Curse EA: How Syndicate 2012 surfaced and drowned and drowned

This year exactly 10 years as the game Syndicate was released. She did not gain particular popularity, Although some hopes presented. I wondered how she appeared, what she was, and why she was forgotten.

Background

In the early 2010s, a trend began for the release of shooters with a cooperative. Someone in the dungeons of large gaming companies decided that the singleplayer was dying, and the future behind network entertainment. So were born: Army of Two, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Dead Space 3, F.E.A.P. 3 and others. The same list was the game that will be discussed-Syndicate 2012.

Around the beginning of 2008, a meeting was held in one of the EA offices, discussed the production of a new game on the company’s own company. The discussion looked something like this:

And already in February of the same year, the news flashed that Starbreeze Studio began developing the game for the Xbox 360 platforms, PlayStation 3 and PC. No details were reported, but judging by the development studio, it was clear that it would most likely be a first-person shooter. It also became known the code name of the game – Project Redlime. As you already guessed it and was Syndicate.

Here it is worth making a digression and telling about the original syndicate what kind of game it was and how it got into EA.

How Bullfrog died

In 1993, the Bullfrog studio, led by Peter, Molinjo released the original Syndicate. It was a tactical game with elements of strategy in the anti -utopian world of cyberpunk and the struggle of corporations.

At your disposal were four agents armed with various weapons and the possibility of subordinating people to their will by hacking their chips built into the heads. You send these “employees” to mission to destroy agents of other syndicates, eliminate unwanted personalities and all kinds of sabotage. Your subordinates are not simple, but modified, between the missions you explore and buy new weapons and cybernetic parts of the body that enhance their characteristics. Between the matter, choosing a new goal on a global map, and collecting taxes from the seized territories.

And the syndicate got into the clutches of EA like this:

In 1995, Bullfrog decided that it was time for someone to sell with giblets. Negotiations were conducted with several buyers, but in the end they agreed with EA. Under their superiors, Bulfrog released several famous games, including Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate Wars. But by the 97th, the pressure from the publisher began to increase, as always, EA wanted to make another dairy cow out of the bulfrog. At about the same time, Molnieu left, and the noose on the neck of the studio began to drag on. In the late 90s, Bullfrog released the continuation of Popolous and Dungeon Keeper, but, starting from the middle of the 99th, the projects began to be canceled, and in 2001 the production completely stopped. Bulfrog was disbanded, and intellectual property remained with EA. A familiar story, many studios went through the like and disappeared into oblivion.

As said the Bosses of Strarbreese, the new syndicate was for them the largest and most expensive game, of which they worked on.

The money is allocated, the development began, it would seem, nothing portends trouble, but … In mid-2009, obviously, some kind of internal conflict occurred. It remains only to assume what happened. Most likely, someone in EA decided that the cooperative is now in fashion and it would be necessary to release something like that, but here is just a game that is not a pity. Part of the team rebelled. After all, in the studio they were engaged in their favorite business – they developed a plot jumper, but here they are offered that, I don’t know that. So they left and again began to do what they could – a plot shooter.

As a result, several employees: Kjel Emanuelsson, Jerk Gustafsson, Magnus Högdahl, Jim Kjellin, Fredrik Ljungdahl, Jens Matthies, and Michael Wynnel left Starbreeze and founded Machine Games, known forGames of the Wulfenstein series, and notice, no hint of multiplayer. Judging by the further success of Wulf, one of the competent specialists left. Yes, and began to lure their colleagues from their previous place of work to themselves. As you know, this did not affect the production of the syndicate in the best way.

Advertising campaign

The announcement of the game occurred just six months before the release, while this is usually done a few years before the start. The advertising company could not boast of the scale. Perhaps the studio ended the money, or maybe they had already waved his hand for the game and did not spend money, considering that this will be a failure and money for advertising would be spent in vain.

I have not found the marketing of this game, it was very long ago, so I trust the words of the former chief editor Stopgame.ru Konstantin Trustenyuk:

What was offered to us in that few advertising:

All the same world where everything is subordinated to corporations, through chips implanted by ordinary citizens. The world of corporate wars, where you, as a Killer-agent of the syndicate of Eurocorp, perform tasks with fairly cruelty. There are no good ones, only bad: someone is a little more, others are slightly smaller. From a gameplay point of view – a gloomy shooter in the style of Starbris, with smart and complex opponents, the possibilities of remote control of the environment, subordination of opponents to their will and pumping abilities. Coope-mode is also announced on four, with 9 cards and more advanced pumping.

