Sega may now hold the corporate reins at Amplitude Studios, but it appears that the House of Sonic isn’t going to muck up its latest acquisition’s approach to making games.
The Paris-based strategy game development team announced today that its next project, Endless Space 2, will hit Seam’s Early Access program in September. This is in line with how the studio makes games, relying on feedback from those who buy it while in development to help make it better.
Sega acquired Amplitude in early July. In an interview with GamesBeat, chief operating officer and creative director Romain de Waubert set out why his studio sold itself to the Japanese company.
“… But the most important part is that we really loved the way they look at game development, and no other publisher we talked to had this kind of approach.
Basically they empower their studios, and make all the necessary services available to them so that they can deliver an awesome experience and help games find new players. They don’t tell us what to do, all they want is our success, as our success is their success!
Our understanding is that if we deliver a poor game, it will be Amplitude’s fault, not Sega’s, because they are here only to help us, not to break something that works.”
Endless Space 2 hits Early Access with four of its eight factions in a sci-fi setting. Early Access is a program on Steam (and it’s also appeared on other online networks as well) that enables developers to sell unfinished games on the digital store. The sales help fund smaller studios as they continue development, but it also provides a crucial feedback tool, one that Amplitude has used in its other games: Endless Space, Endless Legend, and Dungeon of the Endless.