2019-07-01_Official_Xbox_Magazine

(sharon) #1

having good careers. But also we’re delivering
awesome [things] to our players and we’re
thinking about future opportunities. I think
that’s a challenge of making games today.
My job is making sure that Sea Of Thieves and
Rare have long-term success, but also that
we continue to deliver awesome stuff to the
people playing the game right now.


You’ve recently released the Sea Of Thieves
Anniversary Update. How’s the reaction been?
So firstly, I’m super proud of the team with
what we’ve done. In some ways we’ve only
been out a year, which seems like no time at
all – particularly if you think about long-term
service-based games, a year is young. But
in other ways, when you include Anniversary,
we’re probably into between four or five years
of making Sea Of Thieves. I’m really proud of
what we’ve achieved with Anniversary and the
reaction so far has been exceptional. I think
for anyone that’s been on the journey with us,
for them I think we’ve surprised and delighted


COLIN MCRAE: DIRT 2007


At Codemasters Craig
Duncan was instrumental in
bringing several Colin McRae
games to life,and the last
he worked on is the first in
the excellent Dirt series. It
was also the last game to be
published before the death
of Colin McRae.

WHEELMAN 2009


Before Midway closed
it released Wheelman,
starring Vin Diesel. It was
the first open-world game
to be made with Unreal
Engine 3. A film adaptation
was also planned, also
featuring Vin Diesel, but
it was canned.

RARE REPLAY 2015


In celebration of Rare’s
30th anniversary, the studio
released a collection of
30 of its games, including
Battletoads, Perfect Dark
and Viva Piñata. Each game
up to the 360 era features
a rewind function to
compensate for difficulty.

MAGIC
MOMENTS

them, which, given that they’ve only been
playing the game for a year, I think is not to be
underestimated. With Arena, even though we
said we were doing Arena and people could
play in a more competitive way, I think the way
we’ve done it, with that Rare Sea Of Thieves
spin on what competition is, has genuinely
surprised people. I think we’re different from
every competitive game. With Tall Tales, and
bringing story into Sea Of Thieves, reading
responses of, ‘I played Tall Tales, it made me
cry,’ or, ‘They made me feel like I was in an
Indiana Jones adventure,’ or, ‘This is best

experience that me and my friend have had in
gaming,’ just reading that kind of feedback is
great. This is the wonder of an evolving game.

What have you learnt during your time making
Sea Of Thieves?
I think we’ve learnt a huge amount, and I
think we’ve learnt to be okay with change.
We’ve learnt to be okay with having plans
and changing those plans and tearing them
up. An example of this, I always remember in
all the early press we did for Sea Of Thieves,
we were very much ‘every sail on the horizon

THE BIG INTERVIEW


062 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE

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