Harebrained Schemes - Mitch Gitelman interview

[Silver]

In an interview with GameReactor Mitch Gitelman talks about Harebrained Schemes upcoming games Necropolis and Battletech while also discussing the future of Shadowrun. With the upcoming mini-campaign for SR: Hong Kong incoming this year its going to be a busy 2016 for the studio.

Their first major project was Shadowrun Returns (2013, funded via Kickstarter) and this game spawned sequels in the shape of Shadowrun: Dragonfall (2014) and Shadowrun: Hong Kong (2015) both with their own separate Kickstarter campaigns. Currently they are working to fulfil the last bit of content for Shadowrun: Hong Kong that was promised in the Kickstarter, and they've just started up on their latest Kickstarter project BattleTech (once again going back to an old FASA property), while the promising and action-RPG Necropolis is closing in on release.

[...]

You've got so many different things going on so we thought we'd catch up and get an update on what's happening. Can you give us a brief overview of what's going on at the studio at the moment?

Mitch Gitelman: Oh my. Well let's see, we are hard at work on pre-production on Battletech after closing our kickstarter in October. So we got a pre-production team rolling there, a lot of good things are happening between now and the end of the year. A lot of documentation during prototyping, that kind of thing, and the BattleTech team is very excited.

We also have the Shadowrun team, who are doing Shadowrun: Hong Kong, they're also fulfilling a Kickstarter reward right now creating a mini-campaign that happens right after the events of Shadowrun: Hong Kong. So you can take your high level character from the end of Shadowrun: Hong Kong and import it into this new mini-campaign. I think it's going to be about a five hour campaign or so. Depending on the level of detail you play at it could be about seven hours. So that's coming out early next year. Also for Shadowrun: Hong Kong we just recorded an audio commentary to give to backers, so you'll be able to play through the game and as you enter different scenes you'll see a little icon. When you click it you'll hear the development teams' voices describe the making of that particular level, that kind of thing.

[...]

If we go back to one of those franchises that you're returning to, BattleTech. Was it always the plan to bring it back in this fashion?

[...]

The rights to BattleTech were just kind of a mess. So we sort of stayed away from it for a while but the cool thing was, with Battletech, although we've wanted to make it forever and we knew we wanted to make it turn-based like the original board game. So we always had this simple vision for one day, wouldn't it be great to give back to BattleTech fans, the way we did with Shadowrun fans. Actually it was the Shadowrun fans that sort of enabled the BattleTech fans because, with the overwhelming support that we got from Shadowrun and the fans reaction to what we did, the great reviews. That caught Microsoft's attention back to us. Obviously we had the Shadowrun license and they were really positive about it but, once they saw what we did with it, it was actually Phil Spencer who is the vice president of Microsoft Studios who really wanted us to do a Battletech game. To his credit, he's a really great guy. He was a good boss when I worked for him and he's a fan of Jordan's. From his point of view this had nothing to do with money any more or anything like that or licensing, screw that from his perspective. He had a chance to satisfy BattleTech fans by giving us the license and so he did. He just wanted there to be a good BattleTech game because there hadn't been one in so long and, that's how that happened and I'm pleased about that to.

[...]

On Shadowruns future:

Don't say that, that might be the opposite of what the fans want.

Well it depends on what you mean. We created a very old school game engine. Our stories were very modern stories. I'm really proud of our story telling and how it improved over time. But the production values and things like that, limit it in the market. We'll see what happens when we come back to it. Maybe something closer to Xcom. In terms of production values, like being able to rotate the map and things like that, being able to go upstairs.

But of course not moving it to a different perspective something crazy like that, that's been attempted in the past.

Oh no, we're not going to make a first-person shooter or something like that.

More information.

 

[Terry]

I have been a fan of their games since the 80's, that they are able to revitilize them and release a number of fun focused games 25 years later, is fantastic. This was a good interview with Mitch and they seem to have a grounded approach to game creation. I hope that BattleTech turns out as well as Shadowrun has for them.

 

[Darkheart]

I'm super psyched for Battletech and hope it turns out as good as I imagine it.
I also really enjoyed the Shadowrun games, even the first one which was a bit barebones. Still have to play Hong Kong and really looking forward to it.

 

[Couchpotato]

Good interview and the best part of it was when he mentioned if they make another Shadowrun game later on it will be made with a new 3D engine not unity.

That's comforting. We've touched on BattleTech and Necropolis a lot, but I guess Shadowrun remains a very important part of what you do and you are honouring that final Kickstarter, Hong Kong. Do you see Shadowrun expanding beyond Hong Kong or are you taking a break from that with BattleTech?

Yeah we're definitely taking a break for BattleTech, because the Shadowrun team is going to move over and working on it as well. We're going to step back from Shadowrun for a while, let people rest. We put out three games in three years. A couple of things about Shadowrun. First of all we love Shadowrun. Shadowrun is now part of the DNA of our studio now and so for example, on the anniversary of the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter, we celebrate. We get a cake.

Shadowrun was the time when we developed our reputation, it's where we developed our relationship with our audience. When we did the Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns there were eight of us in a storage closet. No joke, we were renting storage space from another game developer and making games in the storage space.

It really is the little cauldron that we sort of bubbled out of. We take it very seriously and we love it. We would love to go back to it. I think one of the greatest things about Shadowrun, it's a great science fiction setting, not just a fantasy setting. Speculate, when you travel around the world the way we're doing from Seattle to Berlin to Hong Kong. When we return to Shadowrun we intend to return to a different place in the world, to see how you know, 50 years and the return of magic affects different cultures around the world. We think that's fun. Shadowrun: Hong Kong, the story couldn't have happened anywhere else other than Hong Kong, just like Berlin in Dragonfall. It couldn't have happened anywhere else other than the city of Berlin. So that's what we are attempting to do as we go all around the world but, I think the game will need to take a different form in the future. Probably fully 3D. We'll see what happens. We have to keep up with the times.

 

[utergatuk]

Shadowrun Hong Kong really polished up the visuals on the old Unity engine compared to the other 2 titles. Plus I agree that the storytelling was much improved, as well as the overall game play experience. I'm pumped that they are going to ramp up the production values, because the Shadowrun mosh pit of genres has a lot of RPG potential just waiting to be sweetly visualized in full 3D.