Over the past 10 years, ever since we saw the last of the critically-acclaimed Homeworld series, a number of key developers working on games for developers Relic left the studio. Many of them have now settled in at a new home, Blackbird Interactive, where they’re working on “an ambitious and original sci-fi social strategy game” called Hardware.
Among them are Rob Cunningham, who aside from being one of the founders of Relic was also Homeworld’s art director. There’s also Aaron Kambeitz, the lead artist on Homeworld. Alongside them are guys like Cody Kenworthy (a former Relic art director and visual development supervisor) and former EA Sports guru Yossarian King, who had a big hand in each of the publisher’s FIFA, NHL and NBA franchises.
Hardware is set in a future sci-wi world dominated by Long March Industries, a “ruthless interstellar megacorporation” that controls a lucrative mining planet. This basically entails keeping an eye on the galactic gold rush that’s descended on the planet, with the teams of miners coming in to explore, dig and fight each other forming the guts of the game.
Blackbird say you’ll be commanding “a fleet of massive vehicles” in your travels/fights, and that the interaction between players will make Hardware “the world’s first planetary-scale social strategy game.”
Which may be true, it may not be, who knows. We’ve seen nothing of the game other than concept art, but given the pedigree of the artists involved and how damn pretty it looks, I figured it was more than worth sharing.
We’ll hopefully have more on Hardware in the new year, because damn, this art is hot.
Oh, and Homeworld fans should note: there are spaceships buried in the sand…
nebarik
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 5:07 PMsoooooo pretttyy
Chazz
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 6:00 PMIt’s amazing what some guys can do.
Drunkin Punkin
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 6:48 PMHuge fan of the Homeworld series, here’s hoping it’s set in the same universe.
Aidan
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 7:38 PMPretty.
Andrew
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 8:27 PMYou say Homeworld, I say how much?
Robafett
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 9:39 PMYo dawg, we heard you like trucks……..
psyman
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 1:14 AMHomeworld has, by far, my favourite sci-fi vehicle designs of any form of media. I can never get enough of the concept art. It’s just awesome that 3 senior artists from Relic have a hand in this. Bioware should contract them for Mass Effect, they would knock it out of the park.
Jorzza
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 6:09 AMplease and thank you
must have:
real good engine Eg. frostbite, Cry Engine 2, whatever mass effect 3 is using.
good controls.
good game play.
modding support.
story.
Fest
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 11:49 AMThe art (and the homeworld art too) is derived from Christopher Foss, a sci fi artist from the 80′s. He was credited in Homeworld I think, and the space ships in the sand thing is one of his staples http://www.chrisfossart.com/
NSnackAttack
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 2:07 PMIts a facebook game.
How disappointing.
Guess we will never see a true ‘spiritual successor’ to homeworld.
Zeruel
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 12:02 AMHomeworld introduced me to Yes. The song ‘Homeworld (The Ladder) is played during credits…also, the relevant Yes CD has a demo of the game on it!
In case you needed a reminder.
http://youtu.be/–1fwHLPJP0
Also, original game had a nice chunky manual with fiction and story.
I miss that.
Franz
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 10:46 PMDrop ‘social’, it’s a swear word, I don’t like the way this is heading.
Looks decent though. Ok, the concepts are all stolen but we’d be glad to have a quality game to help us break away from the churned out filth available now.