Ultra Ultra, the small Copenhagen-based studio behind sci-fi stealth-puzzler Echo, have formally closed their doorways as we speak. Announced quietly through Twitter, they state that “Ultra Ultra has ceased to exist”. I’d at all times been conscious that Echo had by no means bought in addition to it ought to have, but it surely’s nonetheless tragic to listen to that such a gifted workforce are going their separate methods only a yr and a half from the discharge of their first game. There is one small bit of fine information – the recently-optioned movie (as reported by Deadline) continues to be in manufacturing, additionally confirmed by the studio via Twitter.
While some facets of Echo ended up placing individuals off, together with some sharp issue spikes and re-use (nonetheless intentional and intelligent) of environments, I discovered the game enthralling from starting to finish. For those that haven’t performed it, it’s the closest I’ve seen to Ian M Banks’s sci-fi – particularly the Culture collection – represented in videogame kind. It’s a small, private story a couple of younger lady on the run and a sardonic sentient spacecraft, wrapped round a giant lump of inscrutable cosmic weirdness. If that isn’t Banks in a nutshell, I actually don’t know what’s.
It is, oddly sufficient, exacty the type of game I’d like to see tailored to movie, though I’m unsure the Hollywood method would work. The game has a vocal forged of two, and solely one in every of them has a human face. It takes place in an infinite fractal construction – a nanotech-age palace of gold-trimmed marble halls endlessly repeated. It’s the type of set that would wish intensive CG simply to painting, however in a videogame is a formidable instance of a small variety of artwork belongings used economically. They have been clearly a sensible workforce – unsurprising, as many have been previously of Hitman studio Io.
Echo stays out there on Steam and GOG for £19/€23/$25. The game will stay stocked in shops for the foreseeable future. I want the employees at Ultra Ultra a swift journey and a following wind within the seek for work, and hope to see their model shining by in different games sooner or later.
