Back in September we reported that EA had closed its Melbourne studio, Visceral Games. Today a source who worked at the studio who wished to not be identified has leaked a video containing footage of the game the studio had spent three years working on before the plug was pulled.
The source tells Kotaku Australia that the studio was working on a game called Blood Dust, a three-faction, third-person multiplayer shooter for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game included nine unique classes, 100 upgradable weapons and abilities, wall walking, and leaping. The game was set in the 1930s and was described as a “run and gun experience”.
Our source tells us that despite the developers at the studio believing that EA had made a bad decision in ceasing production on the game, they were well taken care of and treated respectfully after Visceral’s closure. Many of the developers were offered positions in EA’s US studios, and it is believed that some of the developers from Visceral plan on starting up their own studios. Our source tells us that there is talk of the studio’s former designer, Gerry Sakkas, starting up his own studio with former EA and THQ staff members. Visceral’s former lead artist, Kamil Hamra, is also believed to have plans on opening a studio that will focus on providing art assets for other game companies.
Blood Dust was worked on by many developers from various EA studios, but the core team from Visceral Games in Melbourne consisted of the following developers:
• Adrian Hofman – Engineer
• Alexander Lindsay – Senior engineer
• Andrew Lacey – CTO
• Bruce Sutherland – Engineer
• Cameron Lee – Producer
• David Flower – Senior engineer
• Ewen Vowels – Senior engineer
• Gabor Fekete – Animator
• Geoffrey Lester – Tech artist
• Gerry Sakkas – Designer
• Glen Stuart – Engineer
• Gregory Palstra – DD
• Grigor Pedrioli – Senior artist
• Kamil Hamra – Lead artist
• Luke Carpenter – Lead engineer
• Mark Wayland – Senior engineer
• Matthieu Delbosc -Engineer
• Michael Davies – Lead gameplay engineer
• Mitch Harris – UI artist
• Nathan Thomas – Art director
• Nigel Kay – Engineer
• Rohan White – VFX artist
• Stephen Honegger – Senior artist
• Steven Dickinson – Lead animator
• Tara Caruso – Animaton
* Tejesh Munusamy – Lead QA
• Thomas Johnstone – Engineer
• Michael Hampden – Lead Designer
As with most videos of this nature, it is unlikely that it will remain on YouTube for very long, so have a good look at it before it’s gone!
gingerchris86
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:07 AMThat looks awesome, It’s a pity that the studio was shut down :(
Bluemaxx
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:09 AMThat actually looked pretty good……..DAMN YOU EA!!!!!!!!
Machienzo
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:27 AMGameplay (especially animations) looks exactly like DS2. Love it.
McGarnical
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:32 AMThat did look good.
I read “a three-faction, third-person multiplayer shooter” and instantly thought “meh”, but then I watched the video.
Shame.
Kizaru
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:39 AMReally? That was impressive? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s always a sad thing when projects get canned, but that just looked like a shadows of the damned rip-off with Dead Space controls IMHO.
I think that’s what EA was thinking too. Compared to the Avengers project and Eight Days, this just looks generic, presentation and graphics quality notwithstanding.
We really shouldn’t let sympathy cloud reality, and the reality is, I’m not seeing anything AAA here. Just calling it as I see it.
f4ction
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:06 AMI also don’t see it being anything amazing, sadly. I would have imagined seeing it in the bargain bin about a month after release. Looks like fun, sure, but it also looks almost last-gen.
Still, how are aussie developers supposed to get better at their craft if they keep getting shut down?
Simon
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:12 AMWasn’t it still in development? So they prob hadn’t even done any polish.
PuppyLicks
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 9:58 AMAlways sad to see a studio shut down, especially when they’ve already put so much work into something like this for nothing :(
Luke
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:02 AMwhy would you stop that from being made EA?
DanMazkin
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:12 AMIt’s such a frustrating situation! Its sad as hell to see such a talented team be disbanded, especially when they were working on something that looked so promising.
Still, I can’t hate on EA too much, as the economic situation in the states is pretty awful, probably a lot worse than a lot of people here might realize. I’m sure EA are in full damage-control like a lot of companies like now and would have had no choice to but shut down the studio.
Still, feelsbadman.jpg. Good luck to all the devs on their new projects!
Anon
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 10:16 AMThe video really doesn’t do it justice.
PuppyLicks
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:08 AMI’m guessing that you’ve played it then? Worked on it maybe?
Fenix
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:00 AMGameplay looked pretty sweet, but I can’t see a game like that being a massive hit or anything… just looked a bit generic.
Kudos to the game makers though… I would be mortified if I worked on a project for 3 years and it got pulled, so shit.
Geoerge
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:22 AMI don’t get big publishers at times. This game looked pretty solid at whatever stage it was in, yet here come the big boys to tell them “you’re fired”. Yeah they were treated nicely after the studio was closed, but man, 3 years of working on something that’ll only be seen in a 50 second YouTube clip? I feel sorry for the team. Good luck to them though.
SOX
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:40 AMHaha last year I was working in the same building on the floor above Visceral games. Too bad they got closed down.
so-chic
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 12:30 PMWhat has this got to do with anything?
JdotAING
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 1:03 PMSo does the core team still allowed to continue developing Blood Dust or are the rights to the game owned by EA?
JdotAING
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 1:04 PM*Is the core team
derp
Tracey Lien
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 3:43 PMGiven that EA just had the video removed from YouTube for copyright infringement, my guess would be that EA owns it.
Effluvium Boy
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 4:28 PMSo… 3rd person Brink?
AerintheADEQUATE
Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 3:45 AMI hate it when studios get shut down like that. It seems like this kind of nonsense is becoming the rule rather than the exception.