Fresh in the game, but I’m no beginner

We’re sure you’ve heard this phrase a lot lately: these are unprecedented times. But even as we write this, there are signs of tentative progress – of select countries, and people, safely taking their first steps forward in months, into an era entirely different from the one they’re leaving behind.

The same might also be said of the videogame industry. We have been teetering on the edge of the next generation for a while now, with everything that’s going on in the wider world further delaying the leap. In Knowledge this issue we talk to developers about how they’ve adapted to the global crisis, and are creating games in unexpected circumstances.

It is all new to almost everybody. And yet, there’s the prevailing sense that we have been here before. We’re no strangers to a new console generation, and although it’s set to roll out much more slowly than usual (with Geoff Keighley having vowed to replace this year’s E3 with Summer Game Fest, four months of drip-fed reveals), we feel that familiar prickle in the air. The whispers we’ve been hearing for months are manifesting, as the big companies find enough of a footing to start kicking things off.

By now, you will have had your first proper look at what Xbox Series X has to offer. The Ascent is part of it: it’s the debut of an indie superteam with a combined history of over 70 years in the industry working on some of the best shooters of the last decade. Still, the team is just 11 people strong; despite all their experience, Neon Giant’s co-founders tell us they didn’t know how to arrange their faces when Microsoft asked them to help launch its next-gen console. This is new territory for them, and Microsoft too, which is putting immense faith in a tiny team that’s trying something a little bit unusual – as well it should, from what we’ve seen. Now is the perfect time, after all, to set new precedents. The story begins on p54.