BioWare had Bond-meets-Bourne RPG in the works - Report
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Former BioWare producer Trent Oster says project was to cross 007 and Jason Bourne with an emphasis on acting; EA reportedly not interested.
BioWare reportedly had a James Bond-meets-Jason Bourne spy-themed role-playing game in the works in 2009, but it was not meant to be. Former BioWare producer Trent Oster told Eurogamer all about the project, revealing first that it had a working title of "Agent," the same as Rockstar Games' previously announced PlayStation 3-exclusive project.
According to Oster, the concept of the game was to "do the other half of GoldenEye," in that it was planned to show more than the familiar guns-blazing side of James Bond
"He's a suave manipulator, he's a talented martial artist, he's a secret agent. We wanted to cross that 007 with Jason Bourne, where he's been modified in some way; you're not sure what, but he's definitely deadly," Oster said.
To achieve this, Oster said it was BioWare's aim to focus on acting.
"We really wanted to be very high drama, very intense scenes," Oster said. "I always think of the scene in the second Bourne movie where Jason Bourne's choking the guy out with a book and he's right in his face and it's this very intense moment. That was one of the key things we wanted to carry off."
Ultimately, though, Oster said the project was short-lived, because "EA didn't believe in" the idea. "And if the company's not behind it, it doesn't matter how hard you struggle, you just can't make it happen."
Oster is now the creative director at Overhaul Games, and recently oversaw the development and release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The developer added that he would not be very excited to return to AAA development.
"I look at the triple-A space and I liken it to a knife fight in a back alley: there's no way to come out without some serious wounds," Oster said. "The bets are so big now; it's $30 million, $40 million to make a triple-A console title. You've got to license the engine, you've got to have a 100-man team, you've got to work for three to four years to make it happen."
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
217 comments
No thanks. This is one I'm glad EA buried. Sounds like Alpha Protocol and a dozen other games I'm struggling to remember names of, for good reason.
I don't see how this is such a big revelation or how this is worthy of the standard "ZOMG BAD EA" response x200. Every major publisher or producer in any entertainment medium around the world, would have a 200-mile long list of shelved or buried ideas far more interesting than 'Bourne-meets-Bond'. Which, by the way, is not "innovative" or "fresh" in the slightest. But once again the EA hate train rolls on, and desperately spews bile at every piece of news they can find to justify their endless frothing rage. GG
No , Oster its better to release a broken un-enhanced version of baldur's gate with some mods that I can get for free off the internet and charge customers $20 for it. Now thats the way to make games!
EA doesn't take good risks silly, I'm not sure they have ever heard of the word innovation, unless they bought it from someone else. That's why they're operating at a loss and could go bankrupt in a few years.
I can see this concept doing as well as Max Payne or L.A. Noire in Rockstar's hands though, so all is not lost.
sooooooo you guys basically wanted to make Alpha Protocol....... I would have been all for it... too bad it is no more :(
1 Like @3v1LR0n1N Alpha Protocol should have been great. They just screwed up it's execution.
2 Like That game already exists. It's called Alpha Protocol and while flawed it is way way better than anything modern Bioware could ever produce.
1 Like Bioware should buy itself out of EA! Why this goddamn huge money eating corporations buy some of the brightest game studios? Prior to being sold to EA, Bioware was doing feaking good job with it's games! A dedicated studio for a dedicated fanbase... now they are ruined! I hate EA for that... and Bioware is not the only example!
@V3rciS Good idea, but the brains behind Bioware have already left. It's just a empty name now like Westwood Studios, Maxis, ect.
It's only a matter of time before EA takes their name off the box.
@V3rciS i want to know why a company would let themselves get bought by EA in the first place, i dont understand how they can be that blind
1 Like @blackothh @V3rciS I don't thing they realized it was happening until it happened. I read about it and it sounded pretty sketch to me. A former EA exec founded an investment group that bought Bioware and Pandemic. It was all supposed to be a hands off sort of relationship but then suddenly the "former" EA exec became the current EA exec and bought the investment group that owned Bioware and Pandemic. Then EA closed Pandemic because they really only wanted Bioware and they have been destroying Bioware ever since.
Bioware being acquired by EA seemed fine for a while, their existing projects (Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins) came out fine, it all felt like yay EA not messing around, then came the ultra tight deadline for ME3 (which still turns into the best ME game for me, a staggering achievement for Bioware given the constraints - and thankfully fixed ending) - probably a bit of an overestimation on Bio's side but definitely EA meddling there, then 2 founders leaving, now this. EA, don't make another Westwood disaster please, you've got some of the best studios in the industry, just don't be so scared of letting them deliver the products that net you the $$$ you love so much please.
