IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Necessary Force Needed to Get Midway Newcastle Money

Posted June 17, 2009 by David Radd

Midway Newcastle is currently seeking a bidder for its open-world crime game, detailed in a recent story here on IndustryGamers.  A flash website today revealed that the title is called Necessary Force, and it's something that studio head Craig Duncan says the whole team wants to work on.

“It's really important that people know that this is a team that wants to stick together - sometimes when you look at buying a studio you can worry that the real talent, the people, will just flee the ship, leaving you with some IP, kit and an empty building; the pieces of the puzzle that aren't really worth anything,” said Duncan to Develop. “But everyone here as worked together for at least two years, with the original core team still together after about ten years. We’ve been through the ups and downs and all want to stay working together.”

Necessary Force is about a cop who's seeking justice in a morally gray world, which is probably a story that most people in America have read or seen before, but perhaps have not tackled realistically in a game. “The idea of a detective who sets his own rules is the sort of story that’s been around in movies for a while, but we don’t think anyone’s managed to capture the essence of those choices and consequences in games,” says Duncan. “That unprecedented level of open world influence and troubled morality is something we’re really keen to explore.”

The Wheelman, Midway Newcastle's last project, was the first open-world title using the Unreal Engine 3.  Now, the team is throughly familiar with the technology and ready to adapt it to Necessary Force.

“UE3 is built for characters walking through levels, not people speeding at more than 100 miles per hour through a seamless world," said Duncan. "So that was a challenge, but we’ve overcome that – we’ve now got about 35 man years of tech on top of base Unreal. So now we can say that we’re really proficient with the engine, and that we’ve got this great base of technology for open-world games. Plus, we’re also getting the stock benefits of Unreal – the great toolset that lets our artists and designers get creating and iterating quickly. It’s the best of both worlds.”

“Operationally we’ve really hit our stride now,” pitched Duncan. “We know what we are capable of and that we would make a strong addition to any company.”

We're sure that the economy in this situation is just killer for Midway Newcastle; at any other time in the past 10 years, people would be lining up to finance this new project, but now it seems likely it will never see the light of day. We still hold out hope though.

David Radd has worked as a gaming journalist since 2004 at sites such as GamerFeed, Gigex and GameDaily Biz.