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Why was The Dark Knight game canceled?
There is no doubt that The Dark Knight was a phenomenal success. Its about to be re-released again this Friday (January 23) to further bolster its ability to be awesome. The logical cross promotion with the film is a game based on the movie. So Pandemic Studios began working on a game, however there were a slew of reasons as to why it was canceled? What were they? Kotaku Australia has some options.
"Bravo's new project came as a result of Pandemic's negotiations with Time Warner and DC Comics, which in turn lead to a contract with EA to make a Batman game. The only hitch was that EA's rights to the Batman IP were set to expire in 18 months. EA needed the Batman game released within that timeframe. Pandemic felt this meant EA would do anything they could to ensure that timeframe would be met and they could recoup their investment.
Pre-production commenced with the Brisbane team excited by the idea of turning such a revered franchise into the as-yet-untitled game. It seems that it took several months before the team was informed that the Batman game they were making had to be based on the upcoming Dark Knight film. This not only meant they were tied to a very specific vision of Batman - and that several months worth of planning had to be scrapped - but they were now tied to an even tighter deadline: the theatrical release of the movie.
With the Batman game now officially a Dark Knight game, Pandemic decided to make an open world Gotham City despite none of the senior members of the team having experience in making open world games. (Mercenaries was made in LA, not Brisbane.)
Compounding this problem was the choice of technology: the internal engine being used at the LA office for Saboteur. It soon proved unsuitable for the type of huge open world it needed to handle. One source notes that they never got the streaming to work properly and that instead of scrapping the engine, they kept modding it in directions it was originally never intended to go. Another mistake."
Its well known that the game's development was plagued by a myriad of issues, but trying to get a game in before an expiring rights deadline is pretty ridiculous. What's worse, switching the game's direction halfway through to a new game type that a developer is unfamiliar with is really just asking for trouble. I'm not confident that a game based on the movie would actually end up being good, and it would most likely have sullied the brilliant sheen already on The Dark Knight. Still, its good to know that at least they were trying a game based on the Dark Knight.
Why was The Dark Knight game canceled?
There is no doubt that The Dark Knight was a phenomenal success. Its about to be re-released again this Friday (January 23) to further bolster its ability to be awesome. The logical cross promotion with the film is a game based on the movie. So Pandemic Studios began working on a game, however there were a slew of reasons as to why it was canceled? What were they? Kotaku Australia has some options.
"Bravo's new project came as a result of Pandemic's negotiations with Time Warner and DC Comics, which in turn lead to a contract with EA to make a Batman game. The only hitch was that EA's rights to the Batman IP were set to expire in 18 months. EA needed the Batman game released within that timeframe. Pandemic felt this meant EA would do anything they could to ensure that timeframe would be met and they could recoup their investment.
Pre-production commenced with the Brisbane team excited by the idea of turning such a revered franchise into the as-yet-untitled game. It seems that it took several months before the team was informed that the Batman game they were making had to be based on the upcoming Dark Knight film. This not only meant they were tied to a very specific vision of Batman - and that several months worth of planning had to be scrapped - but they were now tied to an even tighter deadline: the theatrical release of the movie.
With the Batman game now officially a Dark Knight game, Pandemic decided to make an open world Gotham City despite none of the senior members of the team having experience in making open world games. (Mercenaries was made in LA, not Brisbane.)
Compounding this problem was the choice of technology: the internal engine being used at the LA office for Saboteur. It soon proved unsuitable for the type of huge open world it needed to handle. One source notes that they never got the streaming to work properly and that instead of scrapping the engine, they kept modding it in directions it was originally never intended to go. Another mistake."
Its well known that the game's development was plagued by a myriad of issues, but trying to get a game in before an expiring rights deadline is pretty ridiculous. What's worse, switching the game's direction halfway through to a new game type that a developer is unfamiliar with is really just asking for trouble. I'm not confident that a game based on the movie would actually end up being good, and it would most likely have sullied the brilliant sheen already on The Dark Knight. Still, its good to know that at least they were trying a game based on the Dark Knight.
Why was The Dark Knight game canceled?
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