THQ left it late. Days before Christmas it announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the last resort of an ailing US company, in order to ditch its $100 million debt and sell its assets to the highest bidder. It was a fitting end to a year in which it became clear that, at retail at least, anything less than unqualified success can spell disaster.
Alex & Mike talk Biomutant, a game from Experiment 101/THQ Nordiq you likely have not heard of. While the AAA side of the industry tends to homogenization and imitative, cinematic presentation, “AA” games remain creative and innovative in 2021. Drawing on inspirations as varied as Dark Souls, third person shooters & kung fu cinema, Biomutant is Ratchet & Clank on acid, developed by a team of 20 people.
Remember THQ? They published such games as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Darksiders I & II, the Destroy All Humans series, Homefront, the Red Faction series, and Saint's Row 1-3. Almost as famous as their games were the THQ marketing stunts, including a Golden Wii.
PlaySation gamers are in for a treat today! Not only did Sony roll out its “Double Discount” PlayStation Store sale, but there’s also a THQ Humbe Bundle PS4 discount happening too!
This was a really good article. THQ is a sign of things to come. "Back in the day", a ton of good games came out in the middle tier. Games like Psychonauts, Yakuza, Deus Ex, the SMT series, Disgaea, Eternal Darkness, Oddworld series, etc. etc. Middle tier games may have a few flaws and may be lacking in polish, but they are usually more unique than full-blown AAA titles. Nowadays, your choice is either AAA Call of Duty clones, "rpg" games like Mass Effect, or really crappy motion control minigame collections. Smaller devs/publishers simply cannot afford to keep up with graphical demand. You have middle tier games like Darksiders II or Spec Ops: The Line or Bulletstorm or The Darkness or Prey or Binary Domain that are pretty dang good, but they'll never ever sell enough to demand sequels because they don't sell CoD numbers. The middle tier is vanishing, and that is a very, very bad thing.
At least indie devs are still thriving.