GVMERS

In the pantheon of fictional universes, few are as rife with memorable characters as Star Wars. From Admiral Ackbar to Yoda, the galaxy far, far away has served as a host to all manner of unique and iconic personas throughout its history – some so much so, that they’ve managed to carry entire video games by themselves. When the clone troopers debuted during the prequel trilogy, most assumed that they would never be given the opportunity to share the same spotlight. A genetically uniform army that served the Jedi prior to their downfall, the clones would largely function as background dressing to more important characters and conflicts in whatever fiction they made an appearance, lacking the presence or personality to carry most scenes on their own. However, it would be a squad of clones that would go on to feature in one of the most celebrated Star Wars games of the 6th console generation: Star Wars: Republic Commando. A tactical first-person shooter set between the films’ second and third episodes, Republic Commando not only provides players with an engaging gameplay experience, but gives distinct and endearing personalities to its unusual protagonists years before the Clone Wars TV show would attempt to do the same. It demonstrated that even without most of the franchise’s main stalwarts – the Jedi, the Sith, and everyone in-between – one could still create a Star Wars experience capable of reaching fans’ hearts. This is the history of Star Wars: Republic Commando.

In 1997, a video game company named Bohemia Interactive was established in Prague. The Czech Republic had historically never been a hotbed for video game development, but Bohemia’s founders – Marek Španěl, Ondřej Španěl, and Slavomír Pavlíček – were on a mission. They were determined to create a first person shooter that would capture the reality of war more accurately than any game before it; an engrossing simulation that would depict what real battlefields were like, and feature an unprecedented sense of scale and attention to detail. After a challenging and prolonged development period, Bohemia delivered on these ambitions in 2001 with Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. The game was both a triumph within the genre of tactical first-person shooters, and one of the first major successes in the history of Czech-made video games. But it was also beginning of two wars – a war between Bohemia and its publisher, which would attempt to capitalize on the game without its creators’ involvement, and a war between Bohemia and itself, as the studio struggled to balance its ambitions with its capabilities. When the dust finally settled over a decade later, Operation Flashpoint had been stripped of its appeal and future. But Bohemia had survived, and started a new series, ARMA, that picked up mechanically and spiritually where Cold War Crisis left off. Unlike its predecessor, ARMA received a more muted reaction from the industry when it debuted – yet eventually grew into an empire within the military simulation genre. In a world where abandoned video game franchises so rarely receive spiritual successors that continue in their footsteps, the story of the Operation Flashpoint and ARMA is a shining exception; a reminder that not all inactive series become lost forever.

It’s not an exaggeration to claim that video games have a penchant for life in post-apocalyptic America. From the ghastly realism of The Last of Us, to the tongue-in-cheek absurdity of Rage, the industry is filled to the brim with experiences that explore what happens to the land of the free after social order collapses. In addition, games like Frostpunk, Mad Max, and a few others have featured memorable post-apocalyptic scenarios in the Anglosphere. Yet when it comes to the rest of the globe, the pickings are often slim. 4A Games’ Metro franchise is an exception to this. A survival-oriented first-person shooter series based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels of the same name, the games explore the harshness of life in Moscow after the fires of nuclear war force its inhabitants to take refuge in its metro. And it does so with one of the more hardcore set of mechanics to grace its genre. For perhaps this reason, a lack of marketing, and a not-insignificant amount of technical issues that afflicted its first wave of releases, the Metro series never managed to become as beloved as some of its peers. Yet through sheer force of will, it grew into a mainstay in the first person shooter genre, thanks to the tireless work of 4A Games, and the support of its passionate fan base. But in order to fully appreciate what the series has to offer, one must first go back to the past. To the mid-2000s, when 4A’s founders had yet to leave their original outfit, and Glukhovsky’s first novel had only just been published in its home country. This is the history of Metro 2033. The History of Metro Part 1.

Developing Metro 2033 had been challenging for 4A Games. After splintering from GSC Game World in 2005, the Ukrainian studio had spent the better half of the decade building everything in their first title from the ground up, from the engine that powered its world, to the design philosophy that informed its gameplay. And while the game had managed to exceed expectations when it finally released, it also carried with it a stigma of being undercooked, on account of its many bugs, and occasionally infuriating enemy AI. With 2033’s sequel, 4A had an opportunity to enjoy a much smoother development cycle. Most of the fundamentals upon which it would be built were already in place, and THQ, which had served as the first game’s publisher, was eager to provide the studio with much more support than in the past. Unfortunately, like a journey through the tunnels of Moscow’s metro system gone awry, the game’s development would be beset by various struggles; some intrinsic to 4A, others created by events far beyond its control. Yet 4A would proceed to not only weather these issues, but release a sequel that rivaled and, in some ways, surpassed the quality of its predecessor. To onlookers within the industry, what they managed to accomplish was nothing short of incredible – but to the studio’s employees, it was just part of the job. This is the history of Metro: Last Light. The History of Metro Part 2.

