Vigil GM David Adams said THQ showed ”faith” in their studio where no one else did, when there were ”about six or eight of us”. Truly grateful.
As should we be because THQ backing Vigil Games ended up with the excellent action adventure title Darksiders for Xbox 360 and PS3. It was believed that THQ was on the verge of total collapse as they shed employees and assets left and right.
They wanted to restructure and to focus on fewer but great quality games. ”THQ went through a lot of pain and restructuring - they took a lot of bullets so we could continue to make our game, and that’s a good indication of their faith in us, and their drive to make great-quality products,” said boss Adams, speaking with GamesIndustry.biz.
”You always hear the strained relations, because it’s a pretty stressful thing. There’s a lot of money involved, a lot of people involved.”
”The one thing I’ve been impressed with at THQ, since we’ve been there… it’s funny, because when we signed with THQ we didn’t think they’d want to publish us, but since then they’ve put out Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Red Faction, UFC.”
Vigil couldn’t get the time of day with other publishers who saw them and their creative ideas as too small and therefore too risky to merit investment. The studio didn’t have established procedures to make a game, but THQ gambled on them.
”We were pretty lucky, just because our publisher had this weird, insane faith in us that I don’t necessarily think any other publisher would have had. They signed us when there were about six or eight of us, and pretty much every other publisher just said: ‘You guys are lame…’,” continued general manager Adams.
”But our take was that if we just did really cool stuff, people would see that - they’d want to jump on the bandwagon and support us, and THQ did.” A sequel to Darksiders has already been hinted at, exploring more of the comic-like world they created.
”Hopefully it’s a reflection on us - we are very iterative on everything we do, and that’s not just related to the actual games that we make. It’s also the processes, trying to be more efficient, do stuff quicker, using less money - it’s something we’re constantly working on,” he said. Vigil is currently working on THQ’s upcoming Warhammer 40k MMO.
Have you played Darksiders: Wrath of War? We did, and even scribbled some notes.
