News of Creative Assembly’s next game has been pretty thin on the ground so far despite a release supposedly happening in the current fiscal year, so naturally the question of ‘what’s happening there?’ came up during SEGA’s recent management meeting.
The answer from the company’s president was quick to point out stumbling blocks in development, but kept it pretty vague after that.
There are several obstacles that we need to overcome for the FPS developed in Europe studio and we would like to launch the product after properly overcoming these obstacles and achieving a satisfactory quality level. We’d like you to wait for the update of information.
An ambiguous answer to why we have yet to see anything concrete from the follow-up to Creative Assembly’s hit Alien Isolation, but another answer to a question regarding the impact on handling overseas studios, especially in a COVID-hit time, likely gives us at least one obstacle.
“As for the project management of overseas studios, the current head of SEGA Europe has experience in managing development companies, and is very good at communicating with studios. For example, when he shows us an organization chart, he always has the image that the studio is at the top and he is at the bottom. He has instilled in the studios under SEGA Europe his spirit that the management supports the studio, and is building a trusted relationship between the two.
We have been able to build a relationship where we can frankly say anything within the group including the headquarters, even in the current environment where it is difficult to have face-to-face meetings. In particular, we believe that our stance of protecting and respecting the identity of the studios that joined the group through M&A is a major reason why they are functioning well.
As for the difficulty we are facing recently, I think it all comes down to the management under the impact of COVID-19. In addition, the game market is currently in a battle for how to acquire the developers, so we are struggling with the same issues with other companies for how to acquire human resources and their retention.”</b>
All we do know about Creative Assembly’s next game, first announced three years ago, is that it’s a tactical first-person shooter set in space, and is a brand new IP.
There’s certainly more risk in starting from fresh, so that’s probably going to cause its own lengthy issues. Hopefully, we’ll see something from the game this year.
