Bethesda partners with Splash Damage

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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For the BethWatchers amongst you. Press release.<blockquote>Bethesda Softworks Announces Development Partnership with Splash Damage

May 22, 2008 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, announced today a long-term development partnership with the award-winning U.K. studio, Splash Damage™.

Splash Damage has been recognized by the industry for the quality of its titles and particularly for its skill in creating cutting-edge multiplayer games. The studio has received numerous accolades and awards for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory™, including Game of the Year nods from GameSpy, IGN, and PC Format. Their latest game, Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars™, won over 80 Editors’ Choice, E3, Most Wanted, and Game of the Year awards and nominations.

Bethesda Softworks continues to expand its development and publishing reach, with investments in a library of AAA titles and the opening of new offices in Europe and Japan in the past year. Best known for its 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®, Bethesda has in development a number of compelling titles, including the highly-anticipated Fallout® 3 due in Fall 2008.

“Bethesda Softworks has repeatedly been responsible for outstanding games as both publisher and developer.” said Paul Wedgwood, Owner and Creative Director of Splash Damage. “Both of our studios share a passion for creating great games, and we’re confident that this partnership will result in even greater experiences for gamers. We’re really looking forward to working with Bethesda.”

“This could not be a more perfect fit,” said Vlatko Andonov, President of Bethesda Softworks. “We are extremely impressed with Splash Damage and the quality titles they produce. They are highly creative and innovative, and have demonstrated a high level of dedication to their projects. We are confident that gamers everywhere will be thrilled with the offerings from this collaboration.”

More details about Splash Damage’s brand-new project will be provided in the coming months. For more information on Bethesda Softworks, visit www.bethsoft.com. For more information on Splash Damage, visit www.splashdamage.com.

About Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks, a subsidiary of the ZeniMax Media Inc. family of companies, is a premier developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software and has produced numerous award-winning titles, most recently with 2006 PC and Xbox 360™ Game of the Year and RPG of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®, and the 2002 PC and Xbox® Game of the Year and RPG of the Year, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrrowind®. Among Bethesda’s more popular franchises are The Elder Scrolls® series and Fallout®, as well as its licensed properties, such as Star Trek®. Its product line spans the sports, racing, RPG, strategy, and action genres. For more information on Bethesda Softworks’ products, visit www.bethsoft.com.

About Splash Damage
Based in London, England, Splash Damage Ltd is an independently-owned game developer which created the critically acclaimed Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory™ for id Software and most recently developed Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars™, winning over 80 awards and nominations. Founded by Paul 'Locki' Wedgwood in 2001 with key members of the mod-making community, Splash Damage also contributed multiplayer maps to DOOM 3™ and Return to Castle Wolfenstein™: Game of the Year Edition. For more information, visit www.splashdamage.com.</blockquote>
 
I must say I really enjoyed ET: Quake Wars (and I still enjoy it, though I haven't played it lately thanks to work) and I think the media didn't give it the attention it should have had.
I also enjoyed Wolfenstein ET back in the 'good old days', but now it's more a paradise for cheaters...

BTW: I do think SD and Bethesda are a strange combination, Bethesda develops completely different games than SD. So I'm wondering what they're going to do together...
 
docho said:
BTW: I do think SD and Bethesda are a strange combination, Bethesda develops completely different games than SD. So I'm wondering what they're going to do together...
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I guess Bethesda wants to publish something?

ZeniMax is really pushing on the expansion front.
 
By the way, this reminds me of J.E. Sawyer's idea for a Resource Wars Fallout spin-off:

Fallout: Resource Wars is a hypothetical Fallout spin-off mentioned several times by J.E. Sawyer as something he'd like to make.

It would be a game set in the Fallout world's Europe during the resource wars that took place there around the 2060s. Focused on team-based multiplayer, The gameplay could be a blend of Motocross Madness pacing, Battlefield: 1942 foot and vehicle combat, and slightly longer-than-CS duration rounds. Add in a salvaging elements so you can either repair or strip down damaged vehicles/weapons and use them in the next round.

The plot would involve crew of soldiers from the Royal Armored Corps that got stranded in war-torn anarchistic northern Italy and had to fight their way to the English Channel in a bunch of quickly degrading vehicles, scavenging replacements, fuel, and weapons as they go.
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Methinks Fallout has had enough spin-offs for a while. Someone should make a sequel before continuing in the line of spin-offs that have given us a RTS/RPG, a console shooter and an FPS/RPG.

It's time for an RPG again, dammit.
 
Brother None said:
Methinks Fallout has had enough spin-offs for a while. Someone should make a sequel before continuing in the line of spin-offs that have given us a RTS/RPG, a console shooter and an FPS/RPG.

It's time for an RPG again, dammit.
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What, Fallout 3 isn't good enough rpg for you?
Dam elitist rpgrs!
 
Ausir said:
Enemy Territory: Brotherhood of Steel?
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I wouldn't put it past Splash Damage except for the fact that probably realize that the Oblivion / Fallout 3 engine is not designed in any way, shape, or form to be a fast FPS engine. The graphics engine is designed to be a world browsing engine, and it is not very optimized at doing that. The game engine is a real-time statistics machine. They would essentially be switching from ID's highly optimized, twitch action, FPS engine (with highly detailed textures and realtime shadowing) to a sluggish 3D RPG engine whose main virtue is continuous streaming of outdoor landscapes.

If they did do a Brotherhood of Steel FPS they would need to export all of the models and textures into a different engine (probably ID's) and do the associated touch-up, otherwise it wouldn't be shiny or twitchy enough to satisfy FPS fans. But then would Zenimax really want to pay the hefty premium (around $500,000 US) for licensing ID's engine (the one that Splash Damage is really good at using) for a game using Zenimax IP - especially when it will just make the same BoS soldiers on their modified Gamebryo engine look sluggish by comparison.

When you look at Splash Damage's history they've always used ID's engine, they always used ID's IP, and while those games have been hits, it would be naive to think that they are rolling in the dough (a la Scrooge McDuck) because ID has been taking a pretty large cut. They probably want to gain financial independence as a game development company, and Zenimax has enough money to front for them.

It is highly likely that they will be developing their own IP - it's the only way to become truly financially independent. The real question is has Splash Damage been internally developing their own engine.
 
Well, the press release does give an impression of the game being made cooperatively by Bethesda and SD, which would make a Bethesda IP spin-off pretty likely. And SD is known for making multiplayer FPS spin-offs.
 
Both companies do first person shooters. Also, both companies do spin-offs. Oblivion is a spin off itself.
 
Jiggly McNerdington said:
That'd be nice. I wouldn't mind a good Terminator game.
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And let's just assume it's the worst-case derivative game scenario that seems to be all anyone can imagine - Enemy Territory: Terminator Wars. How fucking awesome does that sound?
 
Pretty awesome I must say. Though I kinda wish they'd lean more Quake-ish or lean more Battlefield-ish. Quake Wars left me with two kinds of blue gaming balls. Fun enough by itself but I kept wanting it to go more one direction or the other.
 
Bethesda doesn't have the Terminator license anymore. The Halcyon Company which owns the Terminator franchise has opened its own gaming subsidiary, Halcyon Games, which will be making the Terminator 4 game(s).
 
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