@chronocommander Even ME2 wasn't quite as good as their pedigree, and I can understand why. They had already started work on TOR at that point and a bunch of their most experienced/talented writers were shunted over to that project under cover of NDAs. And they've only gotten stretched thinner as time has gone on and veterans left the company to escape EA's well-documented hostile corporate environment.
bioware should go under the radar and move to a remote/secret place in alberta ...then makes a game so impressive so when it resurfaces, it blows my mind. Then, the doctors are back to buy the company back.
wow wishful thinking for year 2020
1 Like he is absolutely right. AAA development is such a behemoth right now that i can hardly blame EA for sticking to the formulaic: when you have that much time and resource at stake, its hard to put it to anything but a sure thing. im loving kickstarter more and more for taking that kind of insane pressure off of the devs back. hopefully it becomes enough of a competitor to force companies like EA to change their tactics as all the major devs realize they can have far more creative freedom and appreciation for their project outside of major publishers while still putting food on the table.
an absolutely brilliant RPG concept....but of course EA wasn't excited because the title didn't start with CoD...black ops something something. i wish the EA guys would just get some sort of amnesia on the way to work one day and end up in a mexican organ stealing hotel in tiajuana. EA is like stage 4 cancer in the gaming industry...not matter what you do, its all phucked to hell and your going to die. or in this case, innovation is dying. hey EA: Go FUK yourselves
Bioware devs, leave EA and fund something through Kickstarter. You'll not only get my money but also my forgiveness for ME3.
That would have been funny. After Obsidian spent years making sequels to BioWare hits, BioWare making an Alpha Protocol sequel would have been cool.
If you haven't played AP, find it and play it. It does the "choice" thing that BioWare always pretends to do and does it really well. It isn't perfect, but it is smart and ambitious. Sad that there will be no AP 2.
@deathstream ambitious maybe, smart? no that game was the hammiest piece of crap that I have ever seen.
5 Like So they wanted to do Alpha Protocol pretty much? I would have been fine with that. Aside from Alpha Protocol's technical issues and a few other things, it was an entertaining game.
Maybe they were afraid it would be another Alpha Protocol. Sounds like it could be great though, which AP reportedly was not :(
@SpacePirate6 It was like a lot of Obsidian games; brilliant concept and strong writing, but technically shaky. Very, very tricky if you built your character wrong, but a blast if you do it right. Of course, there being a "right" way to build your character in an RPG supposedly all about validating choice speaks volumes for how poorly-balanced it is. Still, definitely worth a look.
1 Like @SpacePirate6 reportedly? How about you play the game and find out for yourself. It was very good. Review scores are bought not earned, wake up.
1 Like I don't know about you all, but I think I had an orgasm after reading that headline.
Then, I started reading... saddest orgasm, ever.
@thribs People that hit out with rubbish like this annoy me so much. Have you seen the old Bond movies? Have you read the Bond books?
If so, how you can complain about our current Bond eludes me. Bond is the better, and more faithful to the source material, now than it's ever been. Yes, ever.
@jack_is_cool I just prefer the classic movies, with the gadgets and the over the top baddies. Nothing wrong with that.
1 Like This probably would've been good. As far as "espionage" games go, I still want a No One Lives Forever 3!
"I always think of the scene in the second Bourne movie where Jason Bourne's choking the guy out with a book and he's right in his face and it's this very intense moment. That was one of the key things we wanted to carry off."
pretty sure that was the third bourne movie
After how Alpha Protocol turned out I can't blame them for not being interested in this genre.
3 Like @hamper17 Except Alpha Protocol was published by a mostly-mediocre publisher (SEGA), and built by a lukewarm-quality developer (Obsidian). Hardly comparable.
1 Like I would seriously love more Spy games, and I would rather the game be more "Bourne" than "Bond". I don't know how you can work in getting girls and manipulation into a game.
Three thoughts. 1. Good. It's not like it's the same BioWare that made Awesome games. It's the EA arm that milks Mass Effect and flushed the "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" down the toilet by dumbing it down to painful levels. 2. Trent has been very vocal lately. I love the BGEE so far and have been playing it and falling in love all over agian. BG1 was never as GREAT as BG2 but wow you can see how BioWare has devolved since BG. 3. PS3 exclusive??? Yeah...no insult intended to PS3 gamers but way to crap on your PC roots...but like I said it's not BioWare anymore.
1 Like Good. Maybe a studio that doesn't suck ass could pick-up the idea and run with it - no EA involved = probably turn out pretty good.
1 Like Too be honest I've been waiting for a decent espionage game for years now. And though the Metal Gear and Splinter cell series have been interesting and great. They haven't really been proper espionage. I've wanted something a bit more less action packed, and more speech based. A game where you gathered intelligence, conducted surveillance, focused a lot on player choice, speech choice and and a sandbox world, maybe even the whole world.. However a game like this would take years to make. But I'd be willing to wait.
@splinter10 I concur with Aplha Protocol even can say that its more RPG than a Mass Effect for example
1 Like @splinter10 The only good espionage RPG, IMO, was Alpha Protocol, if you could get over the graphical issues and some of the poor gameplay mechanics. That game, effectively incorporated your choices throughout the game providing you with what seemed like a choice between going rogue or being an agent.
Problem is publishers do not want to take a risk on a genre that isn't tried and true. Although I believe that after Medal of Honor's last two entries into the shooting genre have fallen short, maybe EA should look at publishing something different.
But what do I know...not a CEO, just a consumer...
1 Like @cjf187x @splinter10 If Alpha Protocol's gameplay didn't suck, it would have been a brilliant game. An actual GOOD version of that would be nearly a day-1 purchase for me.
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