Portal 2 arrived in 2011 after an Alternate Reality Game gripped the series fanbase. — AFP Relaxnews
Chet Faliszek, the story writer behind Half-Life 2: Episodes, Left 4 Dead and Portal 2 is teaming up with Kimberly Voll, a designer at the studio behind the world's biggest computer game, League Of Legends.
A new studio from Half-Life 2 and League Of Legends alumni Chet Faliszek and Kimberly Voll is to focus on co-operative games with an AI spin.
"Players are smart, they are social. But games often don't reflect that and we think that can change," Faliszek wrote in Stray Bombay's opening blog post.
"We want to create games that give players a place to breathe and live in the moment," he continued. "Games that tell stories knowing you are going to come back again and again, that change each time you play them without feeling completely random, and that help you feel like a real team that supports each other...not a bunch of folks in each other's way."
Those games would also feature AI that "drives not just the enemies but helps drive the entire experience".
Voll herself is an expert in both AI and human-centric design, and previous employer Riot Games is investing in Stray Bombay.
In keeping with its plans to develop co-operative game experiences, Stray Bombay is organising itself along collaborative lines, making everyone "equals, not just in their impact on the project but in how we divide the loot of our success".
In doing so, Stray Bombay appears to be joining a number of existing and successful developer co-operatives such as France's Motion Twin (2018 hit Dead Cells) and Canada's KO_OP (2017's GNOG).
While Voll worked on Valve's Steam VR launch title Fantastic Contraption prior to looking at Riot's League Of Legends player experience, Faliszek's stint at Valve Corporation resulted in writing credits on the Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead franchises, each noted for their design, player direction, and experiential storytelling.
Portal influences can be seen in Quantum Conundrum, philosophical spatial puzzler The Talos Principle, and the cuboid manipulation challenge series QUBE, while Left 4 Dead helped spawn a host of high-intensity co-op experiences including heist franchise Payday, medieval fantasy Warhammer: Vermintide, and 2019's March 26 release Generation Zero.
Yet we may be seeing something quite different from Stray Bombay; Faliszek left post-Valve employer Bossa Studios after working on "cooperative gameplay that would emphasise different, unusual 'verbs' ... primary actions beyond jumping, shooting and killing," according to an Ars Technica interview, "and it seems he's not done with that design directive." – AFP Relaxnews
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