In a somewhat excitement-tampering interview with GI.biz, Realtime Worlds CEO David Jones appears to be licking his wounds over Microsoft’s decision to let Ruffian games develop the upcoming Crackdown sequel:
The bottom line is that what we thought would happen is that a
sequel would be done by a studio somewhere… maybe one of the internal
studios, or others that they’ve worked with, and that would be the way
it went forward.
I think it was unfortunate that it had to be with a start-up in
Dundee… it is challenging to get enough developers in one region as
it is, so that was the only little big of negativity to the story.
It’s just one of those awkward moments. In terms of the franchise,
as always – as with anything we’ve created – we’re always keen to see
it do great things. This is like a bump in the road… was there really
no way it could have been done by one of the studios Microsoft shut
down…?
Since Realtime Worlds is still finishing up their sandbox actioner APB, the transition to Ruffian games seemed more like a logistical decision than anything else, especially considering that Ruffian’s founders were members of the original Crackdown team. Apparently the handoff was less than amicable. This might portend bad things for the game, but perhaps this is just David Jones blowing off steam as a result of losing creative control of his baby.
Barring a brutal clash between warring Scottish developers, expect both APB and Crackdown 2 in 2010. And is that Ray Stevenson in the screencap above?