Using the connections they’d gained over the years, the newly-formed Darkside picked up some high-profile contracts, doing tech work for games such as BioShock 2 and even designing entire chunks of AAA games, like the Borderlands downloadable content “Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution” and the multiplayer portion of the 2012 shooter Spec Ops: The Line.Ībove: concept rendering of Darkside’s Phantom Dust reboot.
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After several years doing outsourced art-work for game series such as Call of Duty and Medal of Honour, the developers decided to branch into design, forming a new studio called Darkside in 2008. Way back in 2002, a group of Florida-based artists started a production company that they called Shadows of Darkness.
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(“Microsoft partnered with Darkside Game Studios in the development of ‘ Phantom Dust,’ but our working relationship has now ended.”) When asked to comment on the specific details in this story, Microsoft declined, only re-sending the statement they sent when we first broke news that the two companies had parted ways. It’s sad, frustrating, and more than a little tragic. So just what happened? How does a successful independent studio go from working on top AAA games to laying off its staff in just under a year? Over the past few months, I’ve talked to five people who worked for the company - all of whom spoke under condition of anonymity in the interest of protecting their careers - in an attempt to learn the story of how Darkside collapsed. When Phantom Dust came along, Darkside employees say they were ecstatic - finally, they could prove that they were capable of making their own game, too. Darkside, like many other small studios, was firmly rooted in the unglamorous world of outsourcing, helping make other companies’ games rather than creating their own. Though you may never have heard of Darkside Games, you’ve probably heard of the games they have helped develop - the Florida-based studio has contributed to Gears of War: Judgment, Spec Ops: The Line, Sunset Overdrive, and various Borderlands games, handling all sorts of art, DLC, and other features. When the Phantom Dust deal fell apart, Darkside did too.
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Almost all of their employees have either relocated or taken jobs at nearby game companies like Magic Leap and High Voltage. The owners would later go on to contract a few artists and programmers for small projects, but today the studio is a shell of itself. Shortly afterward, Darkside laid off all of its staff. Microsoft had already dumped roughly $US2 million into the project, but at that point the publisher decided to pull out rather than pour more money in. “There was just no leeway,” said one person familiar with the meeting. As they flew back to Florida, Darkside’s leads were pessimistic about the negotiations working out, and sure enough, the next week, on February 17, they got a phone call: it was all over.
![where are phantom dust pc save files where are phantom dust pc save files](https://www.nag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/PD-cover-870x489.jpg)
To make the game Microsoft expected, they’d need more money: a total of $US7 or $US8 million, at the very least. For the past few months they’d been working on an Xbox One reboot of the cult classic Phantom Dust, and it’d become clear to Darkside’s producers that their $US5 million budget wasn’t going to swing it. Over the course of the meeting, which lasted two days, Darkside’s leadership tried to convince the mega-corporation to give them a few more million dollars, according to two people familiar with the situation. One week in early February, three top employees from the independent game studio Darkside Games flew to Redmond, Washington for a secret meeting with Microsoft.