How the creators of Mafia III went astray

Today I read the review of Alexei Likhachev to the defective version of GTA, where he referred to the famous article by Jason Schraer for Kotaku about the problems when creating Mafia III. Despite the fact that I heard about the story itself, I was somehow too lazy to read the original material, I was waiting for the translation. However, there is no translation all, but if something is not, then why not make it yourself?

I must say right away, this is not a literal translation, rather an essay, since I have lowered many journalist cliches and self -evident explanations that exist more for filling words. A third of empty walls went there, I tried to leave only the essence, message and most quotes.

I also note for the inattentive ones – the original article was written in 2018, so take into account the level of its relevance, especially in the segment with the conclusions.

So, let’s get down.

How the Makers of Mafia III Lost their Way

Schraer, on the basis of complete anonymity, interviewed a dozen 13 people involved in Hangar who talked about the problematic development of Mafia III, studio troubles of 2017 and attempts to develop a new IP about spies in the setting of Berlin of the 1980s.

In mid -2016, a few months before the release of his first game, in the Hangar 13 studio, which was in the city of Novato, in the state of California, a general meeting was held. On it, according to those present, Kristof Hartmann, President of 2k, announced to the employees that their bonuses would depend on the rating on Metacritic. Now no one remembers specific numbers, someone talks about 85 points, someone is about 80.

In any case, this does not matter-now the Mafia III rating is 68 points, and despite the fact that someone received some bonuses, they were less in any case than if the game met the requirements of the publisher.

However, it will be later, and at the time of the meeting, despite the affected moral spirit, optimism reigned in the studio. And after commercial success – 2K boasted of the sales of the game, calling it the “best -selling game” in the history of the publisher – the employees felt that, thanks to the experience gained and packed, they would be able to achieve more.

However, after a year and a half, the hangar 13 became a completely different place. All year, the studio could not decide on what its next project will be, and the studio staff was completely pleased with two waves of dismissal and the departure of almost the entire leadership-an art director, a technical art director, a design director, lead designers, producers, etc. D. Someone left voluntarily, someone was fired or moved to other units and cities. Some were transferred to the neighboring building to the secret development of the new bio -shock.

Angar 13 survived two stages of dismissal – the first, in mid -2017, managed to hide, the second, during which the company transferred part of the employees from the United States to the Czech Republic (Brno) and Britain (Brighton) with a reduction in salaries, the press secretary 2K commented as follows:

Hangar 13 restructuring at the beginning of this year was caused by the need for 2K to scale resources accordingly, based on the terms of the project and long-term businesses 2K, and in no way was a reflection of the progress of the team or creative process. These are always difficult solutions, and we made every effort to help the affected. It is important to note that half of these people offered transfers to other teams within Hangar 13 or other studios within 2K in order to preserve the best talents, and, fortunately, many decided to stay in our organization.

At present, Hangar 13 has more than 150 people, and its key units are expanding. The creation of games is a creative process, and the work of Hangar 13 over the past year has led to the creation of a new exciting project. 2K remains a completely committed talented team, the leadership of the studio, their creative vision and further development of the studio.

The Restructuring At Hangar 13 Earlier this Was a Result of 2k’s Need to Scale Resources Appropriately Based on Project Timelines and 2k’s Long-Term Business BusinesObjectives, and were in no way a reflection of the Team’s Progress or Creative Process. These are Always Difficult Decisions, and We Made Effort To Assist Those Affected. It is Important to not that Half of Those Individuals Were Offhed Transfers to Other Teams Within Hangar 13 or Elsewhere Within 2k In Order To Retain Top Talent, and Happily, and Happily, and HappilyMany Havy Chosen to Remain Within Oour Organization.

Hangar 13 Currently Has More than 150 Team Members, And is Alread Growing in Key Departments. Making Games is a Creative Process, and Hangar 13’s Work Over The Last Year Has Resulted in An Excitation New Project. 2K Remains Fully Committed to the Talented Team, The Studio Leadership, Their Creative Vision, and the Continood Future Growth of the Studio.

The publisher did not specify how many of these 150 people are in the USA, and how many in Europe. However, according to the calculations of the developer team, at the time of the Mafia III exit, from a hundred to one hundred, to one hundred and fifty people, which indicates a serious reduction in the headquarters. The mood of the employees has also changed – if earlier in conversations with Schraer, employees hoped for more, now they are only full of bewilderment.