In 1989, young college graduate Jordan Mechner introduced a 2D platformer called Prince of Persia to the world. Platformers were all the rage during the 80s, yet Mechner’s set itself apart from its contemporaries with its weighty, swashbuckling action, and incredibly smooth animations – a feat that Mechner had achieved by rotoscoping his family and friends into sprites. After a decade of enhanced ports and a strong sequel, the series would fall into an abyss following a misstep into the third dimension. Yet just when all seemed lost, Ubisoft’s young, Montreal-based studio would step in and transform the series into a modern classic, implementing a gameplay mechanic now as iconic as the franchise itself in the process. Prince of Persia’s new heroes would continue to nurture it for many years after – until finally, after bringing it to the silver screen, the decision was made to put it on hold. The series’ spark had seemingly vanished – but the mark it had left on the industry and gamers worldwide would still remain.

At the farthest edges of space, there exists a world unlike any other. A world where hostile alien lifeforms known as the Akrid are fought endlessly for the thermal energy that runs through their veins. Where an intergalactic syndicate and lowly snow pirates battle for supremacy using towering robots known as Vital Suits. Where the temperature and environment fluctuate constantly, as if trying to consciously expel those unable to adapt to its capriciousness. To those caught within its turmoil, this world is E.D.N. III, a hostile celestial body that welcomes only the most daring of explorers – and serves as the setting for Capcom’s Lost Planet series. Originally conceived by Mega Man maestro Keiji Inafune and a team of former Devil May Cry and Onimusha developers, the Lost Planet series provided early adopters of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with an unusual, yet entertaining take on the third-person shooter, one that melded together Eastern and Western design values in ways unique to its genre. Yet much like E.D.N. III itself, Lost Planet would undergo many dramatic shifts, with each of its entries featuring wildly different takes on its core narrative and mechanics. While all of these games found players willing to accept these changes, this refusal to remain the same resulted in Lost Planet’s fan base gradually eroding away, and Capcom eventually moving on to pursue greener pastures. To many gamers, Lost Planet was inexorably linked with Capcom’s pursuit of Western-style games and developers during the seventh console generation, and the many disappointments that this initiative resulted in. Yet to those the forlorn series managed to touch, it was also one of the more unique and underrated experiences of its era – even though it could never quite settle on a single style.

As Rockstar Games entered the seventh generation of video game consoles, the acclaimed publisher slowly began to trim down and reinvent its catalogue. Rather than providing a wide variety of experiences that each tried to do one or two things well, Rockstar started focusing on leveraging the Grand Theft Auto series’ popularity and appeal, and offering a much smaller pool of games that featured similarly open-ended designs. And none of the company’s franchises were more primed to be reinvented in this manner than Red Dead.

When it comes to Western role-playing games, few video game developers are as renowned as Bioware. The Edmonton-based studio’s catalogue is as celebrated as it is influential, with almost all of its titles representing the peaks of their genres in the eras they debuted. Baldur’s Gate brought computer RPGs back in vogue with its sublime, high-fantasy gameplay. Neverwinter NightsKnights masterfully adapted its tenets into a multiplayer-centric experience. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic saw the former games’ narrative finesse melded with the adventurism of the galaxy far, far away. And Mass Effect made all of this Bioware’s own – while taking it to the next level. But being this renowned comes with a high heavy price. Today, gamers are well aware of the struggles the studio dealt with recently during the development of games like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. Yet the reality is that struggles like these have persisted throughout its entire history, with nearly every major production that Bioware has successfully completed representing a triumph in the face of massive adversity. Dragon Age, Bioware’s much-beloved high-fantasy series, is perhaps most emblematic of this. While each of its mainline entries were made under vastly different circumstances from one another, they all suffered in their own, unique ways. Its third one’s design failed to fully come together until late in its production, and needed to be made in an incredibly unruly engine. Its second one’s development period was one of the most cramped its staff had ever experienced. And its first operated without a consistent team or set of tools for an immensely long – so much so, that many wondered if it was ever going to come out at all. This is the history of Dragon Age: Origins.

