Author: John Scalzo

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Microsoft’s announcement of a sequel to Phantom Dust during last year’s E3 Expo surprised a lot of people. And no one was more surprised than the developers at Darkside Games. There was just one problem… they were the ones making the game! But being blindsided by a trailer they had nothing to do with was just the start of their problems. The developers also received constant demands from Microsoft to make major changes to the game and disagreements over money and credit ultimately lead to the cancellation of the game.

Darkside was forced to close their doors after Microsoft canceled Phantom Dust 2, and Kotaku’s Jason Schreier tracked down several of the developers to learn more about what happened:

Though you may never have heard of Darkside Games, you’ve probably heard of the games they’ve helped develop—the Florida-based studio has contributed to Gears of War: Judgment, Spec Ops: The Line, Sunset Overdrive, and various Borderlands games, handling all sorts of art, DLC, and other features. Darkside, like many other small studios, was firmly rooted in the unglamorous world of outsourcing, helping make other companies’ games rather than creating their own. When Phantom Dust came along, Darkside employees say they were ecstatic—finally, they could prove that they were capable of making their own game, too. Finally, they’d reached the next level.

The full article is available for your perusal at the Kotaku.