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Take-Two cancel unannounced superhero game from Mafia 3 devsThey’d invested $53 million in Hangar 13’s project
They’d invested $53 million in Hangar 13’s project
Last night, Take-Two Interactive’squarterly earnings reportmentioned a $53 million (£39 million) “impairment charge”, related to their decision to cease development on an unannounced project. According to a number of reports, that project was a third-person action game fromMafia 3developers Hangar 13 that would’ve featured superheroes and online play.
Year In Review | Mystery Steam Reviews (2021 Video Games)Watch on YouTube
Year In Review | Mystery Steam Reviews (2021 Video Games)
It would’ve been an entirely new game for Hangar 13, who previously worked the Mafia series, and would’ve reportedly featured superheroes competing online.Kotakureport that it was intended to be an arcadey, three-player, third-person action game “in the vein of Destiny.” Their sources also say that Volt was short for Voltron, as the game would’ve featured enemies that could combine together to make even tougher enemies.
Unfortunately, Bloomberg’s sources said 2K executives didn’t see Volt as worthwhile because of how much time it needed to become a finished product. Kotaku’s sources said that Take-Two thought it was “commercially unviable” with current “industry challenges”.
They don’t specify what those “challenges” are, but I’m curious if it has anything to do with the reception of big-budget live service games, like what Volt seemed to be, over the last few years. We had BioWare’s Anthem in 2019, which I hoped would be a cool online sci-fi romp, but it just wasn’t - EA gave up on it entirely andbinned plans for an overhaulearlier this year. Then we hadMarvel’s Avengersin 2020, which was also very “meh”. Square Enix called the outcome of that game “disappointing” intheir annual earnings reportyesterday.
“Hangar 13’s latest project was creatively ambitious and exciting,” a 2K spokesperson told Kotaku. “We have full confidence in Hangar 13’s leadership and development team and believe that they can and will deliver critical and commercial successes in the future. Hangar 13’s leadership is working closely with 2K to ensure that Hangar 13 team members continue to do meaningful work, either as part of Hangar 13 or on one of our other development teams.”
2K announced more bad news for superheroes last night. Midnight Suns, the XCOM-style Marvel game, has beendelayed into the second half of 2022.
