Ubi Soft grabs Loose Cannon and Conquest

After being up in the air for several months, Loose Cannon and Conquest: Frontier Wars have found a home at Ubi Soft Entertainment. The company announced today that it will be showing the former Digital Anvil games at E3 later this week. Both games were originally developed by Digital Anvil, the game development company founded by Chris Roberts, the creator of the popular Wing Commander series. When Microsoft acquired Digital Anvil, the publisher decided to relinquish the rights to the two games and reassign the team members to other projects.

Ubi Soft will finish development of Loose Cannon at its North Carolina-based studio Sinister Games. The action-adventure game is scheduled for release in early 2002. Conquest: Frontier Wars will be completed by Fever Pitch Studios, a development house founded by the original producer of the game, Eric Peterson, and it is scheduled for release this fall. We caught up with Peterson and asked him about his new development studio and how Conquest has changed since it was cut loose by Microsoft.

GameSpot: Has the game changed at all since we last saw it? Last we heard, the game was almost finished when it was dropped by Microsoft. Have you added anything new?

Eric Peterson: The game has changed immeasurably. As for why it was dropped, Microsoft wanted it for Christmas last year, and in order for us to have made it, we would have had to cut features that the dev team felt were crucial to the success of our game. If it was released, minus those key features, neither Microsoft nor the dev team would have been happy with the results, so it was decided that Microsoft would allow us to take it to a new publisher.

Things we have added or reinserted since November:
1. A command-point slider that allows the player to build many more ships for his or her fleets.
2. Admiral stances in the admiral AI--this makes the admirals work as originally designed.
3. Multiplayer back to the original design of eight-player LAN and four-player Internet.
4. Three different multiplayer game types instead of just one.
5. Dev team-designed maps to go along with the random map generator.
6. Three types of random map generation instead of just one.
7. Maximum zoom nearly doubled to include a larger area of control.
8. The ability for two players to be the same color and on the same team in multiplayer.
9. The ability to ally yourself with computer players.
10. Resign or abdicate, a choice for a leaving player to allow the computer to take over his or her units. This is a key multiplayer element, as if someone had to leave after a bit of playing, they could ask the other players if they wanted to continue the game against the computer. There is nothing more frustrating than building a big fleet and then having someone up and leave before you can unleash it.

These are just a few of the key features that we've put into the game since November. We have also polished and balanced the game for an extra six months, and anyone will tell you that balance is crucial to the success of a good real-time strategy game.

GS: Can you tell us a little more about Fever Pitch Studios?

EP: Fever Pitch Studios is a new company that is dedicated to finishing Conquest and producing high-quality products for several gaming platforms. It is currently made up of some key members of the Conquest team. We all wanted to work at a smaller company where you can make a big difference. Large companies have security, but your creativity can be limited by the pressures of having to release a game before it is ready in order to satisfy quarterly profits. We aren't worried about that...yet.

GS: Now that you have Conquest lined up for publishing, what are you going to work on next?

EP: Currently we are working on Conquest and the Conquest Vyrium expansion pack. If Conquest sells as well as we hope, then perhaps Conquest 2 in the future. We are also holding talks with other companies about some new ideas we have for future Fever Pitch Studios games.

GS: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

EP: We have a demo that is nearly ready for release, and hopefully everyone will give it a go and enjoy it. The demo has the entire terran tech tree, four-player multiplayer, and a random map generator that will make maps with up to six systems. It also will include Internet matching so players can hook up for a game with ease.

We have had many a late-night shouting match as our fleets are battling it out for galactic domination--this tells us that we are getting really close.

GS: Thanks for your time, Eric.

We'll have more information about Loose Cannon and Conquest: Frontier Wars from the E3 show floor later this week. To find out more, take a look at our previous coverage of Conquest: Frontier Wars and our 2662128interview with Chris Roberts about the Digital Anvil acquisition.