Some highlights from the article for those who can't get behind the paywall:
Warcraft III: Reforged
- Jason has reviewed Blizzard's internal post-mortem documents on Warcraft III: Reforged.
- Management announced the game's preorder availability without informing the devs working on it, who were surprised to find out it would be available for pre-order within a year.
- The team who made Reforged was also in charge of Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft II.
- The team has now been entirely disbanded -- some went to other jobs at Blizzard and others joined new studios founded by Blizzard vets.
Diablo II Remake
- Was called (is currently called?) Diablo II: Resurrected
- The Vicarious Visions team has been working on it since last year. The division behind Diablo IV is in charge of the project.
Sources: Capcom has overhauled its plans for a Resident Evil 4 remake
New studio M-Two has seen its role significantly reduced on the unannounced project, the sources told VGC, and mainline
Resident Evil studio Capcom Division 1 has been brought in to lead a new direction.
As first reported by VGC last year, the
Resident Evil 4 remake has been in development since 2018 led by Osaka-based M-Two, the studio founded by former
PlatinumGames head
Tatsuya Minami.
Little has been shared publicly about M-Two, but people with knowledge of the company said it was partly funded by Capcom and comprised of some former PlatinumGames employees, including developers from the Metal Gear Rising and
Bayonetta 2 teams.
Our original
report on M-Two and Minami’s involvement, published in Dec 2019, was later
confirmed by the credits of Resident Evil 3.
The company contributed to the development of 2020’s RE3 remake, with Minami taking on an executive producer role, but the start-up’s main purpose was always to lead the next, bigger remake, Resident Evil 4.
However, multiple sources have indicated that, following a key project review late last year, it was decided that M-Two’s role on RE4’s remake would be significantly reduced. Capcom’s Division 1 – the internal team responsible for Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games – has now been brought in to lead the RE4 project, VGC understands.
It’s believed that the disagreements that led to M-Two’s reduced role involved the studio’s desire to stick faithfully to the template of the original Resident Evil 4, partly influenced by backlash to
Resident Evil 3’s remake, which did not include significant portions of the original
PlayStation game, much to fans’ disappointment.
Capcom’s production team, however, is said to prefer a direction which would see RE4’s remake inspired by the original, but with its own unique take on features, story elements and environments not necessarily confined to the blueprint of the original, similar to
Resident Evil 2‘s use of Mr. X.
Sources said that the Resident Evil 4 Remake would now be partially rebooted under the new mandate, which could see its release delayed by as much as a year to 2023.
This kind of direction change is not uncommon within Capcom, the people said, and both Resident Evil 2 and 3 are said to have experienced similar overhauls during their development.
Capcom declined to comment when contacted ahead this story’s publication.
With Capcom Division 1’s involvement, it’s likely that many original Resident Evil 4 team members will be involved in the remake.
Producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi is still at Capcom and worked on Resident Evil 6, while Resident Evil 4 designer Kouji Kakae recently worked on
Devil May Cry 5.
Resident Evil 4’s original lead coder,
Kiyohiko Sakata was
the game director for the Resident Evil 3 remake via his company Red Works.
Resident Evil 4’s original director,
Shinji Mikami, was approached to co-found M-Two but turned down the role due to his commitment to
Bethesda’s GhostWire: Tokyo, VGC was told.
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