Few investments in the video game industry are as safe as sequels. Not only are they an easy sell to fans and publishers alike, but as direct continuations of pre-existing games, their developments are free of a lot of the heavy-lifting original concepts need to deal with; most of their core mechanics have been previously tested, the amount of assets they can use off the bat are numerous, and their creators already have plenty of feedback on how to improve both. Even if they don’t manage to eclipse their predecessors in terms of popularity, sequels are still all but guaranteed to keep their series’ spirit ablaze, and feature plenty of innovations their developers hadn’t been able to implement before. Awakening, Dragon Age: Origins’ first and only expansion, managed to do all of this and more. Dragon Age 2, which was marketed as Origins’ actual sequel, did not. Rather than feature a sprawling adventure that thrust players in Thedas’ farthest corners, the second entry in Bioware’s acclaimed role-playing series took place entirely inside a single city, following a lowly immigrant’s rise to glory within its walls over the course of a decade. While this change, and many, many others that Dragon Age 2 made to its predecessor’s core design proved popular to some, they failed to resonate with fans on a broader level, resulting in the wayward sequel gaining an infamous reputation. And yet, when one examines the circumstances in which the game was made, it’s hard not to feel a tinge of empathy for Bioware. For unlike Dragon Age’s first entry, which benefited from a development cycle that lasted nearly a decade, its second was forced to come together in just over a year, as a result of shifting circumstances within the studio and its Texan subsidiary. Viewed through this lens, it’s impressive that it got released at all – even if it isn’t exactly what one wanted out of a sequel to Origins. This is the history of Dragon Age 2.

After releasing Dragon Age 2 in 2011, Bioware was quick to follow it up with a steady stream of downloadable content, supplying fans eager to make the most out of the sequel with new scenarios and challenges to overcome in the city of Kirkwall. Yet one piece of content that would never arrive was a full-on expansion to the base game, in the vein of Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening. Many believed for a long time that this expansion, which would’ve been titled Exalted March, had been cancelled because Bioware desperately wanted to get away from the miasma of negativity surrounding 2, and move directly on to its successor. However, this wasn’t the case. As revealed by Mike Laidlaw in 2017, the real reason why the studio didn’t follow through with the expansion wasn’t because it was afraid to look back, but because it quickly realized that the engine the series’ next game was set to adopt – the Frostbite Engine – was going to be immensely difficult to get used to; if Bioware’s staff tried to acclimatize themselves to Frostbite and work on Exalted March at the same time, both projects would likely suffer severely. Thus, the decision was made to drop the latter, and focus only on the former. This is just one of the many headaches that Bioware dealt with during the creation of the Dragon Age series’ third entry. Despite enjoying a longer development period than 2, its production would prove to be one of the studio’s most grueling undertakings in its entire history, with nearly every step on the road to its release marred by dysfunction of various sorts. And even though this wouldn’t stop it from providing gamers with a stellar experience, the scars of this era would continue to haunt Bioware for years to come. This is the history of Dragon Age Inquisition.

Making open world games is far from easy. The number of assets necessary to fill them is colossal. The amount of testing required to polish them is unthinkable. And unless your name is Sam or Dan Houser, whatever you make is almost always going to live in the shadow of Grand Theft Auto’s scope and brand power – unless you find a unique way to counter its supremacy. For a brief period in the early 2010s, Sleeping Dogs was such a contender. The culmination of nearly five years of work at Vancouver-based developer United Front Games, Sleeping Dogs managed to win over players’ hearts by being modest and focused; instead of trying to be a better Rockstar game than Rockstar’s own offerings, it concentrated on nailing a setting, tone and style of combat that they had never explored before – and succeeded impressively in doing so. Yet what was perhaps most remarkable about it was the fact that it got released at all. For the penultimate year of its development was marked by a major fracas; one that would have immediately killed it had an unexpected publisher been any less kind, its team any less passionate, and the experience it had to offer any less compelling. This is the history of Sleeping Dogs.

During the early 2000s, real-time strategy games were booming. From Blizzard and Westwood’s fantastical machinations, to Creative Assembly and Ensemble Studios’ historical excursions, the genre had a game in almost every style and setting conceivable – and they were all consistently great. Yet of all these games, few offered as wide a scope as Stainless Steel Studios’ inaugural title, Empire Earth. The brainchild of Rick Goodman, who had previously helped conceive Age of Empires during Ensemble’s infancy, Empire Earth allowed players to embark on a tour of human history the likes of which had never been seen before, one that started at the dawn of human civilization, ended in the far-flung future, and offered an unparalleled level of customizability the entire way through.