Let’s see what happened in the end.

Singleer

Suddenly you come to your senses from the impacts of the mercenary, and find yourself sitting in a chair with tied hands. But this impudent soldier does not know who he ran into ..

Future, 2069. The power in the world was seized by syndicates, subordinating half the population with the help of chips built into the heads. They simply forgot about the rest, dividing the cities into the upper High-Tech and the lower Low Life zone. You are the elite soldier of the Syndicate Eurocorp Milz kilo, the so -called “agent”. You have just been implanted in a new version of the chip that enhances your combat capabilities. Despite the objections of the project curator – Lily Dron, Jack Denam – the head of the Eurocorp decides that you need to immediately start your duties. Together with a mentor of Meret, you go to the territory of the enemy Syndicate Aspari to destroy a suspicious study and a scientist working on him.

Confrontation

I went through the game 4 times with different levels of complexity and methods of passing. But immediately I will say there is nothing difficult here, and the degree of difficulty must be understood as follows: superfluous, light and medium. The only thing I noticed: on Hard – enemies are more tenacious.

I saw a lot of reviews on the Internet that it was hard to play, and for a long time I could not understand why people think so. And then he stumbled upon a video where the Lettspler went through the game as a simple shooter without taking advantage of a single gameplay opportunity, and people watch and play also. In the syndicate, just a bunch of legal cheats: Dart chip slows down, highlights enemies, even through the walls;Some rifles shoot shelters, plus the hacking allows you to control the behavior of enemies and objects at the level.

The skills in the game can be divided into three branches of pumping: “tank” – everything is in armor and health, we bring enemies from afar, “hacker” – we take skills in hacking and reloading abilities, “sprinter” – replenishment of health from hand -to -hand attacks, wearing a gun and wearing a bream to everyone.

The first is a typical shooting gameplay, absorb damage and give out a lead for everyone.

The second is more interesting, we make everyone succeed and fight with each other, since the abilities are restored faster, mockery of enemies does not stop. But there is not enough progress – by the middle of the game you already have all the skills, others are not expected.

The third is a completely new way of passing, this is not a shooter, but a Runner. The main thing is to run to the enemy and finish off with handles, occasionally switching from a gun to a cannon more powerful for fat enemy. The speed is just hellish.

Here it is, the same “Low Life” – where is the very bottom and eternal night, where you can afford everything you can: puts on a hologram, because there is no more money. Of course, there is always a way out – to believe in the church of the new era.

Here it is, the same “Low Life” – where is the very bottom and eternal night, where you can afford everything you can: puts on a hologram, because there is no more money. Of course, there is always a way out – to believe in the church of the new era.

Here it is, the same “Low Life” – where is the very bottom and eternal night, where you can afford everything you can: puts on a hologram, because there is no more money. Of course, there is always a way out – to believe in the church of the new era.

Watching local AI is interesting. The soldiers https://casigoodcasino.uk/ are cool and take positions. In the attack, they do not just run to you, but move from the far shelter to the neighbor. While you are hiding, they are not sitting still, but try to get closer. The position of the body was changing in the shelter – it was unexpected to notice a soldier lying behind the column so that only the head and the automatic. You will come too close – they will give in the face with an elbow. Funny moments: if you direct the sight at the enemy peering out of the shelter, he will immediately hide, and the left -handed bot will try to retreat. What a pity that in the heat of the battle you simply do not notice this, the player has a too cheaty set of abilities, which multiplies everything to zero.

After several passages, he noticed that the enemies did not bypass the player, they are always trying to get into the field of view, unless he gently gently sprouted and left someone in his rear. Because of this, there were attempts to compare with f.E.A.P. They become a little untenable.

By the end of the game, you understand how local game design works. Due to the fact that reinforcements arrive only after the full destruction of the previous wave, you can stand in advance in front of the door through which they will go and shoot at point-blank. Could not wait for me to kill everyone, or removed the note from which door they will appear. It looks like the developers of the player for the stupid count.

But the bosses are not smart, but yawns do not cause, except for one. The boss-senefit is the most boring in the game, it is difficult for me to remember something more wretched for my “game career”. Just sitting behind the shelter and bundle with bullets, sometimes we hacked the landing. He almost does not shoot, it is unrealistic to die, just direct the sight of the machine gun in his direction and everything.

