Ghost In The Machine

TEAM OXM SPENDS TIME WITH THE DEVELOPERS OF DISINTEGRATION AND DELVES DEEP TO REVEAL EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT ITS CAMPAIGN AND MULTIPLAYER

- Adam Bryant

What would humanity be like if we let our obsession with technology run rampant in a way that gets the better of us? What if we continue to irreparably ruin our planet? These were just a couple of the questions that V1 Interactive’s president Marcus Lehto asked himself when exploring concepts for his next project following his departure from Bungie in 2012.

After spending 15 years at the studio, where he co-created the immensely iconic Halo series, designed and created the one and only Master Chief, and spent a year helping develop Destiny, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next. He took a year to decompress and had fun exploring different ideas for new projects, but at the same time he tried not to force the idea of making a game and just let things evolve naturally. He delved into a variety of genres from fantasy and sci-fi to more spiritual and stranger conceptual ideas, but kept returning to one concept every time. It started as just a story, but it was a seed that would burrow deep within his mind. The more he thought about his idea, the more he felt that not only was it a really interesting fictional universe, but it was the perfect playground to serve up a huge amount of creative freedom and possibilities for gameplay mechanics. That was when Lehto made the decision to hire a couple of young contractors straight out of the DigiPen Institute Of Technology, where he had spent time mentoring students, and developed a prototype.

Initially the project started out as a traditional real-time strategy game, but this didn’t feel right for the team.