GB Feature: E3 2010: An Evening With 38 Studios
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In an attempt to get more information about Project Mercury (Big Huge Games' multi-platform, single player RPG previously known as Ascendant), I ran a number of questions past COO Tim Train. As it turns out, a vast majority of the original game has been scrapped since their acquisition by 38 Studios, though the team is still using the same engine tech and much of their original vision for the game. Now that they're a part of 38 Studios, the decision was made to rewrite the game's storyline and base it within the elaborate 10,000-year fiction that R.A. Salvatore had created for Copernicus. Tim explained that the Ken Rolston-led team at Big Huge Games was given the opportunity to choose an area within that history for Mercury's storyline, and that the team was "very passionate" about an epoch that takes place about 2000 years before the MMORPG. Unfortunately, he couldn't elaborate on the events that made that particular era so compelling, but he assured me that the storyline in the single player RPG would very effectively tie-in to the lore within Copernicus.
As for their decision to keep Ascendant's engine tech, Tim explained that it was specifically designed for an RPG and that their familiarity with the technology meant that they could keep the game moving along at a rapid pace. When I inquired about the game's early screenshots showing an MMO-style third-person viewpoint, Train made reference to the control scheme Bethesda used for The Elder Scrolls before slyly issuing a "no comment". That small morsel of information leads me to believe that the game will allow for both a third-person and first-person viewpoint, depending on the player's preference, though we'll have to wait until further details are released before we know for sure.
