Chapter 1489 1406 X-Box 3 Games

Thursday, March 26, 2002

Inside Microsoft headquarters, the Xbox division was unusually busy. Tomorrow would mark one of the most important days for Xbox since the console's original launch, because Microsoft was finally preparing to release three new first-party games simultaneously. The launch library had initially consisted of only six games, and although HORI in particular had managed to attract enormous attention, Microsoft knew perfectly well that hardware alone couldn't keep Xbox competitive forever. Project 8 had been created specifically to solve that weakness, establishing eight dedicated development teams under Microsoft, and these three games would become the first real demonstration of what those teams could produce.

Seamus Blackley had been moving between departments since morning, checking reports, builds and certification results. Eventually he stopped inside one of the engineering rooms where several Xbox developers were still performing final checks. "So, any problems with the three games we're releasing tomorrow?" Seamus asked.

One of the lead engineers turned toward him. "Nothing major so far, Boss. We've tested all three extensively, including long sessions, save files, online matches and different Xbox hardware batches. Everything is running as intended. Obviously, that doesn't guarantee players won't discover some completely ridiculous bug tomorrow, though."

Seamus chuckled. "Yeah, that's impossible to prevent. Give a million players something and one bastard will somehow discover that jumping backward into a wall while reloading and opening a menu causes the protagonist to fly into space."

Several engineers laughed some even said with small voice 'Hah! Millions?'.

Seamus then turned toward the young man standing beside the testing station. Will Carlo was one of Xbox's top engineers and increasingly involved with the technical side of game development as well. He was still only in his early-to-mid twenties, with curly hair and a surprisingly youthful face for someone who already held such an important position inside Microsoft's gaming division.

"Will, if I remember correctly, you're actually a pretty hardcore gamer."

Will smiled. "Obviously."

"And you're a ZAGE fan."

Will paused.

"...Also obviously."

Seamus laughed. "Good. Then I want your opinion as a player rather than an employee. I'm confident in our teams, but you've actually worked closely with all three projects. How do you think they turned out?"

Will leaned against the desk thoughtfully. "Honestly? Pretty damn good. They're not perfect, but compared with our original six launch games, I think these three show much more clearly what Xbox games can become."

The first project was Fist Knight.

Will immediately smiled when talking about it. "Fist Knight might actually be my favorite of the three. Furious Fight was already our fighting game at launch, but that game went heavily into 3D arenas—giant monsters, robots, destructible environments, ridiculous energy attacks, heavy impacts, everything loud as hell. Fist Knight goes in almost the opposite direction. It's a more traditional one-on-one fighter."

The game used a mostly side-on fighting perspective with three-dimensional characters and environments, focusing much more heavily on spacing, combos, counters, cancels and individual character matchups. But its defining mechanic came from something Microsoft had very obviously studied from ZAGE's Bloody Roar.

Transformation.

Will scratched his cheek and laughed. "We... referenced Bloody Roar quite heavily."

Seamus stared at him.

"'Referenced'?"

"Very respectfully."

"Uh-huh."

Will laughed before continuing. "But instead of transforming into animals, Fist Knight characters transform into armored warriors based on their sacred weapons."

The world of Fist Knight was built around an unusual rule: weapons were considered sacred objects. Ordinary people couldn't simply pick up a sword and become warriors. Sacred weapons chose their wielders, and when someone compatible touched one, the weapon didn't merely give them something to fight with—it transformed their entire body.

Armor formed around them.

Physical abilities increased dramatically.

And the weapon itself awakened abilities unique to its lineage.

Because of this, ordinary combat traditions in the setting had developed primarily around unarmed martial arts. Most fighters learned to use fists, kicks, grappling and body techniques because carrying conventional weapons provided little advantage against someone chosen by a sacred weapon.

Only those selected by these artifacts became known as Fist Knights.

Will explained, "So every character essentially has two fighting states. Their normal form focuses on martial arts and usually has faster movement, while Knight Form gives them their sacred weapon, armor and completely different techniques. But transformation isn't free. There's a meter, duration limits and tactical reasons to transform at certain moments instead of immediately."

Seamus nodded. "That part worked surprisingly well. It means transformation isn't just a super mode."

"Exactly. And characters don't all transform the same way. Sword users might gain reach. A spear fighter controls distance. One character uses enormous gauntlets. Another has a sacred bow, so suddenly you're dealing with zoning. We even have one lunatic whose sacred weapon is basically an enormous iron pillar."

Seamus stared at him. "Was that your idea?"

Will grinned.

"Of course it was."

"I knew it."

Will laughed. "Still, because ZEPS 4 doesn't currently have much focus on traditional fighting games, releasing Fist Knight right now gives Xbox a good opportunity."

