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Just when everyone thought that the kind of toys had come true, Ubisoft challenged the industry trend and moved forward with Starlink: Battle for Atlus.
This new franchise in the troubled genre has captured the hearts and minds of not only children but of all the greatest minds of Nintendo. With his innovative concepts and the way he leads you into an exciting world, Starlink it's proven to be a strong and innovative concept.
Sitting at Ubisoft Toronto, cradle of the franchise, I had the opportunity to talk to Matthew Rose, the producer of Starlink: Battle for Atlus. With so many unique talents at their disposal, the Ubisoft Toronto team decided to create something new and what brought them excited young and old alike. As Rose explains, it was a process, but the stars lined up to make the launch more exciting than anyone could have imagined. From an innovative concept to a partnership with Nintendo, Starlink is a game that started small but landed among the stars.
CGMagazine: How did this project start?
Matthew Rose: I had this incredible opportunity five years ago. I still do not know how I landed it, but I was given this blank slate, this very open mandate, which was essentially to propose something new.
You know it should be really liberating and exciting, but it was terrifying, because it's hard to be creative when you have no constraints. But I had a big problem, it was that I had only eight people and we had this little corner, it was people from different horizons and different disciplines. We made all kinds of crazy prototypes for months with different technologies and different genres and we played with augmented reality, Kinect and all sorts of crazy things.
One of these prototypes was the idea of this type of modular spacecraft. It's this clumsy rough prototype that we made at first, but that worked. There was this real magic out there and we showed it and somehow filled in all the missing parts and are really excited about it. It really became the beginning, then something extraordinary happened: the protagonists saw this prototype in the studio and even in other Ubisoft studios: "It's something I want to be part of. People started saying, "You know what, I have a background in industrial design, I was doing electronics or my hobby is making toys, designing toys," and everything the world has begun to unite to make this thing a reality. . The rest is history. It was an incredible trip until now.
CGMagazine: While the real-life genre has changed since you started, have you ever questioned its development?
Matthew Rose: The main advance for us was to realize that there was an extremely underserved market. Most children's games describe this formula as "my first video game": holding your hand and bringing you into the world of video games. They are super linear and tend to be a low challenge. They have this cartoony visual that really appeals to young children and they bring and excite them and make them participate in video games. The problem is that nowadays most children grow up with perfect mastery of technology and grow up with a generation of parent gamers who play these games with them. So at the time they were between six, seven and eight years old. maybe at the top they have mastered these games and that they are ready for the next big challenge. What we understood was that very few players in the market were intended for an audience and that it was entirely appropriate for them. Far too many of these children escaped directly from the games of these very young children to mature. clbadified games that are not really meant for them.
That was the moment, it was the breakthrough when we said: "okay, it's a market", and it's this opportunity that drove all the rest ; this opportunity has engaged retailers and aboard. Retailers thanked us for creating something because they see it so often in their stores. So you know we're really excited.
CGMagazine: Can you talk a bit about creating the Starfox / Nintendo partnership?
Matthew Rose: This happened after the E3 2017. I had the opportunity, at the E3 2017, to unveil the game to the world on stage. This is an incredible moment and all we got at this E3 was a demo behind the closed door that we were showing to a limited number of people.
One of the bands that came to watch the demo was a small band from Nintendo America. We had already announced that the game was coming and it was not so strange for us. They had not seen him. So, they came to see him and they tried to keep their face poker but with mixed success. In the end, you could say that they were interested and they said, "Hey, if it bothers us to come back with another group," and we said, "Sure, that would be great."
They came back with another group and a group of translators. C & # 39; was the director of Mario Odyssey and the director of Mario Kart and Arms and all those kinds of Nintendo legends. We showed them the game and they were very interested and asked good questions, and then they said, "Do not you mind coming back with another group?" And then he was the father of Metroid and the creator of Crossing of animals– you know how to go up the ladder – and it was an incredible experience.
Finally, it was Reggie with his bodyguards and at that time we knew something was going on. After E3, we reached out and we started talking to Nintendo. And this resulted in us being invited to collaborate with Mr. Miyamoto. I have had the opportunity to travel to Kyoto with Laurel Melville, our current director, and Liam, our technical director. We went there and just before we started, we discovered that it was not only Mr. Miyamoto, all the Japanese part of the Star Fox development team that now uses Nintendo Japan.
It was not the most beautiful experience of my career. But it was obvious that everything had gone well and Liam had taken up the intense challenge that Miyamoto was asking him about game design. But of course, he survived and he did well and the rest belongs to the story.
CGMagazine: I quickly wanted to conclude by talking about Toronto and the development of this city. How do you find it and do you think it helped make this game a reality?
Oh, it's amazing. I grew up around Toronto, I come from a place called Lindsay and Toronto has always been the big city. I went to university here in Seneca and at the Max the Mutt Animation School. Then I moved to Vancouver because there was no gaming industry in Toronto at the time, or rather it was a small industry limited resources. I moved to Vancouver and worked in major studios. I came home for Christmas a year. At the time, my daughter was only 18 months old. My parents are here and my brothers are here.
I realized how wonderful it was to be able to count on a close family to support them. I decided to move. Ubisoft had just started at the time. So I came to join the studio. For me, it came home. I've always been surprised that there is no bigger industry here because there is so much talent here. There are incredible schools, there is so much talent and all the support you have in the film and television industry and an incredible independent stage for game development. For us, it has been incredible. We worked with so many partners, our composer Trevor Yulie, who is the composer of Black Orphan, is here in Toronto and did an amazing job with our music.
You know that all the actors who are all here tonight, the cast of the game – the vast majority of them – are Toronto actors. Elliott Animation, located right in front of the studio, helped script the cinematics and work on elements. We have worked with many partners in the city. This game really feels like a project run by Toronto. Even outside Ubisoft, it's a collaboration with all kinds of partners in the city.
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