Call of Cthulhu: Destiny's End - Development

Development

The game has been in development for at least six years, and the development can be traced back to August 1999 and a Usenet discussion in which the Mythos fans contributed ideas for the game to Headfirst's artist/designer Andrew Brazier. This and other feedback was later used to create the game, which Brazier termed "FPHAS - a First Person Horror Adventure Shooter". The game's protagonist Jack Walters has been repeatedly redesigned before his final look was created by Tim Appleton. Headfirst initially have used the game engine NDL NetImmerse for rendering graphics combined with the Havok physics engine but later developed its own engine.

The first screenshots were shown in December 1999, and the game, originally planned for the PC and PlayStation 2, was scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2001. In 2000, Headfirst secured rights from Chaosium, publisher of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Before E3 2001 the game was stated to be "70 percent complete", but was then repeatedly delayed. In late 2002, the game's original publisher Fishtank Interactive was taken over by JoWood, which had no interest in the title. The developers then signed a deal with Bethesda to release the game for the PC and Xbox, and the development of the PS2 version was cancelled.

Headfirst Productions originally intended for a much larger, nonlinear RPG-type storyline to be fitted within the game, including more characters and locations, as well as a co-operative gameplay system for up to four players, which would have enabled players to pick one of four characters and carry out their own investigation independently or team up with the others (in case of single-player gameplay, the other three investigators would be under computer control). A multiplayer version of the game would have allowed for online deathmatch battles in specifically designed levels. Several other ambitious features, such as a deeper sanity system and high environment interactivity, were also scrapped due to budget and time constraints and problems with the level design. The game was always supposed to use first-person view, but the screenshots from 2001 indicated third-person view stealth gameplay elements. Much of "a wide array of weapons" at the player's disposal was conceived but ultimately removed from the game, including a wooden club, a Mauser rifle and a pump-action shotgun. Various weapon models, including unused ones, and concept arts from the game were released by ex-Headfirst Niel Venter on his deviantART account.

Read more about this topic:  Call Of Cthulhu: Destiny's End

Famous quotes containing the word development:

    The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    Information about child development enhances parents’ capacity to respond appropriately to their children. Informed parents are better equipped to problem-solve, more confident of their decisions, and more likely to respond sensitively to their children’s developmental needs.
    L. P. Wandersman (20th century)

    The Cairo conference ... is about a complicated web of education and employment, consumption and poverty, development and health care. It is also about whether governments will follow where women have so clearly led them, toward safe, simple and reliable choices in family planning. While Cairo crackles with conflict, in the homes of the world the orthodoxies have been duly heard, and roundly ignored.
    Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)