Of course this game will be awesome. He looks like the frickin' Rocketeer!
Just like last year, this Christmas’ new games slate went lighter than planned, as quite a few high priority games’ release dates slipped into the first quarter of next year. Hardly anyone wants to delay a project release, especially when you consider how long the development cycle on current gen games can get. But sometimes a game could benefit from a few more months of polishing, as was the case with this year’s GOTY contender Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Other times, a real juggernaut hits retail, and it makes more sense for a publisher to hold back a release until it can find more room in headlines and on shelves. Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Brothers Wii in particular sucked all the air out of the room this year.
It’s been fascinating to watch what Capcom’s community team and developer Airtight Games have been doing with the extra time until the release of their delayed title, Dark Void. Of course, they’ve checked all the necessary boxes: a fan site, a Facebook page, and a Twitter feed. Their Twitter community manager is really committed to speaking as the character of a survivor from within the Void, and ties in the game’s fiction nicely with even routine things like giveaway contests.
And this is where it gets really cool. Last week Capcom announced Dark Void Zero, an 8-bit “prequel” to their soon-to-be-released current gen game. Retro lightning already struck twice for Capcom, with Mega Man 9 and the outstanding Bionic Commando: Rearmed, so why not try for a third? But Mega Man and Bionic Commando really are established, well-loved franchises with all the history and nostalgia that entails.
Dark Void’s a completely new IP. And it’s been hard out there for a pimp new property lately. Just ask EA! On top of developing an impressive fiction to serve the current-gen Dark Void game and the fan community, AND developing a fun 8-bit game to expand that universe and generate buzz, big C also developed a suitable backstory for the 8-bit game, as if the property had existed during that era.
All this attention to detail in the pre-release period has elevated Dark Void from a title I was merely interested in to pretty much a must-buy on day 1. I’ll probably download Dark Void Zero to boot. Well played, Capcom.
