PlatinumGames / Clover Studio

[Dr. Insomniac]

Despite those problems Korra experienced, it seems Activision was happy enough with the result - and Platinum enjoyed working with them enough - for PG to get a much bigger budget and longer development cycle for Transformers. Now let's just hope Activision doesn't try to buy them out.

Nah, Platinum will be fine. Just like how Blizzard is still making RTSes and working on a sequel to Ghost instead of milking WoW dry.

[gunswordfist]

The game WOULD HAVE BEEN flawless had Activision given Platinum a more reasonable budget and time to work with. From what I heard, they barely got any funding for the game, and were basically forced to make it in about six months. On top of that, neither Activision nor Nickelodeon even bothered to properly advertise the game.

Despite all of this working against them, the game was still surprisingly decent, which is amazing considering what a disaster it would have been if any other developer had to handle it under the same outrageous circumstances.

Sighs, I should expect just that from Activision

[Foggle]

[gunswordfist]

Whoa, has it already been 10 years? Amazing. I also love how they snuck Korra in there.

[Foggle]

Whoa, has it already been 10 years? Amazing. I also love how they snuck Korra in there.

There are silhouettes of the main characters from Nier Automata and Scalebound, as well as two of the Ninja Turtles, in there too.

Platinum has come a long way. I remember being excited for MadWorld for months despite not even owning a Wii; my friend picked up a copy on day one and we stayed up all night playing through the entire thing together (as well as House of the Dead: Overkill). Then thinking both Bayonetta and Wonderful 101 looked dumb, but eventually being blown away by both. Not to mention my anger over Sega's legendary mishandling of Anarchy Reigns followed by tens of hours playing an imported copy... Fun memories. PlatinumGames' Nier sequel is easily my most anticipated game of all time; my girlfriend and I actually screamed for several minutes when it was announced at E3. Love this studio to death.

[Peanutbutter]

So Mutants in Manhatten came out, and sadly it sounds like its Platinum's first misfire.


Though considering they had to work with Activision, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't rushed out too fast.

[gunswordfist]

Really? I heard it's good except for the inexcusable lack of couch co-op

[Spark Of Spirit]

Really? I heard it's good except for the inexcusable lack of couch co-op

That's always been my #1 sticking point.

But they worked with Activision on Transformers. That worked out pretty well for all involved.

[Foggle]

Really? I heard it's good except for the inexcusable lack of couch co-op

I honestly haven't heard anything positive about the game at all, even from Platinum diehards. Its reception has been far worse than Korra's from what I've seen.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's a shame. It's been a long time since we've gotten a good TMNT game, and I was hoping that Platinum would be the company to finally deliver one.

It may be a result of PG taking on so many projects in recent years, and perhaps spreading their talented development team a bit too thin between multiple games. It's a bit worrying that even Star Fox Zero, a game which they clearly had a lot more investment in and were banking on, got decidedly mixed to negative reception from both critics and fans alike (and that includes Nintendo and PG fans).

I suppose the bulk of their talent is busy at work under Kamiya's direction on Scalebound, their biggest budget game to date, but perhaps they shouldn't have agreed to more than one smaller project at a time if that was already going on.

[Foggle]

I think, in the case of TMNT, they just may have not had enough time to deliver a quality product. It's been barely more than half a year since Transformers came out, and both games seem to be (mostly) by the same team. It must be really hard (if not impossible) to make a great 3D co-op game in 8 months, no matter how talented you are.

With Star Fox Zero, the only problem people seem to have with it is the control scheme, which Platinum isn't responsible for. I haven't really heard anyone who was able to dig into the game say much bad about it.

That said, their A teams are definitely on Scalebound and Nier.

[gunswordfist]

Just peeking at Nier..yeah, that's probably true.

[VLordGTZ]

Microsoft has officially cancelled Scalebound.

The only upside to this is that I now have no reason to ever buy an Xbox One.

[Foggle]

Microsoft has officially cancelled Scalebound.

The only upside to this is that I now have no reason to ever buy an Xbox One.

This is extremely bad news. Regardless of one's opinion on Scalebound and its previews, this was Kamiya's dream game and the most expensive/longest in-development title Platinum has ever worked on. Aside from Transformers, their last few games have been critical disasters (though only TMNT truly deserved such negative reception), and all their future releases after Nier - the nichest of niche games - seem to be low effort mobage-related nonsense. I fear for the future of the best action game studio in the business; if Automata doesn't sell well, they could be in serious trouble. Can't really see a positive future that doesn't involve Square Enix or Nintendo stepping up to the plate for them in a big way.

[Rynnec]

Microsoft has officially cancelled Scalebound.

The only upside to this is that I now have no reason to ever buy an Xbox One.

This is extremely bad news. Regardless of one's opinion on Scalebound and its previews, this was Kamiya's dream game and the most expensive/longest in-development title Platinum has ever worked on. Aside from Transformers, their last few games have been critical disasters (though only TMNT truly deserved such negative reception), and all their future releases after Nier - the nichest of niche games - seem to be low effort mobage-related nonsense. I fear for the future of the best action game studio in the business; if Automata doesn't sell well, they could be in serious trouble. Can't really see a positive future that doesn't involve Square Enix or Nintendo stepping up to the plate for them in a big way.

Their Granblue Fantasy console RPG is their last chance to stay afloat if Automata fails. I'm sure it'll do well in its home country, but I can't see it making a real splash overseas.