The late 2000s were an evolutionary period for open world games. While the Grand Theft Auto series continued to refine the metropolitan sandbox, more and more titles were showing that the genre could work well beyond the confines of modern-day urbanity. Games like Crackdown and Infamous offered super-powered skirmishes set within near-future dystopias, while the likes of Assassin’s Creed showed that there was plenty of fun to be had parkouring through cityscapes of the ancient past. The size of their worlds rarely exceeded those of Rockstar’s opuses – but the variety of mechanics and subject matter they explored proved that this didn’t always matter. Among these experiences was The Saboteur, created by the Los Angeles-based Pandemic Studios. An open world game set in Nazi-occupied Paris, The Saboteur set itself apart from its competition with its swashbuckling tone and transformative color palette, which became increasingly vibrant the more its protagonist liberated the French capital’s streets. While not everything about it worked to perfection, few argued against its uniqueness; in an era where most games set during World War II focused on hardened soldiers cast into the conflict’s deepest trenches, and most open world games ignored the former half of the 20th century, there was simply nothing else quite like Pandemic’s work. Yet more unique than the game itself were the circumstances in which it was developed and released. For The Saboteur served as Pandemic’s sole lifeline during one of its most difficult periods – and its swansong once these difficulties forced the studio to close its doors. This is the history of The Saboteur.

In the realm of action-oriented video games, few are as zen as dungeon crawlers. Even at their most complex, demolishing and looting enemies in the likes of Diablo or Torchlight is as hypnotic as it is satisfying; their gameplay loops providing a perfect mixture of habitual repetition, and utter excitement. And to a small, yet passionate subset of PC gamers during the early 2000s, few games offered a better blend of these elements than Dungeon Siege. Created by Gas Powered Games – a Redmond-based development studio led by the legendary Chris Taylor – Dungeon Siege received significant praise upon its release in 2002 for its unique, party-based gameplay and its seamless, loadingscreen-free world, resulting in a dedicated player base quickly rallying around its design. Yet even amongst its most ardent fans, it also received significant criticism for its barebones story, as well as its tendency to play itself. As a result, its creators worked hard to ensure its sequel featured a more impressive narrative, and a deeper, more involving combat system upon its release in 2005. The end result of their efforts wouldn’t upend its genre – but it would still prove a hit among fans, and continue to inch the series closer to role-playing stardom. Unfortunately, after the release of a decent, albeit gimped spinoff on the PlayStation Portable the following year, the series would proceed to go dormant for half a decade, in addition to being adapted into one of the worst video game movies to ever reach theatres. When it would finally re-emerge, it would do so under the guidance of a different studio – and end up being utterly unlike what had come before it. This is the rise and fall of Dungeon Siege.

Video games – more so than any other form of entertainment – are a confluence of artistry and technology. While specialized hardware and software provide developers with the tools necessary to craft them, creativity and skill are necessary in order to know how to make proper use of these tools. And like in any other artistic medium, the only way to improve this creativity and skill is through experience. Perhaps no other word better describes Ninja Theory’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. An action-adventure game set within a fantastical post-apocalypse, Enslaved charmed many people with its exciting combat and heartfelt story, but sold well under what most games of its genre typically boast upon its release, resulting in it quickly slipping under the radar for most mainstream gamers. Yet its development – which saw several famous Hollywood figures team up with Ninja Theory – served as an invaluable learning experience for the studio, teaching its staff lifelong lessons on how to engage players using narrative and gameplay in tandem, as well as how to craft deep and emotionally fulfilling characters within the medium’s limitations. It helped its creators transition from being a good video game developer, to a great one, and set them up to eventually become even better with its subsequent endeavors. Sometimes, the destination is the most important part of video game development – while other times, the journey is paramount. With Ninja Theory’s third project, the latter proved more true than anything else. This is the history of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