So what happened? Schraer, on the basis of complete anonymity, interviewed a dozen 13 people involved in Hangar, who talked about the problematic development of Mafia III, studio troubles of 2017 and attempts to develop a new IP about spies in the setting of Berlin of the 1980s.

On December 4, 2014, the 2K publisher widely announced the creation of the new Hangar 13 gaming studio, who, according to its director, honored commander, former Lucasarts employee and creator Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Hayden Blackman, create a plot oriented to the AAA console.

Shumikhu was also fueled by the fact that Blackman recruited other former Lucasarts employees, even jokes that the studio should be called Hangar 1313.

In fact, a freshly -incurred studio for several months has been working on a rather unexpected, for the American public, a project. The first mafia developed for the PC Czech studio Illusion SoftWorks in 2002 was little known to the United States, as it overshadowed the more breakthrough and cross -platform GTA III, and the second mafia, during the problem development of which Illusion SoftWorks was redeemed and became a subsidiary under the name 2kCzech came out immediately after the Red Dead Redemption, and, according to analysts, I hardly paid for six years of development. Therefore, no one was waiting for the Third Mafia, however, it took its development in the Czech Republic, but for three years they have not achieved any significant results, simply not understanding which direction to develop a series.

“They Had Spun Their Wheels for a Long Time,” Said One Person Familiar with the Game. “2K Wasn’s Happy with it, So Goal Was to Bring the Game Over to Novato, Bring in the New Blood and Ass.”

By mid -2013, 2k was rebooted https://Nonukcasinosites.co.uk/Casinos-Not-on-GamStop/ by Mafia III and completely transferred the project from the Czech Republic to California. During the remaining 2013 – early 2014, the new leader, Blackman, quietly recruited employees throughout the state. Not only former Lucasarts colleagues, but also 2K Marin (Bioshock 2), former 2K CZECH employees (they were well acquainted with the engine), as well as a number of other studios were hired.

The developers, led by Blackman and writer William Harms, did not want to make a typical game about bandits in the open world, they wanted to tell a story that would cause conversations, reasoned on topics that are weakly touched upon by other gamemeiders, and eventually agreed on the linear history of revenge in the new Orleans of the 1960s. However, one of the 2K bosses, Christoph Hartmann, intervened in the development, and demanded to make a competitor GTA – with the scale and construction of a criminal empire.

Interestingly, Rockstar (series GTA, RDR) also belonged to 2K and always ahead of the mafia both in success and in scale.

As a result, when the game went to production in 2014, it became both Openvorld and the game with a claim. And, of course, faced serious difficulties .

Some of them were typical for Gamdev. For example, the engine, inherited from Illusion, continued to develop in parallel with the development of the game, which led to downtime, when artists and designers were waiting for their instruments to earn properly.

In addition, specific problems occurred, for example, large sections of the engine code were accompanied by comments in Czech and programmers often had to deal.

Almost all the code was written on a mixture of Czech and English, therefore, when you tried to debug something, you turned to the engineer, and if he did not say in Czech, they first had to translate into English what was written in the comments, then check whether they understood and only then solve the problem.

Almost the Whole Codebase Was Written in Anmalgamation of English and Czech. Wen you were trying to debug someting, you’d go to an Engineer, and if the different speak czech they’d have to first tenate Whatslate looking at in thecomments to English, Check That Translation, then Trary to See If They Cold Fix The Problem

Angar 13 also faced the problem of natural segregation between Czechs and Americans. Despite the fact that there was no enmity between the old and the new team, the Czechs preferred to spend time in isolation, they even had lunch and walked exclusively with each other. Plus, Czech education was different from the American.

Also, according to employees, one of the biggest problems was that the leadership made most decisions at the last stages of development. In general, this is a common problem of developing large games, leading to big time loss due to changes in functions.

“In a large studio, the longer you move in an unsuccessful direction, the worse it becomes. Therefore, such things are difficult to fix. And it takes a lot of time to bring these things to a finished look. I think the studios do not know how to endure the failure in the early stages, and therefore go too far before understanding that the mistake has been made. “

– said one of the project participants.

