#killerinstinct2013

Microsoft Studios: The XBOX ONE Show: 2013 11 21: Killer Instinct

Transcript Incomplete.

Project Progress Overview

Microsoft Studios: The XBOX ONE Show: 2013 11 14: Killer Instinct

Transcript Incomplete.

Project Progress Overview

Microsoft Studios: The XBOX ONE Show: 2013 11 07: Killer Instinct

Transcript Incomplete.

Project Progress Overview

Microsoft Studios: The XBOX ONE Show: 2013 10 31: Killer Instinct

Transcript Incomplete.

Project Progress Overview

You can help!

IGN + Double Helix Orchid Reveal Live Stream

Cast:  From Double Helix Games: Rich Bantegui and David Verfaillie From IGN: Destin Legarie and Vincent Ingenito

Transcript Incomplete.

Project Progress Overview

Machinima's Killer Instinct Interview

Adam Kovic: First question (I think what’s on everyone’s mind)

What took you so long? We’re so excited!

Torin Rettig: [Laughs]

Yeah, indeed, “what took us so long?”!

I mean, you know, what I’ll say about, like, how this started is, like, it was really just a passion project, um, where a bunch of people, like, internally who were really excited about the game decided you know, “Hey, let’s just try to make this thing happen!”. And I know there are guys internally who’ve been trying to make it happen for a while and it was really just the right combination of elements that came together - the right will and the right intent, you know, and the right pitch that came together.

So, what happened was, our, um, production team with our design team came up with an RFP (a re… Request For Proposal) and we sent that out to a number of developers, you know, saying, “Hey! We want to remake… remake Killer Instinct! Who’s interested? Give us your best pitch!”. And, um, one developer stood out amongst all of them… and that was Double Helix. They had the best pitch, um… (by far!) of, uh, of all the other pitches. You know… we were really super impressed, um, with them and it just really just blew us away! So… yeah.

Adam Kovic: What was it… What was it about their pitch that separated them from everyone else?

Torin Rettig: Um, really it was their… their ideas for the characters, their ideas for the art style - just how much thought they put into it. Just how much thought they put into the design of the characters and how that’s reflected in the way they look and, uh, their backstory. And their understanding of fighting games, really. That’s, like, super important. They have guys, internally, who are just, like, hardcore fighting game players. Um, and just, you know, their overall pitch was just like, “Hey! These are the guys to do it!”.

Adam Kovic: There’ve been a lot of consoles and a lot of games (fighting-wise) that have come out between the Super Nintendo…

Torin Rettig: For sure.

Adam Kovic: …and, and today, going into XBOX ONE. What challenges are you going up against, in this climate now, with so many different types of fighting games and things like EVO that exist that did not exist back then?

Torin Rettig: Yeah, exactly. Well, I wouldn’t call EVO a challenge. I’d call EVO an opportunity, really, you know. And actually we’re going to be at EVO, uh, next month. So, yeah, we’re going to be talking a bit more about the game. We’re gonna’ be talking about more characters and stuff, so yeah. Come on down. It… it’ll be awesome. Yeah, I’ll be there.

Uh, but yeah, it’s a very valid question. It’s like, “Yeah, look at this climate. There are a lot of fighting games out there.” and the way we wanted to approach Killer Instinct was

1) to bring this game back that everyone loved and to stay as true to it as possible, while modernizing both the look and the combat system but staying true to the roots of it. You know, super massive combos, ultras, combo breakers… Uh… this crazy announcer that you could hear across the entire arcade, you know… We want to keep all of that.

But, um, at the same time, yeah… we have to stay competitive with the other games in the space.

We brought in professional fighting game, ah, gamers before the announce to, uh, do play tests with us. They gave us really super great feedback. They were really excited about it. It’s got us really pumped for it. Um, but, you know, it just really shows that we’re taking this seriously. We really want to engage with the community in the creation of this game. After the game releases, you know, we want to continue to engage. We’re gonna’ continue to release characters, um, on a regular cadence, you know, after the game launches. Om… and we want to involve the community in deciding… “Hey! Are these characters…”, you know, “What’s good about these characters? What can we improve?” you know. We want to have, like, a pre-release program where, uh, players can play these characters before… before they’re, you know, ready for primetime and give us feedback on ‘em. You know, we’re gonna’ be collecting all kinds of telemetry and data to enable us to know, uh, how characters, uh, how people are playing these games - what they like, what they don’t like, what they’re gravitating towards and how we can make more of that stuff.

Adam Kovic: I want to ask you about that. With the XBOX ONE are you able to do things that you couldn’t do with the XBOX 360? Like, um, we saw the Twitch integration.

Torin Rettig: Yeah

Adam Kovic: But are there ways of patching the game a lot quicker or more seamlessly than what we saw in past… in the past 360?

Torin Rettig: Yeah, absolutely! And that’s… that’s one of the… the great things that we can do on XBOX ONE.

Uh, our data platform allows us to, uh, gather tons of data, but it also allows us to… to patch games, like, really really quickly. It’s just like… we don’t have to go through, like, um, a big, like, um, patching process. It’s like… we have access to the data and access to these knobs that we can turn, um, to, um, to, you know…

If we see that there’s a big game-breaking bug or some, like, crazy exploit, we don’t have to go through a cert. process. We can just, like, “Boom!” fix it, like, on the fly.

We can have a fix out the next day if we want to. We definitely want to have that level of response - that level of engagement with the community.

Adam Kovic: Well, uh, it’s definitely one of the biggest surprises here, uh, with your press conference.

I have to ask. Do you have a suggested launch window or anything, uh, for Killer Instinct at this point?

Torin Rettig: Day One.

Adam Kovic: [Inaudible]

Torin Rettig: Yep.

Adam Kovic: Fantastic!

Thank you so much for talking with us, man. I appreciate it.

Torin Rettig: Oh, thank you!

Adam Kovic: Yeah! Of course.

Torin Rettig: Awesome.