Few studios have made such an attention-grabbing start as Glasgow’s No Code. Observation opens with a squall of noise, the crackle of a microphone audible over a rumbling score, as a caption tells us we’re aboard the titular space station, orbiting 410km above Earth. A light briefly illuminates a darkened room within the craft, which is passing floating detritus (including a spinning astronaut helmet), as the nervy voice of Dr. Emma Fisher lets us know something has gone very wrong. She accesses the station’s computer system, SAM – at which point we discover it’s not Fisher, but the AI we’re playing as. As a relative calm settles over proceedings, we’re asked to run hull and pressure diagnostics, reading data and feeding back to the anxious medic. Then, out of nowhere, a series of symbols interfere with SAM’s display, alongside a persistent high pitched sound. A message appears onscreen in all caps – “BRING HER” – and we cut to black. Establishing the game’s premise and the story’s central mystery with the economy and no little flair, it’s one of the most memorable introductions of recent years. And all the more remarkable when you consider this was the studio’s debut.
Or at least that was the plan. No Code’s second game was supposed to be it's first; Observation was, after all, the project co-founder Jon McKellan set up the studio to make. The idea behind it first took root while he was working at Creative Assembly as the lead UI artist on Alien: Isolation. On a project with a lot of overlap between roles, his work involved plenty of general game design. While there, he began mulling over the idea of making an adventure game that played to his skills. “I wanted to make something that had a lot of motion graphics, and a lot of UI work – something where we could tell a story through the UI in some way.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Edge.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Edge.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
BONAPARTE: A MECHANIZED REVOLUTION
No sooner have we stepped into the boots of royal guard Bonaparte than we’re faced with a life-altering decision.
TOWERS OF AGHASBA
Watch Towers Of Aghasba in action and it feels vast. Given your activities range from deepwater dives to climbing up cliffs or lumbering beasts, and from nurturing plants or building settlements to pinging arrows at the undead, it’s hard to get a bead on the game’s limits.
THE STONE OF MADNESS
The makers of Blasphemous return to religion and insanity
Vampire Survivors
As Vampire Survivors expanded through early access and then its two first DLCs, it gained arenas, characters and weapons, but the formula remained unchanged.
Devil May Cry
The Resident Evil 4 that never was, and the Soulslike precursor we never saw coming
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare has made a deeply self-conscious game, visibly inspired by some of the best-loved ideas from Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
SKATE STORY
Hades is a halfpipe
SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION VII
Firaxis rethinks who makes history, and how it unfolds
FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH
Remaking an iconic game was daunting enough then the developers faced the difficult second entry
THUNDER LOTUS
How Spirit farer's developer tripled in size without tearing itself apart