With a big studio, the more you push in the wrong direction, The Worse Things Get, Becase It’s Hard to Correct Those Things. And it Takes a Lot of Time to Get Things to a Finished State. I Think Studios Are not Very Good at Failing Early and Failing Offten – Their Ideas Way Too Far

When Mafia III came out, many criticized the game for the repostability and forced capture of the districts, which frankly tired at a certain stage. However, for a long time this system was not in the game. Instead, the bosses could be attacking at any time, regardless of how much the character was equipped, but it turned out on the play tests that if you give players the opportunity to access these missions at once, then gamers began to rush into a suicide attack over and an adverse impression of the game. In the end, the developers came to the fact that they did not like this alignment and we need to urgently solve the problem.

“We have tried many options, but this happened at such a late development stage that we had no choice but to put Paywol from the amount of damage on minions”

We Tried All Sorts of Different Ways to Solve Its, “But it was so desherpment, The only thief could come up with was it is it behind Damage.”

As a result, the game turned out to be much more than grinding than could be if the problem was found earlier. “Six months of work in a certain direction, this is a lot, especially when you have to go back”

People who worked on the mafia 3 say that the developers argued with managers on this topic constantly. They talked about what should become a problem, how to identify it, and how to fix it. Almost everyone with whom Schraer spoke was told one story: the designers and other involved, playing the game, unanimously claimed that the district system was too reproduced and it needs to be changed, while managers believed that the idea could work, and you just need to see all the elements collected together.

“That for which we were criticized after the release, it was always clear. We just could not succeed. The game was boring and reproductive – and we all knew this for many years, we raised this topic hundreds of times, but we could not convince the highest leadership. And then testing on focus groups began, and the testers told us that the “game is too grind”, to which we replied that “we are in beta testing, nothing can be done”. The mafia could be better than it turned out. We all knew about the problems, we simply could not force the directorate to agree with us “

“The Things We Got Knocked For, Once It Came Out, Were Always Known,” Said One Person Who work on the Game. “We Just COULDNYT GET TRACTION ON IT. Like The Game Being Grindy and Repetive – We All Knew that For Years, Had Hundreds of Conversations ABOUT IT, And JUST COULDNYT UPPER ManAGEMENT TO AGEEE. And the We’d Go to Focus Testing, and They’d Go, ‘The Game’s too Grindy.’We’d go,‘ We’re in Beta, Can’T Do Much ABOUT IT.’Mafia COULD’VEA BEEN BETER THE IT WAS. All the Issues, The Floor Knew ABOUT FOR YEARS – WE JUST COULDN’t get the Director LEVEL To Agree with US.”

In addition to grind, the biggest claim to the mafia was that the game was full of bugs and errors. Developers blame two main factors in this. Firstly, they have never made such complex and complex openwords.

“In the previous parts of the mafia that worked on the same technologies, nothing special happened, you just went from the mission to the mission. We made a great jump by moving to a really populated world, complete content “. –

-In the previous mafia Games, Which Were using the Same Tech, There Wasn’s Going On. You Just Drive from Mission to Mission. IT WAS A Big LEAP To have An Actually Populated World Full of Content.

One of the groups of designers and engineers spent almost a year, filling the virtual city with pedestrians, protesters, and people who jump out in front of your car.

By the end of the game, many chips had to be removed from the game, simply because they gave rise to too many problems. For example, according to the story of one of the former employees, the game was a mechanic in which Clay could jump onto the hood of the car, and then climb onto the roof, which would diversify the movement around the city. But as a result, testers found that having climbed onto the roof of the truck, the player could go to the zones not provided for by the developers. One beautiful morning, the development team found in the error database hundreds of applications in the style of “climbed on a garbage truck to notice A, get to b”. After which the functionality was quickly disconnected.

The second factor is time. The developers admit that they could spend several additional months on polishing, but people in 2K had already expected three years of the results from the Czechs, and the same amount from Hangar 13, and they were not interested in the fact that the American team, in fact, made a new game.

