“Arcade is dead,” Housemarque, the makers of arcade shooters from Super Stardust to Nex Machina, dramatically declared final yr. For them, anyway. So what kind of video games will they make if not arcade? Over the weekend they introduced Stormdivers, “A high flying and heavy hitting multiplayer centric experience.” Whatever which means. Housemarque have hinted that it may be somethinng battle royale-ish, which usually wouldn’t excite me as this craze attracts out, however I’ll give such a effective studio the advantage of the doubt. For now, we will watch a teaser trailer exhibiting a moody forest fairly totally different from the colourblasts I count on from them.
Housemarque defined in Saturday’s announcement that they’ve been engaged on Stormdivers secretly for 2 years.
“As a part of our recent transition away from our core genres, we’ve had a hard look at what really makes up an arcade game and how can we bring those elements to whole new heights,” they mentioned. “Fortunately a few greats have been able to show the way and bring gameplay centric experiences to wider audiences. We hope to expand that progress as we bring our explosive effects and second-to-second gameplay to new genres.”
Cryptic. Speaking with Eurogamer, Housemarque head of publishing Mikael Haveri hinted at extra.
“You can compare it to a lot of the multiplayer experiences you have now,” Haveri advised me, which I remarked gave the impression of Housemarque was doing a Fortnite recreation – a battle royale recreation. “That’s a very good assumption,” he replied.
I don’t know if I’d take that to imply they’re making merely one other Plunkbut, however it will appear they’re drawing one thing from the hit style of the second.
“It’s fast, very gameplay centric,” he added. “We hope when people pick it up they start feeling good. We want there to be adrenaline, we want them to be moving, we want them to be really getting into it – a fast experience where you have to go outside and take a breather from it. Couple that with visual flair; you play Resogun, you see all this stuff exploding and going off – that’s what we’re bringing to the multiplayer. This is a Housemarque take.”
Well, so long as it has Housemarque explosions.
No phrase but on when Stormdivers can be launched. Housemarque say “It will be the first title that we treat as an on-going service, this also means that there are ways to get to play it earlier and we’d love to develop it further with a feedback loop in mind.” So… early entry?
And Housemarque inform EG that they’re engaged on a much bigger recreation too.
This is all very unusual from a studio identified for fantastic arcade video games, however I’m definitely curious to see what they’ll do in different areas.
