A new detail has fallen into place in the puzzle that has been the BioWare Austin project. While the game's title and theme remain a mystery, we now know that the new game will make use of the Hero engine, originally developed by Simutronics and used in Hero's Journey:
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Simutronics announced today its first licensee for its new HeroEngine, a complete integrated platform for development of massively multiplayer online (MMO) roleplaying games (RPGs). BioWare Austin will use HeroEngine for development of its new MMO project. This game will be the first project for the new Bioware Austin studio. BioWare is one of the leading developers of interactive games, with many hit titles including Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars® Knights of the Old Republic. MMO games are the fastest growing segment of the video games market, with $2 billion in global revenues and growing at a projected $1 billion per year according to DFC Intelligence. Millions of people around the world come together in online games such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and Star Wars Galaxies to cooperate and compete with each other. “At BioWare we selected HeroEngine because it had the most sophisticated and complete development tools available for building an amazing online experience,” said Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director of BioWare Austin. “Our team wanted a great rapid prototyping environment and to work with experienced MMO developers. The HeroEngine from Simutronics is a perfect fit for BioWare Austin’s requirements." Simutronics demonstrated HeroEngine in its booth at the recent Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) and will be showing it again at the Austin Game Conference (AGC) in Austin on September 6th-8th. Simutronics spent the past five years developing this new platform, and has recently begun making HeroEngine available to developers to create their own massively multiplayer online games. “We are thrilled to have BioWare Austin using HeroEngine,” said David Whatley, founder and CEO of Simutronics. “As game developers ourselves, we put careful thought into the features other MMO developers needed. To have an industry leader like BioWare as our first licensee is an honor and strong validation of our team’s hard work and great design.” |