As a result, due to failures, technical problems and other obstacles, the Mafia III team had to hold nights and Saturdays in hasty attempts to release the game. However, with the exception of several people who left the studio immediately after the release, the team, after a short rest, took up the new project. The positive criticism of Mafia III has spurred people to push the horizons, raise new topics, negative – learning by mistakes, and the very idea of ​​a refreshing new project gave rise to enthusiasm. According to one of the team members

“I sought to move on to the next project, relying on learned lessons. I do not feel anything for Blackman. When he saw that we were screwed up, he said so – yes, we screwed up. We need to achieve more.”

I Felt Like Going Forward to the Next Project They’d Learned Some Good Lessons i have nothing respect for Haden [Blackkman] —he Loucked at What theSaid, ‘Yeah We Fucked this Up. We need to do better

In early 2017, Hangar 13 divided two main groups. One was supposed to engage in DLC to the III mafia, the other began to work out a new project. Initially, they planned to continue the mafia series and transfer the location of the next part to Las Vegas, plunging the player into the world of brilliance and glamor, like the film by Martin Scorzeze Casino. However, the plans did not live for long.

At some point, Blackman flew to New York to negotiations with Take-Two and 2k. Having returned, he told his employees that the bosses offered him a choice: either they are developing Mafia IV, or they can try to create something unique, new IP . He chose the second. “Mafia IV is cool, exciting. But we always wanted to create our own IP, ”he said. Thus began the RHAPSODY project.

Rapsody was supposed to tell the history of the revenge of the Russian Jew, whose parents were killed in the Gulag, and he was supposed to be saved and recruited by the Americans to the spy organization Rapsodia. Spy games were supposed to develop against the backdrop of Berlin of the 1980s, and the character was supposed to be in front of a dilemma of choice between personal and public good.

According to the developers, the game was supposed to resemble a more serious version of Kingsman, where, on the basis of the Mafia III mechanic, armed with gadgets, the player would carry out the mission to monitor enemies and performed the tasks of his organization. The studio even prototyped a spy car, on which you could cross the border of Germany and the GDR, this car would limit the player’s inventory.

However, during 2017, several important events occurred. Firstly, in the spring, Christoph Hartmann left 2K Games, and permutations began in the studio, and several new people were hired as design managers. Secondly, the studio allocated two small teams to work on other “projects-incubators»Where new ideas and technologies were supposed to run up (later one of the projects was closed).

How it worked? According to those involved, something like this: you listened, for example, Survivor – “Eye of the Tiger.»At the right time, you had to press the right buttons, and this would call on a real tiger that will help in battle. Or you could take riffs and Song STEMS and start mixing them to create special abilities.

Meanwhile, in the next building in the strictest secrecy was the development of a certain Parkside, according to rumors – a new game of the Bioshok series. Everything that in the smoking rooms could tell colleagues comrades from a rapidly growing secret studio – this is that they worked with Henryl. But even this was enough for those who stamped on the spot with the proprietary and incomprehensible Czech engine of the Angar’s employees Grazhda Grazhda. Many frankly hoped to escape to the neighbors, especially against the background of the abbreviations that began.

But what about Rapsodia? And by the end of 2017, the leadership realized that they would go broke on licenses alone, and conversations about music were slowly subsided, the project began to turn into a superhero shooter.

“They never went out and did not say:“ Hey, we are no longer engaged in music, ”the source said. “Everything just quietly disappeared” “.

On February 15, 2018, a number of employees were fired from the Angara 13. The company did not say how much, but three of the respondents reported that there were enough enough. Some of the dismissed were invited to 2K Czech, which was renamed Hangar 13, or to corporate branches in Britain.

“I know that most of the reasons for these layouts were financial,” said one of the respondents. “It is much cheaper to hire and maintain engineers [and other staff] in the UK and Europe. The cost of life in San Francisco is prohibitively high “.

There is one obvious public certificate confirming this theory: six vacancies have been listed on the vacancies in Hangar 13, all of them are in the Czech Republic.

At the moment, it is not clear what is happening with the game-according to the latest news, a multiplayer was added to it, and 2k wants to process the project in the game-service. However, there is a timid hope that the project is getting out, because the helm has the same Blackman, and he repeatedly declared and demonstrated his commitment to plot games. Moreover, he is a writer, and one of the main features of Gamdev is that the culture of the studio is determined by the leader. Also, two sources familiar with 2k activities reported in a private conversation that 2k leaders sincerely believe in the “author’s theory”, and that the company sees the new Ken Levin in Blackmann.