent action game with a Wookiee protagonist fighting the Empire; a title that put players into the role of Darth Maul called Star Wars: Darth Maul; an internally developed Star Wars MMORPG codenamed Proteus; a Call of Duty-like shooter named Star Wars: First Assault; and most surprisingly, Star Wars: Episode VII - Shadows of the Sith, which was believed to be a spin-off to the upcoming motion picture now helmed by J. J. Abrams.

A TROUBLED PARTNERSHIP

Then there was Star Wars: Battlefront Ill, a project LucasArts entrusted to developer Free Radical, of TimeSplitters fame. Industry veteran and Free Radical founder David Doak remembers the excitement that was in the air when LucasArts pitched his team. “We were looked at like reliable hands for making shoot- ers,” he says. “We had never done the work- for-hire thing before, and we always wanted to make our own thing. However, we could see that there was a lot of uncertainty in the industry. It’s like, ‘Well okay, that sounds like a good opportunity.”

Free Radical pitched an ambitious design to LucasArts, in which the game would seam- lessly transition from running and gunning on the ground to flying a vessel into space, where another war was being waged. “Within that, the seeds for disaster were sewn,” Doak says. “| think that core design pillar of the game was slightly untenable because of the scale.”

Free Radical worked on the Battlefront fran- chise for over two years, trying to get its vision to work. The art team moved on to designing assets for Battlefront IV even while Battlefront III was struggling to reach its intended vision.

Red flags were waved internally at Free Radical, but on LucasArts’ end, the game was looking like a smash hit. Development on Battlefront Ill seemed to be going well. “We kept getting these code drops that were amazing,” an ex-LucasArts employee remem- bers. “The big hook of going from ground to air to space seamlessly totally worked. Piloting a capital ship, getting out and running around in the ship’s interior, and jumping into an escape pod and rocketing down to land again — holy s---! We thought [Battlefront III] was going to turn the industry on its head. Free Radical was meeting all of their mile- stones. Even Jim Ward would sit in those core team meetings and would say things like, ‘So this is shipping next month, right?’ And this was 2007. This is a joke because it was look- ing so good, especially compared to Fracture and Force Unleashed at the time, which were just troubled the whole way. And we would all laugh, thinking, ‘Wow. If it looks this good now for a game that’s shipping in 2008, there’s not going to be any problem.’”

Difficulties arose early in 2008. Free Radical started missing milestones, and the new builds of the game that were coming in fea- tured major stability issues. The design called for 100-player multiplayer matches. “We’d get 20 players in a match and it would just bog down,” a source close to the project says. “Then Free Radical started cutting content. They’re like, ‘Ok, we’re going to go from 100 to 50 players online. That's still really good; it’s still more than anyone else. That’s fine. We’re going to cut this single-player campaign down in scope.’ So then the cuts started coming, which is all fairly standard stuff. But we just couldn’t get an estimate.

It was starting to become apparent that they weren’t going to make the [release] date that they said they were going to make, and they weren’t being very clear about why or what the new dates would be. Internally, because this was right when Haze was shipping, we were all certain that they had pulled tons of resources off Battlefront to finish up Haze, and they wouldn’t tell us what was going on. We tried to get our producers over there and they wouldn't let us into the building. The relationship just started fraying.”

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a * ¢ In 2006, LucasArts told Game Informer that over 600 f miles of cable ran between the four LDAC buildings

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At that time, Jim Ward stepped down as LucasArts’ president and was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez, a new overseer who a former associate sized up as “not f---ing around.” Rodriguez pushed Free Radical hard, creating a tense working relationship between the two companies.

Doak recalls this time, his words quiet and melancholy. “I wouldn’t even talk about it personally because it completely did my head in,” he says. “I think, particularly, because of the role that | was creative director and also the front man for the company, | got to do all of the putting on a brave face and smiling, then going behind doors and having the arguments, and then going back telling my guys we have to work harder this time. And after that think- ing, ‘You're going to miss the next milestone because | know they [LucasArts] don’t want you to pass it.’ | really hated that. It just completely stopped me from functioning. You don’t believe it’s actually a real thing until it happens to you, but | was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Tears all over the place. It was just a really hor- rible time. | wasn’t there for the very end.”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Free Radical audio director Graeme Norgate revealed that LucasArts stopped funding the project around this time.

"LucasArts hadn't paid us for six months, and were refusing to pass a milestone so we would limp along until the money finally ran out,” he said. “They knew what they were doing.”

In early 2009, Free Radical released a com- pany video that made fun of LucasArts and

Concept art for the canceled Star Wars: 1313 game shows the slums of Coruscant

Star Wars. In it, a representative of LucasArts tells a Free Radical employee, “We have to pull the game. It has become too good. You need to make it worse, or we are pulling the game. We need to make products with the Star Wars name, but with little content. It’s about making a f---ing bucket full of money, don’t you understand?” After an exchange of words, the Free Radical employee responds, “You guys are a--holes.”

“We sent Free Radical an email asking for them to remove [the video], and they refused to take it down,” a former LucasArts employee says. “That was one of the last straws for Darrell.”

Ties with Free Radical were severed, but the fate of Battlefront didn’t remain in limbo for long. LucasArts’ creative lead/creative director Adam Orth teamed with former SOCOM developer Slant Six to create a new vision for a Battlefront sequel.

The disastrous Free Radical relationship had a profound effect on LucasArts’ busi- ness moving forward, an ex-LucasArts staffer remembers. “At that time, the idea was to make [Slant Six’s] Battlefront III download- able-only. You could not push through a new major console project at LucasArts at that time. There was no appetite for it. Even as early as 2009, the powers that be at Lucasfilm would not agree with that kind of expenditure. | think the board at Lucas had just lost their stomach for the risk there.” Slant Six’s Battlefront eventually met the same fate as Free Radical’s.

A NEW ERA DAWNING?

While many of LucasArts’ projects derailed in the development stages, the company did release its most successful title during this time. The Force Unleashed flew off store shelves, becoming the fastest-selling Star Wars game to date, with over seven million copies in circulation.