The team ignored the dissenters and pushed ahead, releasing an Xbox hit with an 89 metacritic score. It could have ”blown up in our face” and led to them all being fired.
Chronicles of Riddick is based off the movie starring Vin Diesel, and is celebrated as one of the early successful marriages of film and video game, only eclipsed by Rocksteady’s Batman.
”Truthfully, it was absolute piracy,” Ian Stevens told OXM. ”We were being told constantly not to do what we were doing, and we did it anyway.” Chronicles of Riddick released on Xbox in 2004 published by Vivendi Games. ”If we’d done what we were told to do, we’d have had a third-person Devil May Cry rip-off,” he said.
”It could have blown up in our face and we could have made a horrible game and all been fired - that was as much a possibility as what actually happened.”
”But it was a time when a lot of us were just very tired of the circumstances involved in this type of opportunity, and we felt like we really had to push and do something that was going to satisfy us and make a good game. So we killed ourselves to go in that direction.” Hollywood actor Vin Diesel was in their corner too.
”It worked because I understood him and where he was coming from, and his creative sensibilities. I understood what made him insecure and nervous and excited, and vice-versa,” explained Stevens.
”When I talked about stealth and how we were approaching it in Riddick - it was less about the vulnerability of Thief and more like Riddick sizing up a kill; it’s about how you want to eat your meal - I was able to convey these things to him in a language he’d understand. And when I needed to talk to him about story and character, I got it.”
Are you a fan of the Chronicles of Riddick from Starbreeze Studios? The developer’s next big release is EA’s Syndicate for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC February 21st in the US, 24th in Europe.