Well, at least there are pumped enemies and mini-bosses-these are such dense guys in Superbron and with a cool gun. I consider them mini-bosses, as they appear only a couple of times in the game.

The number of guns for such a short game as Syndicate is impressive, with a dozen trunks of various calibers, while weapons of the same type are not like each other. For example: Gauss rifle shoots homing shells, a TAR has an enlarged store and a sub -barrel. At the same time, almost everything is equipped with an alternative regime. Kusanagi rifle breaks shelters, and if you change the type of cartridges in a shotgun, then it will shoot with minimums. But all this, of course, if you do not miss training.

Although there are no distant distances, but the optical sight helps at medium and makes it possible to shoot through shelters. And even through closed doors! It was a surprise for me.

He is certainly specific here, in the form of augmented reality, so he constantly swims and shakes, it did not cause unpleasant feelings for me, but someone can do it. The hacking icon is constantly looming. When you try to use the chip, and there are several objects for use, then when moving, focusing is constantly changing. If you want to turn on the ability, but it turns out that you hack equipment in the room. Grenades are a separate story. They are always neutralized and very quickly, because of which their use by enemies loses its meaning.

In the combat rhythm

At the third level, going down on the elevator, I heard this composition in a local bar, not that there was no music before, just to feel it only from this moment. Shootout for such an accompaniment is a rather funny lesson.

It is not difficult to notice that this song differs in tone from the rest of the “combat” soundtrack, this is what the composer of the game writes:

This song is the last significant track of those that I did for the game industry before I left it in 2012. As often happens with tracks intended for gaming projects, it is permeated with unfinished ideas and controversial solutions, but that pure energy that comes with night inspiration still lives in it.

I can’t remember exactly how I made a vocal sample – obviously with the help of a vocaloid, probably Hatsune Miku, but the original project was burnt deep in the archives of Starbriz. We experimented a lot on synthesizing speech for the voice of the chip DART. The text, as has already been said somewhere: “Syndicate, Classic Franchise, Persuader, Happy Minigun” is written on English. A small inner joke.

English is English with a strong Japanese accent.

There are many tracks for Syndicate, but it is not possible to feel them because they are playing quietly. Shooting just overlaps them. The settings cannot be increased by the volume, it is already at the maximum, and other sounds cannot be reduced, there is only a common slider that also muffles the music. Why do this, in other games it was better thought out. There are no complaints about the soundtrack itself – cool and drivers, and if you also played the old syndicate, then a nostalgic wave will pick you up with remixes.

The script was written by the author of the modified carbon, well, as he wrote, it was rather Sinecure, and they hired him simply to insert his name in the advertisement. The plot is just Generic Generikovich. We were bad, we were manipulated, then they became good, and corporations were to blame for everything. This is literally everything.

There is not enough disclosure of characters, for example: a partner kilo could talk about the world through his cynicism, but he does not do this. Marit is just a statist who has a cool disposition and a voice with a hoarse. They didn’t give him anymore. Lily, although they were better opened, but also not so hot. She wants to change syndicates from the inside. How? For what? Give only the direction, and think of the rest yourself. And the local revolutionary … Why was it introduced into the plot, it’s just laughter. Of course, so that he pours all his soul in his 3 seconds. I would like a more living world.

Not only the syndicate repels this. Miles kilo is a finished thug: a thoughtless murder machine that easily straightens both with armed opponents and ordinary people. Not everyone can overpower themselves and play for bad. Although they are trying to transform it during the game, all the same, his background remains the same.

An ordinary employee. If you kill him, no anxiety rises, the guard will not come. Complete impunity.

The game reveals the essence of syndicates – these are not just corporations that have power, but try to adhere to formalities, but the colossal criminal communities that crush the law for themselves.

The indifference of syndicates to human lives is shown from the very beginning. Here we are at the landfill to check the chip. Take a closer look at whom the first thing kills? Soldier of Eurocorpa! And then more and more. Oh, probably not this promised to them when they hired. A kilo put a bunch of a man only to test the chip. These mercenaries were used as cannon fodder, when their corpses are removed from the streets, there will be no mention of them and. The next episode with the “plagiarism” confirms the cynicity of syndicates. Throughout the game, we will continue to show neglect of people. Kidnepping – without problems, the murder is innocent – yes, please execute any passerby – like a finger to click. There is no need to talk about people from the lower zone – attitude as cattle. In the notes, you can read an interesting police report about the clash of agents of different syndicates and the attitude of ordinary people to this.