Seamus narrowed his eyes. "You're praising it quite enthusiastically for someone who was one of its core designers."

Will shrugged shamelessly. "I might be slightly biased."

"Slightly."

"Extremely slightly."

Seamus shook his head, amused. "Alright. Next."

The second game was considerably more ambitious.

SPAZEN.

A science-fiction first-person shooter set centuries into humanity's future, SPAZEN followed an interstellar military organization exploring regions far beyond established human colonies. Humanity had already encountered multiple intelligent species, some peaceful, some hostile, while enormous abandoned structures scattered throughout deep space suggested that civilization had existed there long before humans ever left Earth.

Will sighed. "This one's complicated."

"Because Halo exists now."

"Exactly."

SPAZEN had entered development before Halo's release, taking much of its early inspiration from science-fiction movies and television such as Star Wars and Star Trek while mixing those ideas with fast first-person shooting. But once ZAGE launched Halo alongside ZEPS 4, Microsoft's developers had collectively experienced the same uncomfortable realization.

Their science-fiction FPS was inevitably going to be compared with it.

Aliens.

Space.

Future weapons.

Military protagonist.

Online multiplayer.

There was no escaping the comparison.

Will shrugged. "At first some of the team panicked because they thought everyone would immediately call us Halo copycats. So instead of trying to chase Halo directly, we pushed SPAZEN harder toward what originally inspired the gameplay."

"Doom."

"Yeah."

Unlike Halo's more tactical rhythm built around rechargeable shields, limited weapon carrying and carefully designed enemy encounters, SPAZEN leaned much harder into aggressive movement and large weapon inventories. Players could carry numerous weapons simultaneously, ammunition pickups were scattered throughout stages, enemies could attack in large numbers, and levels regularly shifted between narrow spaceship corridors, alien facilities and open planetary environments.

"Basically," Will explained, "Halo makes you feel like a really capable futuristic soldier. SPAZEN wants you to feel like someone gave a lunatic twelve futuristic weapons and dropped him onto an alien planet."

Seamus smiled. "That's a surprisingly good description."

"Thank you."

The weapons themselves were intentionally strange. Microsoft didn't want eight different variations of conventional rifles, so SPAZEN included plasma cutters that could slice through weaker enemies, bouncing energy projectiles, gravity weapons capable of throwing smaller creatures backward, conventional machine guns, alien biological weapons and several ridiculously destructive late-game weapons.

But multiplayer was where Halo's influence became impossible to deny.

Will scratched his head awkwardly. "Okay, the online modes... yeah. We stole—"

Seamus raised an eyebrow.

"Referenced."

"Better."

"We referenced Halo pretty hard."

Team deathmatch was obvious, but SPAZEN also included objective modes influenced by Halo's Capture the Flag and King of the Hill structure, alongside several original modes built around its own movement and weapon systems.

Will shrugged. "I don't think that's necessarily bad, though. Halo showed everybody how fun objective-based console FPS multiplayer can be. We aren't copying maps, characters or weapons. We're taking mechanics that work and building something different around them."

Seamus nodded. "People are absolutely going to compare the games."

"They should."

That answer surprised him.

Will continued, "If our game sucks, pretending Halo doesn't exist won't save it. And if SPAZEN is good, eventually people will recognize its own identity."

Seamus smiled slightly. "Fair enough."

Then there was the third title.

Renzoku.

This one had been developed with one objective Microsoft wasn't even pretending to hide.

Japan.

Xbox had generated respectable international attention, particularly in America, but penetrating Japan remained considerably more difficult. Microsoft needed games that didn't feel like they had simply been designed by Americans and translated afterward.

Renzoku was their first serious attempt.

Will smiled. "Hack-and-slash action game. Japanese setting, demons, supernatural clans, ridiculous attacks and our protagonist, Renzoku."

Renzoku himself was a wandering swordsman cursed by a supernatural flame connected to his signature weapon, the Rengoku Yaiba. Whenever the sword awakened fully, flames spread across the blade and Renzoku gained increasingly dangerous abilities—but using them recklessly could gradually damage him as well.

Originally, that single flaming sword had been intended to remain his weapon for the entire game.

Then Devil May Cry happened.

Will coughed awkwardly. "We... made adjustments."

Seamus sighed. "Here we go again."

"Look, Devil May Cry taught everyone something really important about action games."

"Which is?"

"Getting new weapons is fun."

Seamus couldn't argue with that.

Instead of carrying only the Rengoku Yaiba from beginning to end, Renzoku now discovered multiple supernatural weapons throughout the campaign. The flaming sword remained his signature weapon and central to the story, but players could eventually unlock heavy blades, chained weapons, cursed gauntlets and several stranger tools, each possessing different combos and abilities.

