LogIn"If you don't have playable levels, you don't have much of a game."
Obsidian's Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer has recalled his time working on the canceled Aliens RPG for SEGA in 2006-2009. He said that the company didn't have directors at that time, so the leads were considered peers, which led to "a lot of dysfunction" when they didn't agree on something.
Sawyer shared that the progress was slow, "especially when it came to creating workable game levels". Eventually, SEGA canned the game in favor of Alpha Protocol – a 2010 action RPG.
"There were a lot of cool ideas in the works, but you don't ship ideas! The biggest lesson I learned from the experience is that if you don't have playable levels, you don't have much of a game (there are some exceptions, of course)."
Sawyer also expressed his happiness playing Cold Iron Studios' Aliens: Fireteam Elite because its setup reminded him of that time: "small team, 3rd person, with an emphasis on deployables and support actions".
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