No one disdains people in the brains, nor syndicates, nor local revolutionaries.

No one disdains people in the brains, nor syndicates, nor local revolutionaries.

I have an ambiguous attitude to the notes. There is interesting information in them: you probably did not know that a kilo is only 19 years old, and he concluded a contract with Eurocorp at 18 months. That he was personally devoted to Brennan, like a samurai, or that Lily’s parents live in the lower city, and she sends them money. A detailed certificate in arms helped me better deal with the thyroid gland, I stupid and faded open areas of the body, or it was just possible to overload the generator and take the thyroid glands for the gills. Infobank also described all additional shooting modes. More Laura, stories, personal affairs. But! This dofig, and when to read everything? Single passes in 4-6 hours. Why is it impossible instead of the correspondence of employees to listen to phone calls that kilo would have downloaded by hacking the chip of civilian? Or instead of unnecessary statistics between loads, insert videos that reveal the current situation: who is the enemy and friend, the history of the syndicates, the disclosure of the structure of society.

What to say by single? This is not a good game, this is a workpiece of good game, almost a demo. Everything is crumpled here, linearly and simplified. This is my personal impression, but Syndicate does not correspond to the scale of its world. Maybe at the beginning of the development plans were more grandiose, and then an outcome occurred from the studio. Those who remained decided: “We can’t pull the single anymore, let’s focus on the multiplayer”. At the same time, playing is interesting, at least for the first time. Mechanics work, the shooting is pleasant, bugs, did not notice for four passages, and the small duration does not allow the syndicate to sag.

Cooperative

In which a detachment of four players try on the roles of agents and perform missions in various parts of the planet. Just like in the original of the 93rd.

The tasks are quite primitive: to seize the data of the enemy syndicate, eliminate an important person or just kill everyone. But in the end you will have to penetrate into the Eurocorp itself and capture such a well -known thing in the universe of the syndicate as the installation of Leonardo.

There are no specialization of fighters, and only differences in appearance, so you can use any weapon and treat any partner, and even at a distance.

The pumping system in this mode is much more developed than in the single. There are more skills and we can pump weapons, unfortunately, the new types of hacks of enemies were not lifted, but I would like.

The difficulty has increased significantly, although you basically have to fight with the same enemies as in the single, you die more often, and this is at an average level of difficulty, and after all there are several more enemies and they beat more painfully.

Yes, there is only more in the coop! You did not have enough shootings? Here they are full. Little pumping? Yes, she was pumped. Little weapons? Added unique trunks. Enemy enemies? Here are the new ones for you. The single is too easy? Added hardcore. If you liked the gameplay of the plot, then the coop will not disappoint you.

But there is and for what to scold him:

The first significant minus is that the missions are short and there are only 9.

Judging by an interview with developers and producers who constantly evasively answered questions about DLS and additional. content, no longer planned. The problem follows from this – the coop quickly gets boring, therefore, and so small online it became even smaller over time, and then completely came to naught, although the servers remained in working condition until recently.

The second minus – the interface, which was already quite bad, becomes even more overloaded. And its feature constantly “fly” on the screen can cause nausea attacks.

The third minus is the lack of a plot. He did not shine in the single, but here only briefings. The question arises again: what, in fact, the scriptwriter did in the game?

Well, rather, inconvenience – the overload of the interface. All these menus, substitution, clan lists, huge screens of statistics are confused.

In general, a rather funny mode in which the player will spend much more time and receive more adrenaline and pleasure. But such a clear division into single and coop makes the game less integral, as if they had taken 2 pieces and blinded Monster Frankenstein from them.

After the release

As soon as the game came out, just some kind of flurry of failures fell on it.

The game had a critical bug, in one of the episodes, leaving the transport, the main character fell under the textures. The problem was common, for many here the passage ended. Over time, the developers released a patch that corrects the bug, but, as they say, the sediment remained.

The light hits the eyes

The problems of the game were not limited to this. Everyone who at least somehow touched her remembered the hellish bright light, pursuing you literally everywhere. He just widened his eyes. Sometimes it was impossible to see anything because of him.

