{"id":51084,"date":"2013-02-26T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=51084"},"modified":"2013-02-26T12:42:01","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T10:42:01","slug":"the-truth-behind-aliens-colonial-marines-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/51084-the-truth-behind-aliens-colonial-marines-development","title":{"rendered":"The truth behind Aliens: Colonial Marines development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the ridiculously lacklustre reception of the potential-packed Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox and TimeGate haven\u2019t officially responded, but some company staff members (who remain anonymous) have shed some light on what happened with the game.<\/p>\n<p>The game itself looked incredibly promising during preview events and demonstrations, yet the retail release was a far cry from what was shown. The game features shoddy textures, simplistic AI and lacked all the dynamic lighting, atmospheric effects and general polish that the demo showcased.<\/p>\n<p>Evidence of this can be seen here: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/50595-what-happened-to-aliens-colonial-marines.html\">What happened to Aliens: Colonial Marines!?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was obviously not four years of work done on the game,&#8221; said one source. &#8220;A lot of assets just didn&#8217;t seem like they fit there,&#8221; the source noted when speaking about how Gearbox simply handed over a collection of obtuse game assets.<\/p>\n<p>The sources also explained that the game script was constantly being rewritten and entire levels to be discarded.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a couple months, we were just kind of guessing,&#8221; said one source. &#8220;It&#8217;s really weird to work on a game when you don&#8217;t have a basic idea of how things will work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was also the &#8216;too many chefs&#8217; syndrome when it came to gameplay, where too many people gave feedback on both ends and it ultimately led to further delays,&#8221; said a source.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49903\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49903\" class=\" wp-image-49903 \" title=\"Aliens Colonial Marines screenshot 22\" src=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22.jpg\" alt=\"Aliens Colonial Marines\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-80x45.jpg 80w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-100x56.jpg 100w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-170x96.jpg 170w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-297x167.jpg 297w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-530x298.jpg 530w, https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-screenshot-22-625x351.jpg 625w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49903\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The retail release looked vastly different from the screenshots released (above) by Sega prior to the game&#8217;s launch.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>With regards to the impressive E3 demo shown, the sources explained that the demo had been running on a powerful PC \u2013 far superior to that anyone could\u2019ve owned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were told many times through demo production, &#8216;Don&#8217;t worry about performance, just make it awesome,'&#8221; said one source. &#8220;There was a reason [the demos] were never playable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The game then had to be stripped down for consumer PCs. &#8220;We were constantly cutting back more and more in terms of texture, shader and particle fidelity, in order to fit into the jacked memory restraints,&#8221; said another source.<\/p>\n<p>A Gearbox source said that the team knew the game was a disaster, but couldn\u2019t ask for another extension after already being in development for six years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The game feels like it was made in nine months,&#8221; said a source who worked on the project. &#8220;That&#8217;s because it was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h6>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/kotaku.com\/5986694\/from-dream-to-disaster-the-story-of-aliens-colonial-marines\" target=\"_blank\">Kotaku\u00a0<\/a><\/h6>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Aliens gaming news:<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/50511-aliens-colonial-marines-solid-shooter-or-nauseating-nightmare.html\" target=\"_blank\">Aliens Colonial Marines \u2013 a nauseating nightmare?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/50564-alien-games-that-dont-suck.html\">Alien games that don\u2019t suck<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/49389-aliens-colonial-marines-pc-system-requirements-revealed.html\">Aliens: Colonial Marines PC system requirements revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Aliens: Colonial Marines adds female characters to roster\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/44119-aliens-colonial-marines-adds-female-characters-to-roster.html\">Aliens: Colonial Marines adds female characters to roster<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/43967-aliens-colonial-marines-adds-a-marines-vs-xenomorphs-multiplayer-mode.html\">Aliens: Colonial Marines adds a Marines vs Xenomorphs multiplayer mode<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Company staffers explain what went wrong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":49394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,4113,2153,8807,8806,3238,1525,2450,2219],"class_list":["post-51084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active","tag-aliens","tag-aliens-colonial-marines","tag-aliens-colonial-marines-game","tag-aliens-colonial-marines-review","tag-aliens-fps","tag-gearbox","tag-gearbox-software","tag-megarom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}