Ex-People Can Fly devs start The Astronauts
Three devs from Bulletstorm dev People Can Fly have branched out to form a new development house called The Astronauts. They have also licensed Unreal Engine 3 tech for their future games.
Three developers from Bulletstorm's People Can Fly have flown the coop to start a new company called The Astronauts. As part of the announcement, the group has licensed Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games for their future projects.
Epic bought the studio in mid-August. The trio, who have worked on such games as Bulletstorm, Painkiller, and most recently Gears of War: Judgment, said the goal of the studio is to put a Neil Armstrong-sized footprint on the gaming scene.
In licensing the Unreal Engine 3, which the team has already worked with for six years, they joked: "We thought about making our own engine for our projects. That lasted about ten seconds, nine of which were filled with laughter."
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John Keefer posted a new article, Ex-People Can Fly devs start The Astronauts.
Three devs from Bulletstorm dev People Can Fly have branched out to form a new development house called The Astronauts. They have also licensed Unreal Engine 3 tech for their future games.-
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It's all in the actual article =\
http://theastronauts.com/2012/10/btw-who-are-we/ -
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There's been a bit of an exodus from Epic in terms of higher-level creative and technical talent:
- Lee Perry, once the Gears of War 3 gameplay designer, and the lead on Fortnite when it was announced in December, left in July 2012 to start BitMonster.
- Rod Fergusson, director of production on the Gears franchise, left in August 2012 and joined Irrational Games to work on Bioshock Infinite.
- Most recently before this announcement, Cliff Bleszinski announced his departure in early October, weeks after participating in a Reddit iAmA thread.
I'm a bit disturbed that the most prominent producer still at Epic that I can recall is Tanya Jessen, most famous for her "You scared the dick off me!" commentary on Bulletstorm's PR ramp-up. And it's really obvious that Mark Rein and Michael Capps are running the show, pushing hard on established franchises (Gears, Infinity Blade) or established trends (iOS games, MOBA / Minecraft). Hopefully they have an upcoming announcement of something with a change of creative direction, because they seem stuck in a creative rut, even if it's wildly successful from a financial perspective. -