Hi-Fi RUSH turned out to be an absolute banger of a shadow drop last month, with developer Tango Gameworks delivering one of the highlights of the year so far right onto Xbox Game Pass. While the title was in production well before Xbox bought owner Bethesda, the team has had positive things to say about Microsoft's involvement, or lack thereof, in development.
In a new interview with outlet UnGeek, game director John Johanas touched on what it meant to work with Xbox as Hi-Fi RUSH development was coming to a close.
"The acquisition happened, so that made it a bit easier for us because we were able to focus on which platforms it will be released to help us polish the experience.
Other than that, it really didn’t have any effect on the development.
In that sense, the experience with Xbox was positive, because there was no interference in a good way. They were like ‘go ahead with what you think sounds cool.’"
Johanas reiterated that Microsoft is keen to keep Bethesda running pretty much as it did pre-acquisition, which is something we've heard directly from Xbox in the past. While we'd like to see Microsoft build more teams from the ground-up, it's good to see the the company stays hands-off when needed.
Bethesda's next pre-acquisition project to see the light of day will be Arkane's Redfall, which launches on Xbox Game Pass in May. Let's hope a similar stance was taken there - just like Tango, we trust in Arkane to deliver something great!
Have you played Hi-Fi RUSH yet? What do you make of it? Leave your thoughts down below.
[source ungeek.ph]
Comments 17
Good for them, it's a great and fun game and already one of the best surprises of the year (Along with the also shadow dropped and amazing Metroid Prime remaster).
If there gonna create more studios I'd expect them to be in Asia.
@Moonglow To me, building things up in that way would show that MS has some sort of vision for future content on Xbox. Buying studios is clearly an option but surely just going out and buying whole studios/publishers isn't always the answer?
It seems to be the only way Xbox can get things off the ground though, at least at the minute.
Can we stop with these types pf post. They are owned by Microsoft so obviously they are gonna say good things
Nice to hear the experience of producing a game for xbox is largely unchanged in that they just let you get on with it.
That was my experience 15 years back, and it was an approach I approved of...
@Moonglow Ikr, look at The Initiative, it is a team built from the ground up that hasn’t released anything in almost 5 years, and of course they’ve been called out for not releasing anything but that’s how creating a new studio works.
Some people want new studios built from the ground up but they also want games to be released right now, it just doesn’t work that way…
@Kezelpaso There vision for Xbox was no Xbox. Now they’ve decided they quite like our money so their vision is a subscription service. A subscription service doesn’t survive on waiting for content. They need games out regularly and consistently. And given we all know how useless MS are at getting their own games out it makes sense buying publishers who are capable of managing their games.
The other alternative I think MS should be looking into is exactly what Sony do to fill their calendar and invest more in AAA 3rd party marketing ensuring these games get put onto gamepass day 1…rather than blocked for years.
Can we even name one 3rd party AAA game that Sony didn’t/doesn’t have the marketing rights to?
I highly doubt they'd say anything bad about the company that owns them lol
@Rmg0731
And if we stop these posts we should stop all posts about third party opinions of their experience with Microsoft too.
Opinions are biased by the fact they are opinions. Whether owned or not owned by MS.
@Would_you_kindly So why do you keep commenting here if you hate Microsoft, are only interested in Sony, and feel a need to push negativity everywhere on an Xbox site as a result? Don't you have anything better to do? Go hang out with Sony fans if you're such a fan of them.
@NeoRatt I find it funny how some people apparently go to an Xbox site only to be offended at how it discusses Xbox stuff that attracts Xbox fans.
Removed - flaming/arguing; user is banned
Removed - flaming/arguing
Removed - flaming/arguing; user is banned
@Would_you_kindly that could and should be said of all studios then and i would largely agree unless it was just straight awful, then they might speak out.
@Green-Bandit well yeah it's not exclusive to this one I was just saying that they weren't going to say anything bad about they're bosses lol
@Would_you_kindly right as they shouldn’t unless it is really ugly between the two. Airing dirty laundry just to make a headline online is common practice these days and it’s good to have both sides talk nicely of each other and let the game do the talking and so far that game has been a nice success for everyone involved.
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