Hold To Reset

Building a new game, a new studio and a new life from the ground up

With a game shipped and studio sold, Alex Hutchinson’s moving on

We’re into 2020, Journey To The Savage Planet is in manufacture, and I’m on vacation back in Australia while half the country is on fire around me, meaning instead of being at the beach, I’ve opened a bottle of wine, put the kids to bed and spent some time reflecting. Over my two-and-a-bit years writing this column we built out a studio, made a game I’m really proud of, and then while we were beginning to discuss what was next, Google made us an offer that was simply too good to refuse. We decided to sell the company to them and become part of their firstparty studio in Montreal.

To be perfectly frank, it wasn’t the original plan. But when we began to think about why we started Typhoon in the first place, how unstable the whole planet feels right now, and the opportunities the deal presented, it began to seem like a perfect fit. Our basic plan was to make cool games with talented collaborators. The idea of making Game Two with the same crew, plus massive support and internal access to Stadia hardware and software, is really exciting. I’ve made handheld games, licensed games, franchises, new IPs and reboots, and they all have their unique challenges and opportunities – but I’ve never worked on a team which had the power and access of a firstparty studio.

Plus, it’s so early in the process that we get to help define what ‘firstparty’ means to Google, and hopefully what Stadia means to the industry. It’s increasingly clear to me that the future is streaming and cloud content of some variety, although as always it will likely take longer to eventuate than many people would like, and longer than many people whose job it is to predict the future will pitch to you. Stadia is still in its early days, but it is also unencumbered by decades of historical process or people, meaning big decisions can be made quickly.

Broadening the audience from people who’ve invested in custom hardware to anyone with a screen is huge, especially in areas such as India where consoles and high-end PCs have never really found a foothold. For those of us who already own hardware, being able to pause your game on the TV, pick it up on your phone and continue it at the office over lunch is terrific. And the fact that the content is streamed means we can add more players at will. For a game like Savage Planet specifically, we can also integrate couch co-op instantly, which is one of the features we most wanted but ran out of time to integrate: if you have a phone or a laptop you can jump in with another player from anywhere.

It’s also (sadly for me) a platform that will finally embrace the purely digital completely. I may go to my grave crushed by an avalanche of physical media, but I am aware I am more and more the exception. The only real question is whether more players want a Netflix-style subscription service or a personal library, and whether the two can coexist in the sales proposition without confusing the average person.

But for us former Typhooners, and now Googlers, we just want to make another game. Hardware is fun to speculate about but it has never truly mattered as much as some people would like you to believe. It’s software that moves hardware, as Nintendo has proven over and over again.

So when we get back to work in the next few weeks, we’ll be kicking off a bunch of little experiments with some brand-new tech, while also beginning the long process of traditional conception. I can feel the standard mixture of excitement and dread at the barrage of responses, feedback and ideas that we’ll receive once people start playing Savage Planet. I will yet again make myself a promise not to read the comments, but I know I will read the comments, in the hope that people will find it worthwhile and thoughtful and fun.

And on that note, this also marks my final column for Edge. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to document our journey on these pages. As I said early on, when I was younger and riding the tram to university, I would read Edge and fantasise about making something the magazine would want to cover. I am excited by the idea that someone out there read these columns and decided it wasn’t such a daunting process, and is starting their own company at this very moment. Thanks for reading, and see you on the next game.

I may go to my grave crushed by an avalanche of physical media, but I am aware I am more and more the exception