In the second of our two-part interview, CVG catches up with Rebellion co-founder Jason Kingsley to find out more about the AvP game he helped create...
How have you made sure you won't disappoint fans of either Aliens or Predator? Aliens vs. Predator was one of the brands that launched us as a studio, so it's very much a baby of ours. We've had a lot of successes since - not least with The Simpsons Game, Sniper Elite and Rogue Trooper, which was nominated for two BAFTAs.
But quite frankly, we've also done a few games that haven't been so good - I won't talk about them because we were disappointed by them. But I can say that usually it comes down to time. This time we've worked very closely with Vivendi initially and now Sega, who took it over, and we've had the time to make a great game.
We've had the patience and resources of a fantastic publisher in Sega - which makes all the difference. If we can't make a great game out of this, we should be ashamed of ourselves, but I'm confident in saying that we've done just that. I'll let people judge whether we've made a perfect game, and sometimes expectations have to be managed. But we're very excited, we've made the best game we can - and we're very proud of it.
Is AvP something you'd consider delving back into in the future? Very much so - both in terms of DLC and a further sequel. We've got a lot of ideas that even with the budget and time we had, we'd still like to do more of or revisit.
Much of that will come down to Fox or Sega, but it's looking like it's going to be a massive success, which is fantastic - pre-orders are very high, as is excitement online. We've got our Australian release, which is interesting [laughs], but so far everything is looking good for the first half of this year.
Are you working on DLC already? Yeah, absolutely. We're in the phase where we enter submissions. The teams are having a break and coming up with ideas - and we've had a lot of thoughts of what we'd like to do for DLC. We're discussing things with Sega at the moment. The amount of DLC will depend on Sega's commercial requirement, but we'd definitely love to do a lot.
And in terms of another AvP game? Definitely. We've learnt a lot doing this game and we can really build on this and go further than what we've done so far. You always have to draw the line at some stage and polish what you have, get the frame rate up and get the gameplay working brilliantly. But there are a lot of ideas we came up with that we just couldn't fit in. There are a lot of unanswered questions in the Aliens and Predator canon we'd love to play with.
How do you deal with the pressures of Australia's restrictions on adult games? Australia's got its own rules, and the authorities have to obey by them - but that doesn't stop them being a bit odd. I love the Aussies - they're basically Britain in the sun, aren't they? They've just got this weird anomaly in their legal system, which means adult gamers aren't considered.
There's one particular person over there in a position of power over changing the laws. He has his very strong ideas about what you can and can't do with you're life. He's patriarchal and entitled to his beliefs I suppose, but that doesn't stop them being wacky.
We got a 15-rating over there, which is good news as gamers can get their hands on it [it's an 18-rated title in the UK]. It's quite a bloody and violent game - as it should be, being based on horror movies - but we, with Sega, refused to change the content for any market. 99 per cent of people have said "good on you". It wouldn't have been right to do so without completely losing the reason for the game itself.
The obvious question now: Do you believe you've got a 'Game Of The Year' on your hands with AvP? Absolutely, I would love to think so, yes. It will be up to other people to judge, and it of course depends on what else comes out during the year. Games developers are competitive types. I'm always impressed by what other people do.
If we're lucky then we've got a definite contender for game of the year, but it's very early to call that. It would be brilliant to win some awards. As a company we're very much focusing on quality for the future. We've had a lot of commercial success recently, and we need to concentrate on quality and visuals. This is the first of those games where we've had the opportunity to do so.
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