Care to see how the sausage is made?
Not all that long ago I was hit with an absolute blast from the past when I saw news that the cult classic first person shooter, 'XIII', was due to be remade for the modern generation post haste. Somehow this was the sort of news I'd missed for the year and few month preceding it, which meant I didn't have to hang onto the hype train too long, I could just fully fall back in the tidal wave of nostalgia that such a name bought up, in fact I even wrote a blog about my feelings for it. Then the thing actually came out... and I was lucky enough to have lost track of the title amidst the deluge of other events and products flooding the market, so I missed the release window and was instead reminded of this title by the account of someone who had actually played it. And let's just say that they were... unfavourable regarding the experience.
The title was a mess from it's utmost concept, to the point where one would have to seriously wonder if the team involved had ever made a complete game by themselves before. The game was as close as one can get to 'broken'. Crashes galore were everywhere and anywhere, basic sequencing would consistently fall apart in the first few minutes of the new game, animations for taking damage and dying sometimes didn't play or would play the wrong animation, frames would stutter so bizarrely that dying animations would be at a different frame rate than the rest of the game and AI seemed fundamentally broken at key set-piece moments. And before I didn't even mention the art style, which I was fine with, but other fans found that it utterly missed the whole thematic comic book dots-and-panels that characterised so much of the presentation and stylisation of the original game, and it would be literally impossible to exorcize that from the formula. (Which the awkward 3d models tried to do anyway)
Funnily enough, however, the launch of this train wreck did coincide with a sale for the original, which prompted people to remember and flock to that first title, which aged with some grace it should be said, rather than waste their time on a cheap garbage fire. I myself was one of those people, and I learned that the game I used to play as a kid was a lot longer and had more to it then I remembered! It's still very linear and frustrating compared to modern standards for how a game like this should be designed and constructed, somewhat similar to the first Splinter Cell game. (Although I preferred the Splinter Cell original game much more) Still the shooting feels great, the later levels which open up a bit really let you have your crazy fun and there's an arcadey delight to when you're slinging around a dozen powerful guns and flipping between them with grace that seems utterly lost even on recent attempts to mimic that style of game. (Except DOOM, of course. DOOM gets it.) I liked the game, would recommend. But that's not the point of this blog today. We're here just to ask the simple question; what happened?
We're lucky enough to have one of those fantastic exhaustive articles on the matter which is a great read and... doesn't come from Paul Tassi or Jason Schreier? Am I reading that right? I'm really not sure how to take this revelation implying that there might be other actual journalists in the industry. But I appreciate the hard work nonetheless. Especially when it comes to unravelling such an interesting face palm of a remaster. Now at the time the scape goat for 'what went wrong' was obvious, so much so that we all knew exactly what the excuse was going to be before it came out of their 'official statement' mouths, say it with me everybody; "COVID." Yes, COVID-19 personally jumped through the window of PlayMagic offices whilst everyone was home and deliberately sabotaged their flawless hardwork just minutes before release. A more despicable act of corporate espionage I dare not even speculate upon. Except no, from what Fanbyte's article has uncovered, the signs were flashing red years before the pandemic hit.
PlayMagic is an indie development studio that clearly has been struggling to make a name for itself with big projects for a while now, and has been clawing it's way up with work-for-hire jobs and building up their team and reputation that way. Unfortunately, PlayMagic's path there would be fraught with accusations of toxicity in the workplace, mismanagement, failure to keep up with pay checks, and a reoccurring habit of biting off more than the company can chew. In this article in general it would seem that a lot of the problems stem from the CEO of the company, who I'm choosing to name only by his position, and his choices which frequently clashed with what his employees would have liked. I came away from the article with the sense that we're looking at a case of ambition trumping capability, which to some degree can be respectable, although in this instance it's mostly just sad.
Firstly, the company took on the job of making XIII woefully unprepared, with a freshly depleted team from a previous high-turn over project (which got cancelled) and a severe underestimation of what they'd even be making. What started out as a remaster turned into a remake when it was realised that none of the code could be salvaged from the ancient engine. Needless to say, this should have been reason enough to be worried, and maybe even step out of the project, but the CEO launched them forward anyway, driven by that ambition. And here I can, in a twisted haze, sort of understand his reasoning. XIII is a cult Ubisoft game with a loyal following, thus making this a great opportunity for PlayMagic to cement a name for themselves, and there's the fact that this was a paying gig coming the way of an indie company who don't often have the luxury of picking and choosing because projects don't always just fall into their- oh wait, they were hired by Aspyr to make that Stubbs the zombie remake. And the CEO accepted that contract. Despite the very real struggles that XIII was having at that time, particularly with understaffing. I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of the man in charge here, just a little.
But beyond the unrealistic deadlines, the cramming of projects with little hope of finishing, the apparent problems with lack of delegation and team management, I'd say toxicity was the big problem here. Because if no one wants to stick around long enough in your company to finish a single game, you're never going to build a solid team. This CEO character plain refutes any and all claims of toxicity, and yet admits to the several different periods of pay checks being withheld and/or delayed which is a pretty toxic way to run your business on it's own. Then compound that with that cringey 'family atmosphere' this CEO was trying to cultivate, all for the predictable purpose of shunning those who tried to leave because 'that's not what proper family does.' But it gets worse. Because this guy apparently went the distance of threatening to blacklist former employees and then actually attempting to do that with their new bosses! I really do try to look at these cases, seeing as how I am an outsider, with a measured appraisal, but can't deny that in this instance it feels like Mr.CEO here is his own worst enemy. (And everyone else's worst enemy too.)
The conclusion of our story? The XIII remake was helmed by an understaffed team, prematurely promised, and sold off before it even had a sliver of a chance of being finished. The reason for the animations being crappy? The team didn't have an animator until halfway through the project. As I said, this article was a true moment of pulling the curtain back and showing the factory accident in all of it's morbid glory, I really am glad for the closure. And whatsmore, I now know about a wacky game development lunatic CEO who's the kind of guy that admits to trying to ruin his ex-employees careers by bad mouthing them to their new bosses, attempts to justify that to the reporter he admitted it to, and then, probably once the xanax wore off, attempts to threaten that journalist into not publishing that part of the story with a lawsuit. What a character! At least we know at the end of the day that XIII's butchering can be largely traced back to the many zany antics of a real life comic book antagonist. Truly the poetic secret end to this multi-branched questline.
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