Pinnacle: Where Gaming Meets Entertainment – A year after its launch, some of the ‘New World’ developers reflect on their experience and memories of the launch of Amazon’s first gaming hit.
New World launched in September 2021 to widespread critical acclaim, quickly reaching the astonishing milestone of over 900,000 maximum concurrent players, making it the fifth most played concurrent game in Steam history at the time of its launch.
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New World recently celebrated its first anniversary, and in October received its biggest content update to date with Brimstone Sands: an expansive desert-themed zone with new enemies, new terrain, and brand new stories for players to experience. With the launch of Brimstone Sands, New World rejoined Steam’s top 10 most played PC games in October, and continues to see strong player engagement today.
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“It was a highlight for me to see the players experience the world for the first time. I was proud to play a part in making it all happen.”
Amazon Games continued the momentum with the successful western launch of Smilegate’s Lost Ark in 2022, with recent news that they will also publish Bandai Namco’s online Blue Protocol and the next installment in Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider franchise. With an exciting future ahead for Amazon Games, we took some time to catch up with some of the developers who brought the company’s first gaming hits to life.
It all started with Amazon’s 2014 acquisition of Double Helix Games, an Irvine, California-based studio founded in 2007 responsible for developing many popular games for various publishers, such as 2008’s Silent Hill: Homecoming (Konami), Killer Instinct (Microsoft) since 2013. ) and Strider (Capcom) since 2014.
An established studio with a growing profile and collection of experienced and full-time game developers, Orange County will be the foundation of what will become Amazon Games Studios. The studio’s first project was an ambitious game and brand new IP, New World: An Open World Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) featuring large-scale siege battles, adventurous expeditions, thrilling supernatural invasions, and stunning and diverse natural environments.
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Jean-Edouard Michelot, audio director, on location in California’s Anza-Borrego desert while recording audio for use in the New World’s Brimstone Sands update.
Audio director Jean-Edouard Michelot was an employee of Double Helix Games when it was acquired by Amazon in 2014, and most recently led audio design during the development of Killer Instinct and its post-launch support.
He accepted the challenge of building a team and studio structure capable of realizing Amazon’s ambitions for a new world. He also appreciated that Amazon Games gave its developers the space to learn, grow and, critically, sometimes fail. That mindset has gone a long way toward earning the trust of both its developers and its customers, giving its team time to create something that consistently meets and exceeds player expectations.
“One of [Amazon’s] leadership principles is ‘earn trust,'” Michelot said. “Seeing that positivity from our leaders really helped us keep that confidence and stay on board.”
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Petra Beringer, Marcus Barber and Jorge Oseguera catch up on a work break at Amazon Games Orange County Studios.
Rosie Strzalkowski, lead environment artist for New World, got her start in the games industry in the early 90s, working on Sega Genesis titles such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Spider-Man. She eventually joined Sony Online Entertainment as Art Director on EverQuest, then specialized in MMOs after contributing to EverQuest expansions including EverQuest II, Free Realms, and EverQuest Next. Today, Rosie oversees the development of New World Art.
Like Miclot, Strzalkowski sees Amazon’s unwavering commitment to “earned trust” as something that has set it apart in the industry.
“It’s important to the long-term health of the game and the team,” she said. “It’s tempting for companies to burn trust at the expense of delivering results that will serve the bottom line.”
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New World Quest designer Kerry Berg has been in gaming for 12 years and has worked in a variety of roles during that time. Her previous credits include the global phenomenon Minecraft and Niantic’s groundbreaking location-based mobile game Ingress, with some of her work appearing in its subsequent mobile megahit Pokemon GO.
Despite her focus on mission design, Berg appreciates the opportunity to participate elsewhere in the New World development process, while also welcoming fresh, outside perspectives to her work.
“Our team at Amazon Games is really great at cross-group collaboration,” she said. “It’s really nice to work with different teams and have that experience where you’re not just alone, you’re doing your own thing, you’re never interacting with other groups that you might need to interact with.”
EJ Samuel began his game development career in 2007 at EA Tiburon in Orlando, Florida. There, he worked on several popular sports franchises in the studio, such as NCAA Football, Madden NFL and NBA Live. After two and a half years at Turtle Rock Studios in Lake Forest, California, where he worked as a user interface designer on Evolve, he eventually joined Amazon Games’ Orange County studio to support new world development as a senior design technologist.
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EJ Samuel (left), senior design technologist, collaborates with colleagues Kelly Knutson and Joseph Ignacio at Amazon Games’ Orange County studio.
“I thought, ‘Oh, this is a great opportunity to be on the ground floor and lead the structure of how we’re going to build the UI,'” he explained.
All of the developers at Orange County Studios have their own memories of their time creating and supporting the game. For quest designer Berg, it’s a matter of pride that she put her stamp on the game – along with some of her friends and teammates – contributing to the wider lore of the new world in a variety of ways.
“[Senior level designer] David McKenzie and I described and added descriptions for each location in the world, so that when you pull up the map, it doesn’t just say the name of the place,” Berg recalled. “He’ll give you a little rhyme or a fun sentence that hints at what it is. And as recently as this summer I worked with Austin [DeVries, audio supervisor] who’s an amazing composer, and when the music feature launched we All songs passed and named.”
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Despite her years of experience building and running several MMOs, Strzalkowski will never forget the moment when Eternum of the New World—a virtual world her team had developed over several years—came to life as millions of players began populating the game’s servers. “My favorite experience was when I first jumped on a live server when it came out, and saw cities in the middle of cities full of people talking to each other and doing funny things,” she said. “It was a highlight for me to see the players experience the world for the first time. I was proud to play a part in making it all happen.”
Miklot credits the creation of the New World Sound Library with the opportunity to connect with cherished family memories. He occasionally brought his father with him to scenic locations, where they recorded the sound effects that have been immortalized in the game and experienced by millions of players around the world. “When the game launched and there were about a million concurrent players, I said to my dad, ‘Look, everyone can hear the sounds we recorded,'” he explained. “That feeling of positivity – when people responded so well to the sound – and at the same time, I connected with my memory of spending time with my father in the forest. It was an amazing experience for me that was better than therapy.”