The combat system also changed around them. Players could launch enemies, juggle them, dodge attacks, cancel certain animations and switch between weapons to extend combinations.

Will immediately raised one hand defensively. "Before you say it—no, it's not Devil May Cry."

"It sounds extremely Devil May Cry."

"It is spiritually influenced."

"That sounds even worse."

Will laughed. "But Renzoku is heavier. DMC is stylish and incredibly fast. We're trying to make Renzoku's combat feel more brutal. Hits carry more weight, enemies don't fly around quite as easily, blocking matters more, and the supernatural flame system encourages aggressive play because certain attacks build Heat."

"So Devil May Cry mixed with your own systems."

"Exactly."

Seamus rubbed his forehead. "Jesus Christ. All three games have ZAGE fingerprints somewhere."

Will grinned. "Boss, basically every developer is studying ZAGE right now."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"Why? Zaboru Renkonan literally encourages developers to take mechanics they like and create something new from them. He says it constantly. Inspiration isn't the problem. Copying without understanding why something works is the problem."

Seamus considered that before slowly nodding.

"Fair."

The conversation eventually returned toward tomorrow's release. Microsoft had been advertising all three games heavily throughout the previous week, and early reactions to the trailers had been surprisingly positive. Fist Knight immediately attracted fighting-game players, SPAZEN naturally created endless comparisons with Halo, while Renzoku gained considerable attention in Japan because people were curious whether an American company could actually make a convincing Japanese action title.

There was only one concern.

ZAGE.

Seamus crossed his arms. "At least our timing seems good."

Will nodded. "Yeah. ZAGE already released Trails in the Sky the 3rd and Medal of Honor 2 earlier this month. No ZEPS 4 game announcements since then."

Seamus sighed just thinking about Medal of Honor 2. "That fucking game..."

Will laughed. "Still can't believe it's ZEPS 3?"

"How the hell did they make a five-year-old console produce that?"

"Optimization."

"That explanation isn't satisfying."

"It's still the answer."

Medal of Honor 2 had irritated Microsoft engineers almost as much as it impressed them. Xbox was objectively stronger hardware than ZEPS 3, yet Team Enigma had squeezed so much performance from ZAGE's older machine that several Medal of Honor 2 scenes looked disturbingly close to Xbox games.

Will had personally spent several hours examining it.

He hated how much he admired it.

Seamus shook his head. "Still, our prediction was correct. They aren't releasing a ZEPS 4 game this month."

"So far, no trailers, no announcements, nothing," Will replied. "And ZAGE rarely releases major titles twice within such a short interval. They already dropped two ZEPS 3 games on March 14. Tomorrow should belong to us."

Seamus smiled.

For once, Microsoft had found breathing room.

No gigantic ZAGE release overshadowing them.

No surprise console reveal.

No Zaboru walking onto a stage and announcing twelve games because apparently moderation was a foreign concept to the man.

Just Microsoft.

Three new games.

And an audience already waiting for them.

"Good," Seamus said. "Then tomorrow we release everything as planned."

Will nodded. "Sure thing, Boss."

Seamus gave several final instructions before leaving the engineering room. The moment the door closed, Will watched him disappear down the corridor.

Then he sighed.

"Fucking bald bastard. Comes in, asks twenty questions, then leaves us to do everything."

One of the engineers nearby immediately looked at him. "You know he's technically your boss, right?"

"That's why I waited until he left."

The engineer laughed.

Will returned to his computer and prepared to finish several remaining tasks when something vibrated against the desk.

His AKAI BlackBerry.

Will picked it up casually.

Then his expression changed.

The message wasn't from another Microsoft engineer.

It wasn't from Seamus.

It wasn't even from anyone inside Xbox.

Gabe Newell.

The CTO of ZAGE USA.

One of the most important people in ZAGE's American operations.

And someone Will Carlo definitely shouldn't have been casually chatting with during working hours at Microsoft.

The message was simple.

Gabe: Hey. You free?

Will stared at it for several seconds.

Then slowly grinned.

His fingers moved across the keyboard.

Will: I'm free. Want to meet up?

The response came quickly.

Will chuckled, locked his workstation and grabbed his jacket.

"Well..."

He glanced toward the clock.

He was leaving slightly early.

Nobody would care.

Probably.

Will placed the BlackBerry inside his pocket and walked toward the exit with an unusually cheerful expression.

But one question remained.

Why exactly was one of Xbox's top engineers secretly meeting with Gabe Newell, the number-two technology figure inside ZAGE USA?

Especially one day before Microsoft's three biggest new games were supposed to be released?

Whatever the answer was...

It probably wasn't something Seamus Blackley knew about.

To be continued.