How did developer Realtime Worlds go from creating violent free-roaming shooters like APB and Crackdown to working on the massive social gaming undertaking Project: MyWorld? They don't. It was the other way around.
Realtime Worlds' debut of the ambitious Project: MyWorld on Wednesday took a lot of people by surprise. Known for violent shooting games like APB and the original Crackdown, the concept of a project that seeks to recreate the entire planet as a virtual playground for social networking and social gaming seems slightly odd.
Project: MyWorld design director Sean Dugan explains how Project: MyWorld came about.
Realtime Worlds was founded with the dream of someday delivering on the promise that Project: MyWorld represents. Along the way, separate teams were created to make Crackdown and APB with technologies developed on Project: MyWorld. But while the Crackdown and APB teams worked in the broad light of day, the Project: MyWorld team of developers churned away as a top-secret skunkworks project for years.
So while on the surface APB and Crackdown are very different animals than Project: MyWorld, deep down inside they're all the same.
What Crackdown, APB and Project: MyWorld all do is they create a vast open world and put power into the hands of the player. They allow players to be creative within the boundaries of the game and discover interesting interactions.
Is Realtime Worlds totally schizophrenic? [Project: MyWorld]