Nice write up from Escapist magazine that gives a good summary of everything. Definately a good read!
The plan is an ambitious one. An all-star baseball player and videogame geek assembles a crack team to create a blockbuster MMOG that plans to rival anything that Blizzard, SOE or Cryptic has to offer. Schilling’s 38 Studios purchased veteran design house, Big Huge Games, to make a single-player RPG as a prelude to the big MMOG project. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is slated for a Fall 2011 release, and EA has signed on to publish it and help with marketing. That machine began down in San Diego Comic Con and continued at Gen Con this past weekend in Indianapolis. Through it all, the one constant has been the desire to create a living, breathing world that aims to have story consequences for one of the most glaringly unrealistic mechanics in most games; the fact that you can die and come back to life is explained in Amalur by something called the “Well of Souls”. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’m not easily star-struck. But when I met with Curt Schilling, R. A. Salvatore and Mark Nelson from Big Huge Games at Comic Con, I realized that this was group of guys that I admire for very different reasons. R. A. Salvatore is arguably the most successful fantasist of our generation, with a slew of New York Times bestsellers starring the iconic Drizzt Do’Urden. Curt Schilling was the hero of my favorite baseball team as they slew the Yankee dragon in 2004, all while being a huge Everquest gamer. And Mark Nelson, even though his name isn’t instantly recognizable, is responsible for one of the greatest CRPGs of this decade, Oblivion. All three of these gentlemen are at the top of their game. How the hell does this collaboration work?
“In Reckoning, we started with Bob and Todd’s exceptional Kingdoms of Amalur game setting and imagery,” said Ken Rolston, Lead Designer at Big Huge Games, a subsidiary of 38 Studios. “On that foundation we built the open-world exploration, vast narrative and character customization fans expect from the best RPGs. And we’ve added something new that we’ve always wanted from the genre — a fast-paced, graphically stimulating action combat experience with fluid control and immersive, discoverable gameplay fans haven’t seen before in other fantasy RPGs.”
Ken Rolston recently attended the Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS) and on his return has created a blog to supplement his lecture.
