Today, Raphael van Lierop announced Hinterland Games, an independent video game developing company. This isn’t just any indie developer though. The core team, including Lierop, have many years of experience and success in the game industry.
They also announced development of their first game, The Long Dark, which will be on PC, Mac, and Linux. It is described as a first-person, post-disaster survival simulation where a super storm destroys technology in North America.
It will be an episodic series and in the first season you play as bush pilot William Mackenzie, in the Northern wilderness with other survivors. Players will need to explore the world to gather resources and information about the world to survive. They will also have to make difficult decisions that will affect the outcome of gameplay and story.
The Long Dark seems to have a very “comic book” look to it.
The Talent
Raphael van Lierop is the founder and creative director of Hinterland Games. He has 13 years of experience in the industry, which include work on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.
Alan Lawrance is technical director, and comes with 16 years of experience at Volition Inc. He’s worked on the Saint’s Row and Red Faction series.
The art director is Hokyo Lim, who has an impressive 20 years experience as game and film artist and animator. He is recently known for his work as art director for League of Legends.
Marianne Krawczyk brings 15 years of game, film, and TV writing experience. This includes the God of War series and L.A. Noire.
David Chan will be the audio director. He has 14 years of sound design and dialogue experience with several Bioware titles, including the Baldur’s Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect.
Game composers Cris Velascov and Sascha Dikiciyan, who have worked on games like Mass Effect, Borderlands, and Quake, will also be working for Hinterland Games.
The Vision
Hinterland Games wants to focus on story-driven gameplay. The Long Dark will also use cross-platform storytelling by expanding to other media, but keeping the core story in the video game. It is being supported by the Canada Media Fund and Hinterland plans on starting a Kickstarter on September 16th.
The amount of experience in Hinterland is incredible and they seem driven to make games exactly the way they want to. Indie development is growing bigger everyday with industry vets starting their own companies. The freedom that comes with being an indie developer must be liberating.
What do you think of the new indie developer and new title, The Long Dark? Discuss in the comments below.
