Let's talk about ambition and technology.
Technology marches on, our computers get faster, our devices get smaller, our dreams get closer to realization. I stand by what I said in the awards for best of Gamescom, sometime recently games on mobile got gorgeous and I never knew.
I sat down to play with Shadowgun Legends and I still can't quite believe it was a mobile game.
Ambition
If you've met or talked to Miguel Caron you know he is a passionate man. He's at his best when he is excited about something and despite running on two hours of sleep that Friday morning, he was still animated and excited. Miguel first came to my attention with his work on Eternal Crusade for Behaviour Interactive and when he moved onto Madfinger Games, I will admit I was surprised. I think that many people, like me, look down somewhat on mobile games. This can be especially true looking down from the ivory tower of AAA studio PC only gorgeous games. Maybe you just don't like the games because your commute is too short, or because your commute doesn't lend itself to blasting bad guys while you get to work. Maybe you're completely into mobile games and face the same problem there as people do on Steam, a vast library of choice.
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Shadowgun Legends is aiming to cross that divide in gaming. It is a persistent world shooter on mobile. Given the descriptions of the hub areas and the mission possibilities, it'd be fair to draw comparisons to Destiny but mobile. Can they pull it off? Everything I saw and played was beautiful looking and fun to play with. I think they absolutely can pull it off. Naturally because they went and hired Miguel Caron, you can expect his flair and style to come to the fore. Livestreams on Twitch and videos on YouTube are already in the works to show the development process to fans and the curious alike. Competitions are in the planning stages, suffice to say it'll be a ride.
Technology
Just having passion isn't enough if you don't have the talent. I hadn't heard of Madfinger Games before Miguel joined so naturally it was something we had to talk about. Madfinger have put out ten games in six years and over that time they've clocked up 160 million downloads of these games. Head to the Play Store and its high ratings all around. Worried that there won't be enough content in Shadowgun Legends? There will be the option for players to create missions. They've previously released modding tools for Shadowgun Deadzone. The Czech team seem to know what they're doing and have a proven body of work behind them in mobile first person shooters.
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Will it all come together the way they hope? I hope so. Anyone who bought into the micro-console hype probably has an NVidia Shield or Razer Forge sitting somewhere waiting for some love. Everyone else, with the glut of smartphones with bigger screens and better insides, there's no shortage of devices for people to try this grand idea out on. If a mobile title with player made missions, in game housing, persistent world hubs and customizable weapons sounds a bit farfetched, you better get used to the idea. This is coming down the line and may well completely change how MMO players feel about mobile titles.
If nothing else, the ball is in your court Bungie. The Czech Republic is working on bringing our persistent world games to tablets, mobiles and micro-consoles, who else wants to buy into the vision?