Few features are as ingrained in the fabric of modern shooters as bullet time. Whether included as a mechanic that one can use at the press of a button, or an occurrence that only happens in scripted moments, bullet time is the punctuation mark of every game it graces; an awesome, yet functional tool that gamers and developers alike can’t get enough of. And it wouldn’t be nearly as popular as it is today were it not for Max Payne. Released in 2001 by Remedy Entertainment, a video game developer based in Espoo, Finland, Max Payne put players in control of its titular protagonist on a slow-motion massacre through New York’s underground. It was dark, it was intense, and – most importantly – it was much more than just a series of reality-defying firefights, with its story spinning an intoxicating, noir-inspired yarn about Max’s descent into madness as he attempts to avenge his family’s death. Players lapped it up in droves, leading the industry at large to try and integrate its mechanics into their own products, and Remedy to produce a follow-up: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. The latter offered an even slicker rendition of Max’s twisted world and mechanics, as well as an earnest attempt to try and portray a love story at a time when the medium, let alone shooters, rarely featured them. Unfortunately, while its reception was even more impressive, its sales struggled to pass muster, and for a period of time after its release, it seemed as if the series had nothing more to offer – barring a mediocre film adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. Yet like Max himself, its spirit refused to rest until it ended things on its own terms – and in 2012, Rockstar Games released Max Payne 3. Featuring a cruelly aged version of the series’ protagonist, and a setting more reminiscent of Man on Fire than The Big Sleep, the threequel offered long-time fans a rather different experience that what had come before it; one that thoroughly used the mechanics, system

What does a former MLB star, a 75 million dollar loan and the smallest state in the USA have in common? Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. When designing almost any videogame, art and business need to go hand in hand. While they can only be fashioned when developers sit down and apply their creativity and skill to them, the sheer magnitude of their worlds means that more often than not, they can only be completed when many developers apply their skills in tandem. And in order to get them to apply their skills in tandem on a regular basis, the games they make need to contribute to an economy that continuously supports all of their presences. Stories of video game studios that trip up on this reality, and are forced to lay off their entire workforce are sadly common across the industry. Yet none are as dramatic – or as unusual – as the circumstances that lead to the downfall of 38 Studios. The brainchild of former baseball star Curt Schilling, 38 Studios attracted considerable attention during its existence for the caliber of talent that was at its helm, which included a host of renowned fantasy authors and Elder Scrolls developers. But after the release of its first and only title in 2012, the studio received even more attention when it revealed that it was secretly mired in financial disorder, and had no choice but to lay off its entire staff. It’s a tragic story all around, and is made even more so by the fact that this first and only title that 38 Studios released – a high-fantasy role-playing game set within the wondrous land of Amalur – was a surprisingly good game; one that challenged genre conventions in satisfying ways, and found a place for itself in the hearts of many gamers. This is the history of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

The mid-2000s were a formative period for Ubisoft. New studios joined its repertoire and bolstered its stature as an international brand. Old studios came into their own with classic series that would define the generation. And series that would come to be classics in the next generation were slowly being cultivated for their future stardom. Yet to many gamers, nothing defined this era of Ubisoft more than Beyond Good & Evil. The culmination of nearly four years of work at Ubisoft Montpellier to craft the ultimate action-adventure game, Beyond cast players as Jade, an investigative reporter tasked with uncovering a conspiracy that threatens her homeworld’s future, and repelling the machinations of a dastardly alien threat. While parts of its varied design evoked comparisons to Zelda and Ratchet & Clank, the whole of the experience was unlike anything else before it; an epic journey that balanced eccentricity and seriousness with considerable finesse, and proved emotionally affecting like few other games in its genre. Yet when it came to sales, it was a considerable disappointment, with only a modicum of copies finding their way into people’s hands. And while this wouldn’t stop Ubisoft from producing a sequel, the company would nonetheless go on to spend more than a decade trying to get it off the ground – hardening the game’s fan base beyond all measure. This is the history of Beyond Good & Evil.

Of all the video game series that have made their mark on the industry, few have elicited as many disparate reactions as Grand Theft Auto. To some, the series is the apex of interactive media; the ultimate expression of virtual freedom, and the cathartic chaos that this freedom can result in. To others, it’s one of the biggest smoking guns behind all of the misanthropy and violence present in today’s youth, in addition to being a vile and artless product in its own right. If there’s one aspect that nearly everyone agrees on, it’s that Grand Theft Auto is among the most successful properties in the history of its medium. In the two decades that it’s graced consoles, handhelds and PCs, the open world series has remained a fixture on most sales charts, with its most recent entry, Grand Theft Auto V, having generated more revenue by itself than most franchises manage over their entire lifetime. To most gamers today, this thoroughness with which the series currently dominates the industry is as normal as Mario is Italian. Yet to those that have been paying attention to it since its inception, it’s still a mighty impressive feat. For up until the late 2000s, a day didn’t seem to go by where the series wasn’t embroiled in some sort of scandal created by its most egregious detractors – or its very own developers. This is the history of Grand Theft Auto.