Right now the Midway Newcastle brass are ”100 percent” focused on finding a buyer for the studio, otherwise they’re out of a job and we lose a cop game.
The devs have shown off a little of their action cop project, powered by Unreal 3, in a bid to entice a suitor for the studio. The staff ”wants to stick together”, super motivated by game.
Warner rode in and saved some of Midway’s assets, unfortunately for Midway Newcastle they weren’t included in that financial rescue and have been facing the daunting truth they may soon have to close up shop for good.
”It’s tough,” studio head Craig Duncan tells Develop. ”The whole industry is struggling, really. A lot of the people we’ve spoken to have said that if we were asking a year ago, they’d have bought us in a heartbeat.”
”My focus is 100 per cent on finding a buyer. Every studio head will say it, but this is team that’s just too good to be wasted,” he continued. Most recently the Newcastle studio released Wheelman, starring Vin Diesel as the lead character in a high octane world of cars and guns.
”It’s really important that people know that this is a team that wants to stick together - sometimes when you look at buying a studio you can worry that the real talent, the people, will just flee the ship, leaving you with some IP, kit and an empty building; the pieces of the puzzle that aren’t really worth anything,” says Duncan.
”But everyone here has worked together for at least two years, with the original core team still together after about ten years. We’ve been through the ups and downs and all want to stay working together.” They believe showcasing Necessary Force is way to prove how diverse the developer can be.
”Despite all that’s been going on, we’ve only had three people leave this year – it just goes to show that everyone wants to stay together, how galvanised they are as a team.”
”They don’t know if they’re going to have a job in a month’s time, but they’re still putting in a huge amount of effort now; staying until nine in the evening working on this – and that’s because they’re all so motivated by the great project we’re working on” he enthused.
Click here to visit Midway Newcastle’s website for Necessary Force, a tale of a cop looking for gritty justice to be served.
