R. Talsorian's Hiatus and Video Game Design
Around the year 2000 Mike Pondsmith shifted from pen and paper game design back to video game design. Between 2000 and 2004 he was employed as a Design Manager at Microsoft where he contributed to various games (mostly to the lineup of the original Xbox console's exclusive titles) released by the company's Microsoft Game Studios. In MechCommander 2 released in 2001 he played the role of Steel, a character featured in cut-scenes (he also voiced the character for the in-game chatter between characters). He's also credited in Stormfront Studios' Blood Wake released in the same year. The last title he was credited with that was developed for Microsoft was Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (2003) after which he departed to join Monolith Productions in 2004 where he worked on The Matrix Online (2005).
The idea of a Matrix game was initially pitched internally at Microsoft by Pondsmith and one of his coworkers but despite advanced talks with Wachowski brothers, the project never came to fruition. Pitches to Shiny Entertainment didn't succeed either and only later he learned that a Matrix game was being worked on at Monolith. Given the opportunity to join the live team (responsible for maintaining game and producing content post-launch) he decided to change employers. Pondsmith ended up doing mission design for the game under the auspices of Online Creative Director and Lead Game Designer Toby Ragaini.
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