CVG: "Everything we did they said was not good enough," says famed indie dev
The new version/update of Darwinia will allow both new and longtime fans the chance to experience the acclaimed indie title, now better than ever!
"The UK-based indie games developer Introversion Software and Microsoft today announced with great delight and excitement that the legendary retro-like real-time tactics/real-time strategy game "Darwinia+" is now available on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One via the Microsoft store." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
EDGE - Darwinia is obviously a love-letter to videogame culture, but it’s also a part of it. It doesn’t just doff its cap to a catalogue of adored classics, it undertakes to capture what made them great within its own mechanics. So your Death Squads are controlled exactly as your men in Cannon Fodder were, and hurling digital grenades into bleeping knots of the Virus has all the tactile appeal of that game’s gratifyingly simple massacres. The Virus itself bears obvious visual similarities to the antagonists of David Braben’s ’80s groundbreaker of the same name, but more importantly it also poses the same sinister threat: no one part of it is formidable, but the volume and voracity of the whole constantly threatens to overwhelm. And a less visual nod to Lemmings – the mechanic by which you command the otherwise aimless Darwinians by promoting a few to direct the rest – pulls the same miraculous trick of making you care for something simply because it refuses to be your puppet.
And the headline is baiting. It then goes on to say how MS's perseverance made them produce a higher quality title overall that they're more proud of.
"But at the same time Microsoft always backed up what they said with quite good evidence and facts - they were quite reliable," Morris clarified, adding that the critiques have helped Introversion craft "the best version of Darwinia we have ever made - the director's cut".
Holy moses - the platform holder held an indie developer up to standards and it stuck! maybe they'll make some money off this too, if not at least they're better developers.