One of the western players wrote an article almost completely consisting of screenshots with terrible overwhelms of the syndicate.

Now it’s clear why they did this – the glow distracted attention from not very interesting locations in which for the most part there were just naked walls.

The designer insanity did not end there. The text in the menu was blurred and constantly swam on the screen. Here, even a person with perfect vision could doubt it. Do not forget about the game hood described above, capable of causing nausea. It was physically painful for people to play, and I would not be surprised if someone even turned to doctors after passing the syndicate.

Output Deus Ex Human Revolution

A few months before the announcement of the syndicate, Deus Ex Human Revolution is released – a game that set the tone of a game cyberpunk for years in advance. A role-playing system with a bunch of implants, an open world, with the possibility of choosing a passage style, a plot with a dialogue system where the elections on something affect. After the passage, the players were so impressed and wanted to continue that they saw Deus in any game cyberpan.

One of the amateur reviews on Gamer is indicative.ru, which began with such words:

But the replacement of the syndicate did not work out-a straightforward jumper with a simple pumping, without any serious variability. Which of the fans of Cyberpank will like this? Only to those who did not have enough high -quality shooter in Deus ex. DEUS Ex HR fans did not expectedly accepted the syndicate, and poured a lot of negative reviews on it.

After a third of the game, I met the first talking NPS. It turns out that they are, but in order to create at least some semblance of a living world of a couple of such people for the whole game is not enough. Yes, this is not at all Deus ex.

Disks sales problems

You noticed how often news about the charts of Steam appear, and about what games the first lines occupy? This mention gives additional advertising video game products and increased sales. After all, if the game is in the top, then it is really good and it is worth it to get acquainted with it, because so? Ten years ago, Steam was not so popular yet and everyone watched British tops of sales in retail stores. So the syndicate had a difficult relationship with them. It is at the time of the release that one of the largest retail chains for the sale of the Game Retail Limited video game after accumulating considerable debts began to experience serious financial problems. Buying disks from gaming companies has become too expensive for her. Attempts to reduce purchase prices have failed. EA and other major publishers refused to cut their profits and, starting on February 29, 2012, began to stop deliveries. Of course, the syndicate fell under the distribution. Here’s what Starbreeze Ceo Mikel Nermark said about this

Sales are not as high as we would like, and I think if you asked anyone, he would also answer you about any game made by him. But the syndicate came out at the very moment when Game went to the bottom. Retail trade suffers and, I think that it hit us hard, because our game was precisely a retail product.

Ban in Australia

Ban in Australia was added to all other problems. This country is famous for its difficult relations with games, and in the case of a syndicate a miracle did not happen. She was banned to sell in the country due to excessive violence. On the other hand, this put the syndicate on one level with such masterpieces as Manhunt and Postal 2)))

Lack of shot support

As already mentioned, no additional content was planned. As you understand, everything ended on this, but the game could be kept afloat for some time due to the new content for the coope. The game was buried.

Judging by the words of one of the bosses Starbriz, after the failure of the syndicate, the number of developers decreased, and the remaining were thrown to the Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons and Payday 2. From the same moment, difficult times began for the studio, it was on the verge of collapse for a long time, and all because of one unsuccessful release.

The game did not go to Steam

Well, the cherry on the cake

EA’s wonderful policy to sell their products only in Origin. The game was not popular, so it was not in Steam. And if you recall how many copies the titanfol 2 was sold when it went out in Steam … Of course, Steam of the 12th is not quite what is now, but a couple of hundred thousand copies would be able to sell at a discount. Perhaps this could save the game from a complete failure, but, as you know, history does not know the subjunctive mood. For some legal reasons, the game itself was recently removed from Origin, and now it is not to buy it anywhere.

The syndicate was not lucky, since the start of development and in the arbitrarily period the game has been harassed by failures, a lack of funding, controversial gamemerying solutions, problems with distribution, the presence of a serious competitor in the market. And this is only what we know from open sources. What was there inside EA and Starbriz for a person from the side-a secret behind the 7th seals. But no matter what, the game had fans who consider her undeservedly forgotten Hidden Gem’s and are still waiting for a continuation.

Perhaps someday, in the corridors of EA they will remember that they have the rights to the syndicate series and try to reanimate it again, but this will be a completely different story, I hope, happy.